How PKO Bank Polski turned banking education into gaming and won young hearts

In an era where traditional marketing channels struggle to capture young audiences’ attention, PKO Bank Polski faced a challenge familiar to many financial institutions: how to engage Generation Z consumers who actively avoid conventional advertising. The solution wasn’t found in larger media budgets or flashier creative campaigns, but in understanding where young people actually spend their time – and meeting them there as partners, not intruders.

The unreachable generation

The numbers paint a stark picture of traditional marketing’s declining effectiveness with younger demographics. According to Nielsen research, 90% of advertisements targeting Generation Z fail to reach their intended audience. On average, only 28 out of every 1,000 ad impressions successfully reach viewers aged 13-17. Meanwhile, 66% of young people actively use ad blockers, creating what marketers call “advertising blindness.”

For financial institutions, this presents a particular challenge. Unlike entertainment or lifestyle brands, banks must build trust and educate consumers about complex financial concepts – difficult to achieve when your primary audience refuses to engage with your communication channels.

PKO Bank Polski recognized that the solution required a fundamental shift in approach: instead of interrupting young people’s digital experiences, they needed to become part of those experiences.

 

We wanted not only to mark our presence in a space close to the younger generation, but above all to engage them in a meaningful way. Fortnite gave us the opportunity to create an environment that naturally fits into the everyday lives of players and allows for the subtle introduction of educational content. Such activities are consistent with our marketing strategy, which involves building long-term relationships with young audiences through authentic and modern forms of communication. The results of the campaign show that this approach works. Instead of interrupting, we become part of their world.

Jakub Kaszuba, Product Manager, Biuro Innowacji, PKO Bank Polski.

Designing experience over exposure

Working with inStreamly, PKO Bank Polski made a crucial strategic decision: instead of creating a traditional advertising campaign, they would build an educational experience within Fortnite. The goal wasn’t to promote banking products, but to teach financial literacy through gameplay.

The approach required abandoning conventional marketing thinking. Rather than controlling every message touchpoint, the bank embraced collaboration with gaming content creators, particularly influencer Jacob, who became not just a spokesperson but a co-creator of the experience.

“We didn’t want to be in the game. We wanted to be part of the game,” explains the team behind the project.

This philosophy extended to every aspect of the collaboration. Instead of providing Jacob with a detailed brief to execute, they gave him creative freedom to shape an experience that would feel authentic to his community. The result was a Fortnite map that naturally integrated financial education with engaging gameplay.

Measuring success in minutes, not clicks

The results challenged traditional marketing metrics. While the campaign generated impressive reach – nearly 9 million promotional material views and 150,000 social media interactions – the most significant metric was engagement depth.

The Fortnite map received 590,000 views and 348,000 total minutes of gameplay. Most remarkably, the average session lasted 26 minutes – voluntary, uninterrupted engagement with brand-related content.

💡 To understand this achievement’s significance, consider that the average TikTok video viewing time is 3.33 seconds. In an attention economy where brands fight for fragments of consideration, PKO Bank Polski earned nearly half an hour of focused engagement per user.

The 26-minute average session wasn’t advertising time – it was shared experience time. Players weren’t enduring brand messages; they were voluntarily participating in brand-created value.

The future of youth marketing

PKO Bank Polski’s Fortnite experience demonstrates that reaching Generation Z requires brands to become contributors rather than interruptors. Success comes not from capturing attention, but from earning participation.

For marketing leaders facing similar challenges with youth engagement, the lesson is clear: the question isn’t “How do we make our advertising more appealing to young people?” but rather “How do we create value within the digital spaces where young people already gather?”

As traditional advertising continues to lose effectiveness with younger demographics, brands that learn to collaborate rather than broadcast will build the relationships that define the next generation of customer loyalty.