Raet

Raet wants to boost its reputation as a HR service provider and solidify its position as an authority in payroll processing. National Budget Day (or ‘Prinsjesdag’), the day when the reigning monarch addresses the Dutch Senate and House of Representatives, is the perfect occasion for that. It is an ideal moment to show that you know exactly how upcoming laws and regulations will affect net salaries.

To stand out from the crowd amidst all that media attention and achieve major coverage, we came up with an online game and launched it. On ‘Raet National Budget Day’, people had the chance to solve puzzles related to the event. Based on an extensive media analysis, we have identified many issues that recur every year and incorporated them into the puzzles. During the campaign, we underlined the link between National Budget Day and Raet even more strongly by using the data from the game to actively approach the media.

To ensure that the campaign would catch the eye of the journalists, the press release outlining the expectations of Dutch citizens was personally handed to the cream of the crop in parliamentary and economic journalists. We presented it to them in the famous traditional wooden briefcase. This ensured that we caught their attention. That momentum was then used to have a team calculate the effects of the announced laws and regulations on net salary. In a press release presenting the actual impact on net salary, we were able to provide journalists with relevant information that had previously only been available from Cabinet members in nearly incomprehensible government-speak. The game was changed into an online calculation tool that people in the Netherlands to personally calculate exactly what their future salary would be based on the announced legislation.

Linking Raet in a playful, light-hearted, yet comprehensible way to a complicated and official, yet very important day: it was quite a challenging undertaking. Yet in a very short time span of just three weeks, Raet and Marcommit managed to take the details provided in the highly complex economic speech by the King and translate them into an overview of how they would affect personal budgets. By doing so, Raet emerged as a leading authority and valued advisor. By trusting the chosen strategy implicitly, we managed to achieve stunning results. Achieving incredibly widespread coverage, creating buzz and sharing knowledge were crucial components in this innovative and creative approach. This plan of attack required Marcommit and Raet to step off the beaten path, choosing to present an interactive online game. In this game, we boldly combined the superficial as well as the substantial part of National Budget Day: the perfect way to get everyone involved.