Promoting Tradition Through New Creative Readership Incentivizes.
Challenge
Despite exponential shifts in the realm of news and newspapers, The Chicago Tribune has become a household essential over the last 150 years. By providing readers with up-to-date news alerts, current events, and a wealth of information, they’ve cultivated a loyal audience among an ever-evolving market. To strengthen their competitive edge, the brand sought to deepen engagement with current users, appeal to potential new readers, and promote their digital offerings as a way to convey their relevance. To increase digital subscriptions, the Chicago Tribune felt inclined to meet their readers where they’re at.
Our Approach
With 150 years of old newspaper and website articles in their digital archives, we worked with the Chicago Tribune to create a multi-functional, compelling trivia app. By repurposing old content, this solution translated as a way for the paper to feel relevant and to engage more authentically with their audience. It also provided a way for the Chicago Tribune to boost their email subscriptions as they simply asked participants to submit their email address as a means for logging in to the game. This gave them access to key contact information that would later be used to identify meaningful insights for digital subscription initiatives.
To bring Tribune Trivia to life, RDI Ablaze designed the app to be accessible on mobile and through Facebook with centralized management thanks to a robust Content Management System (CMS). Using Cordona SDK, we created the app to be functional for a variety of mobile platforms, including iOS, Android, tablet, and phone. The Facebook component intentionally completes the package by offering an immersive HTML5 experience.
Success Results
Since the app launched, the Chicago Tribune has accumulated over 8,300 app downloads with an average of 3,900 games played per week, and more than 200,000 games played since it went live. The initiative brought forward continuous success, as depicted by a 96.7% user retention rate, and over 7,000 current active users. In 2014, Tribune Trivia was awarded with two W3 awards: Gold in Mobile Applications, Social Gaming in addition to a Silver in Mobile Application, Gaming. These awards, and the all-around success of this project, reflect RDI Ablaze’s ability to merge innovative thinking and problem solving to elicit impactful change for clients.
"We’re incredibly pleased with the thinking and execution RDI Ablaze brought, repurposing our content to bring more engagement."
- CHICAGO TRIBUNE MARKETING TEAM