Banking Odyssey
Entrant: monobank | Universal Bank
Country: Ukraine
Section/Contest/Category: A. GENERAL DIGITAL DIRECTIONS / A04. Digital experience
Award: Grand Prix
Advertiser/Brand: monobank | Universal Bank
Year: 2025
Creative Team:
monobank | JOINT STOCK COMPANY "UNIVERSAL BANK": Viktoriia Vashchenko — CMO, monobank Kyryl Kuznietsov — Head of Design, monobank Yevhen Drapohuz — Product Owner, Interactive, monobank Anton Voronkov — Creative Copywriter, monobank Andriy Shepel — Creative Producer, monobank Roksolana-Mariia Protseviat — Creative Designer, monobank Anna Yanborysova – Creative manager, monobank Vitaliy Ohnivets — Product Owner, The Jar, monobank Danylo Busargin — Business Area Lead, Crowdfunding, monobank Artem Nosenko — UX/UI Designer, monobank Roman Zbarazhskyi — UX/UI designer, monobank Yevhen Zhuk — iOS Developer, monobank Oleksandr Abarzhy — Android Developer, monobank ISD Group Creative Agency: Viktor Shkurba — ISD Group Founder & Creative Director, Case Study Creative Director Oksana Gonchar — ISD Group Creative Director, Case Study Executive Creative Director Iryna Lipavska — ISD Group Art Director, Case Study Art Director Karyna Kutsenko — ISD Group Graphic Designer, Case Study Graphic Designer Serhii Pronkin — ISD Group Project Team Lead, Case Study Project Team Lead Daryna Vashchuk — ISD Group Project Manager, Case Study Project Manager Veronika Mykolaichuk — ISD Group Creative Copywriter, Case Study Lead Creative Copywriter Uliana Koinichenko — ISD Group Creative Copywriter, Case Study Creative Copywriter Bohdan Martovskyi — Case Study Motion Designer Matvii Chernyshov — Case Study Sound Designer
Creative idea:
Financial literacy in Ukraine remains low by international standards, with the National Bank of Ukraine putting the country at 12.3 out of 21, below the OECD benchmark. Yet Monobank had already built 50+ mobile services to help people manage their finances better — from spending control to savings, bonds, insurance and tools for entrepreneurs. Most users, however, still came for transfers and ignored the rest. So instead of explaining the product, we turned it into a national adventure. Banking Odyssey transformed a boring banking app into Ukraine’s biggest interactive financial school. The mechanic followed the logic of the simplest addictive games — find, act, collect. Fifty collectible lemons were hidden across key app screens, not randomly, but where users could discover useful tools and build practical financial skills. And finding a lemon was often only the first step: to collect it, users had to take real actions — split a bill, set money aside, buy insurance, pay utility bills, or try investment features. In other words, they were not just tapping through the app; they were practicing financial literacy inside it. Why lemons? Monobank was celebrating 10 million users, and in Ukrainian slang, a million is jokingly called a lemon. Suddenly, routine banking turned into a playful, brag-worthy experience. What began as product discovery became a national obsession. In just a few days, 3.5M people joined the hunt — roughly every ninth Ukrainian — driving daily user activity up by 2,441%. Together they found 110M lemons across the app; 740,000 users completed the full 50-lemon journey, while 3.12M reached the 10-lemon milestone. That behaviour translated into business impact: insurance sales grew by 200%, marketplace sales by 280%, and 26,000 new customers joined through organic buzz alone. With $0 spent on media, the campaign generated 25M+ organic impressions and delivered all-time-high business performance.