CASE 159 / Deutsche Telekom and research partners / 2016
Sea Hero Quest
A game created a participation route for a real research question rather than merely asking people to watch a cause advertisement.
AI-assisted research and analysis for the SNS Creative Fieldbook; published by SNS Media Tech. No named human reviewer is claimed.
Sources reviewed 2026-11-05
Campaign credits belong to the original creators. They did not write or endorse this analysis.
Credits: Deutsche Telekom, Glitchers, Alzheimer’s Research UK, UCL and the University of East Anglia, with Saatchi & Saatchi involved in the project’s creation. Research collaborators are credited in the institutional records.
Recognition: UCL’s November 2016 project update reports Cannes Lions recognition, including two Silver awards in health and pharma. No individual archive category is asserted here.
Launch / edition: 2016. Award years: 2016.
The problem. The idea. The experience.
The project sought to support research on spatial navigation, an ability relevant to the study of dementia. Researchers needed data about navigation across different participants. A telecom brand could contribute technology, coordination and public visibility, but those contributions do not turn the game into a diagnostic product.
How the idea came to life
Launched in May 2016, the mobile game asked players to navigate a virtual environment. Glitchers developed the play experience with scientific partners. Its core strategic distinction was that participation could produce research inputs, rather than existing only as a symbolic expression of support.
How it reached people
The mobile format and an accessible public story helped invite participation beyond a conventional research setting. Deutsche Telekom and academic partners explained the collaboration through their own channels. Later virtual-reality and research versions belong to the same project family, not separate campaign counts here.
Supporting sources: Primary academic partner update → Primary brand update → Primary institutional research record →
Read the data in context.
The numbers below describe different kinds of outcomes. Their date, scope and reporting source are part of the result.
- Reporting period
- May launch to November 2016 update
- Scope
- Downloads, not valid research sample size, diagnoses or treatment outcomes
- Evidence
- UCL November 2016 project update
UCL reported more than 2.4 million downloads by its November 2016 update. This measures distribution, not the number of valid research records, people with dementia or diagnoses. The institutional record establishes a research collaboration; no treatment benefit is claimed.
The creative mechanism.
An entertaining task is designed around a research requirement
Begin with the partner’s real requirement
A useful branded utility starts with what a credible partner needs, not with an attractive technology demonstration. Agree which behavior generates usable information and which information is unnecessary. Let the research or service owner define validity before the creative team optimizes participation. If the outputs cannot be used responsibly, publicity does not rescue the concept.
Make participation enjoyable without hiding its purpose
Entertainment can lower effort, but it should not obscure data collection or mislead people about the activity’s consequences. Explain the purpose, optional elements and withdrawal route in accessible language. Do not suggest that a score diagnoses a condition. The promise to the participant should remain understandable even if they never watch the promotional film.
Separate scale from useful contribution
Downloads are only an early step. Subsequent questions concern consent, completion, data quality and whether the sample fits the research question. Broad participation does not automatically make a sample representative. For an ordinary business adaptation, track the proportion of responses that actually inform a decision, not just the number of people who opened the experience.
Treat stewardship as a continuing design task
A purpose-led digital experience needs maintenance after its launch story fades. Assign responsibility for privacy, support, documentation and eventual retirement. A historical app link is not evidence of current public availability. Before recommending participation today, verify the current research programme and its terms rather than assuming the original campaign still operates unchanged.
The intended behavior loop
- 01Understand the research purpose
- 02Choose to participate
- 03Complete an engaging task
- 04Contribute usable inputs under the research protocol
Growth job: Make participation attractive → collect consented research inputs → demonstrate a useful role for connectivity. This is an interpretation of the mechanism, not an audited attribution model.
A direction to take into the room.
Original editorial interpretation and proposed adaptation. This is a proposed adaptation, not historical campaign execution or a forecast.
The transferable principle
Find an activity people enjoy that also produces a genuinely useful, consented contribution for a qualified partner.
Keep these boundaries
Do not collect health data through a casual marketing game, promise diagnosis or use participation volume as a substitute for research validity.
Turn the lesson into a test.
Illustrative adaptation, not a historical campaign fact
A small-team experiment
A museum tests an optional fictional wayfinding puzzle to learn whether its public map labels are understandable.
Build the test
- Use a low-risk task unrelated to health or individual ability.
- Explain the study, minimize data and offer a non-digital version.
- Ask an accessibility adviser and research lead to define useful observations.
Measure the right thing
Track completion errors and map improvements, not intelligence rankings or claims about all visitors.
Know when to stop
Stop if the task collects unnecessary personal information, excludes participants or produces data the team cannot interpret responsibly.
How this reading fits your brief
Start with the useful part.
Best for: Make participation attractive → collect consented research inputs → demonstrate a useful role for connectivity
What to adapt: Find an activity people enjoy that also produces a genuinely useful, consented contribution for a qualified partner.
Prerequisites: Qualified research partner; Privacy and consent design; Accessible participation; Long-term maintenance.
Smaller-team route: A museum tests an optional fictional wayfinding puzzle to learn whether its public map labels are understandable. Constraint: Do not collect health data through a casual marketing game, promise diagnosis or use participation volume as a substitute for research validity.
Budget: Not established by the cited sources. No cost-fit claim is made.
Trade-offs and evidence: Read the limits below before choosing a test. There is no guaranteed reach, sales lift or ROAS.
Questions for your next brief
- What real decision will the participation inform?
- Which attractive metric is only a proxy for useful contribution?
Sources & further reading.
Brand and award-entry results are attributed claims, not independent causal audits. Source links open the original third-party pages.
- UCL: Sea Hero Quest goes from strength to strength →Primary academic partner update · Supports: May 2016 origin, research purpose, download milestone and institutional report of Cannes recognition.
- Deutsche Telekom: illustrating the potential of digitization →Primary brand update · Supports: December 2016 brand account of the collaboration and navigation-research purpose; later participation totals are not merged with the UCL snapshot.
- Northumbria research portal: Sea Hero Quest software record →Primary institutional research record · Supports: Institutional software record, project participants and May 2016 dating.
Independent educational analysis of external campaigns. These are not SNS client projects, endorsements or claims of involvement. Campaign facts and reported outcomes are attributed to their sources. Explanations, adaptations and test plans are original analysis and hypotheses, not proven causal findings.