Sea Monster wins prestigious global award 

Cape Town-based, animation, gaming, and AR/VR company, Sea Monster scooped first place in the Data & Insight category at the renowned International Content Marketing Awards held in the United Kingdom. 

Sea Monster’s innovative design and implementation of the Livin’ it Up financial education mobile game, designed for Capitec Bank, won the Cape Town-based company international acclaim. 

Sea Monster wins prestigious global Content Marketing Award

 Glenn Gillis, CEO of Sea Monster comments on the company receiving the illustrious award. 

“We’re humbled by the award, not only because of the huge competition we were up against, including many European heavyweights, but because we won this for the best use of data and insights, which is becoming such a critical element of modern marketing. We’re also extremely proud that, once again, South African innovation has been acknowledged in this way internationally. It seriously places what we can achieve here on the global map, and shows that our home-grown solutions can compete with the best in the world.”

Established by the UK-based not-for-profit association, Content Marketing Association (CMA), the International Content Marketing Awards have come a staple in setting the bar for the content marketing industry. Sea Monster went head-to-head for the award with companies from over 25 countries across the world. 

Livin’ it Up financial education mobile game

The aim of the Livin’it Up financial education mobile game is to help young adult South Africans improve their financial knowledge, skills, and capability in an easy-to-understand and interactive method. 

Gillis provides insight into the objectives laid out by Capitec in commissioning the creation of the financial education mobile game. 

“Capitec wanted to achieve this via a mobile game solution and we designed it to allow players to take on the roles of relatable characters as they played out their own aspirational stories of how to save money to achieve their financial goals.”

The mobile game launched in September 2019 and has undergone several updates since its inception. The game has reportedly attracted over 78 000 unique users since its launch. 

The main objective of the game was to dismiss myths that only high-income earners can save money. The app may have been designed for South Africans but Sea Monster ensured that the app hosted global appeal. 

Jean Rossouw, Head of Financial Education in Capitec’s Marketing and Communications division explains that the game is not only for Capitec consumers, and can be downloaded by anyone.

“Our objective is that Livin’ it Up will increase awareness among South Africans of the importance of consistent savings behaviour to achieve financial goals. Our aim is to see the implicit and explicit educational elements in the app, and its supporting content, [and to] increase their knowledge to help improve their savings behaviour,” she says.

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Featured image: Glenn Gillis, CEO of Sea Monster (Supplied)