Fidelity Investments, a diversified financial services company with a 75-year legacy, helps people build a stronger financial future. We’re constantly keeping an eye on the ever-changing techscape and while fintechs are reshaping the market by gamifying finance, the demand for brands to innovate or get left behind is clear. Nowhere is this more important than with the next generation of investors, who demand more from the brands they engage with.

Fidelity has adapted to meet these emerging needs and preferences thanks to a constant commitment to innovation and technology. Our brief was simple: Meet young people where they are, on their terms, with meaningful financial education.

Getting our brand into the game wasn’t nearly as important as the overall experience and learning journey. Our objective wasn’t about driving business results but about empowering younger generations to build a foundation for a stronger financial future.

How do you take something as important as financial literacy and reach kids in a way they understand? You play where they play. Welcome to Pancake Empire Tower Tycoon on Roblox, where players strategize how to spend, save, and invest as they build their pancake empire, simulating real-world money situations.

Just like the stock market, players must decide what level of risk they’re comfortable with when depositing their yumyums with our fantasy creatures. Educational and investing concepts were baked in everywhere, as in our obstacle course, where players balanced risk and reward as they raced their way across a giant bowl of pancake batter. Our free wearables motivated players to complete our quests, share strategies, and connect with friends.

A Pancake game on Roblox might be the last thing you’d expect from a financial brand like Fidelity. Which is one of the reasons we did it.

3 out of 4 young Americans struggle with financial confidence and 59% of parents feel uncomfortable discussing money with their kids. These are more than just numbers; this is reality for the next generation.

To bridge this gap in financial literacy, we needed to serve up financial education in a way that resonated both with young people and their parents. In 2023, Roblox saw 71.5+ million visitors daily, yet remains largely untapped by other financial service brands.

We didn’t want to create another tool; we wanted to create a destination—a place where friends can connect, share strategies, and lay the groundwork for a better financial future together.

After talking with gamers, we understood that gameplay had to come first, and our brand would do better serving a supporting role. Our goal was to create a world so fun and captivating that players wouldn’t even realize they were learning.

Before creating our world, we met with young Roblox players to understand their gaming preferences and what resonated with them (hint: pancakes and free wearables). Throughout the process, we used AI tools to brainstorm concepts, game mechanics, and art renders of our world. This made the production more efficient and allowed us to share proofs-of-concept with our audience and executive leadership early on.

At every milestone of production, we involved our target audience to make sure our work resonated. They contributed to design elements such as our fantasy creatures and pancake tiers.

Working with developers and leveraging Fidelity’s in-house gaming and innovation team, we always brought the focus back to designing the strongest game mechanic—we wanted something that kept players learning and coming back.

After four months of building, we launched Pancake Empire Tower Tycoon in April 2023.

The results for Pancake Empire Tower Tycoon stacked up. Before spending a single dollar on paid advertising, the game became one of the fastest-growing branded experiences in 2023 for Roblox, with 2.5M visits in the first week—quickly surpassing other big-name branded experiences on the platform.

With over 3 million wearables collected in the game, our gamers kept on playing and learning, with an average playtime of 17 minutes. The average for mobile gaming in general? 8 minutes.

After launch, our team amplified the reach of the experience, partnering with top Roblox creators like Terabrite Games and distributing branded content of the experience across social platforms to gain scale and impact.

When Barron's named Fidelity Investments their top online broker, our breakthrough game made the story.

14.6M+ visits later, we're doing more than investing in markets—we're investing in minds.