A Heroic Effort

This is how you live your brand purpose.

Deutsche Telekom just won the Grand Prix in the Tech category at the WARC Media Awards.  The company’s key brand message is “life is for sharing,” and typically for telecom companies a sentiment like that would mean sharing photos, videos, messages, etc.  But Deutsche Telekom has taken this broad idea the next step.

The company identified an enemy of the idea that “life is for sharing” – dementia, which robs people of people of memories and connections. This insight, combined with the desire to overcome concerns about the potentially harmful impact of big data, led Deutsche Telekom to create a mobile game called Sea Hero Quest, which tracks players’ navigational abilities, the deterioration of which is an important warning sign for dementia. (There is also a virtual reality version for gamers who own Samsung Gear.)

The game is creating a global data base of spatial awareness that would have taken scientists decades to build on their own. Two minutes of gameplay equals about five hours of traditional research. Deutsche Telekom also is supporting scientists who are analyzing these results for breakthrough insights into the course of dementia and its diagnosis.

An example of how data collection on a massive level can be a force for good – and an example of CSR at its finest.