Commonwealth Bank launches online game for school kids
The Commonwealth Bank has launched an animated online game aimed at teaching primary school children how to manage their money.
Coinland, created by The White Agency, lets kids create an avatar to represents them in the game. They are guided by the character, Platy, who shows them how their actions impact on their savings goals.
It includes some social media aspects, allowing users to connect with friends by adding other players to their buddy list via safe chat using pre-defined messages.
The Bank’s saving ‘superheroes’, the Dollarmites, also interact with players to help them manage their money. Other characters include Mr Save-a-lot and Gobbler – Platy’s nemesis – who entices them to spend.
Parents are kept informed of their child’s progress in the game through regular email updates from the bank.
Mark Murray, Commonwealth Bank GM consumer marketing, said the interactive game will aim to reinforce its School Banking and StartSmart programs, by focusing on the importance of earning money and setting saving goals.
Murray said: “The once simple lessons of personal finance have grown more complex, and the ways children learn has evolved. So with this in mind we have created Coinland which reinforces the principles of saving taught in the classroom through our School Banking and StartSmart programs. Coinland teaches children in a format they can easily relate to and have fun along the way.”
The bank said its goal is to “improve the”financial literacy of one million Australian kids by 2015” through its initiatives.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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Love that they wen’t with Platy, even after the Platy-bank ad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f0EsOHwMCM
This looks like some great work, nice job White.
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Wow, some pretty tidy work there. Congratulations.
Would love to play more but I have some work to do.
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Hat tip to the White Agency: hope this gets the audience it deserves and the awards it should surely clean up.
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Looks pretty neat, but my kid tried it and he still prefers the current educational game that he is playing – Wiglington and Wenks.
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Really cool app, wouldn’t have been cheap either!
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Really good. The kids will love it. Nice work.
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Nice work, good to see banks investing in games.
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Nice…but why don’t you starting paying school kids some interst on their savings account.
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@Anonymous
Didn’t you see that kid in the first video, he was practically frothing at the mouth because he had 60 bucks!
Can’t have all those riches going to their heads! 😉
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is ‘splashing rabbits’ a euphamism i haven’t been introduced to yet?
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Good to see the agency staff commenting on their work.
Personaly think the bank should have spent the 100k Or whatever the expensive animation cost on a real living teacher, you know teaching actual maths and literacy, Just a thought for next time. Not too sure about the chat rooms…peadophils written all over that… Still think it’s a good idea?
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There should be a site called ConLand too. That’s where all the budding little thieves can hang out and interact with high level bank staff, I mean crims. I’ll pass that by my 10 year old, see what he thinks.
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i would like to see how we save and work for a alowens
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