Şehrin İyi Hali — Naz Eylül Tuncel

Akbank × IAB UniChallenge+ 2026

Şehrin
iyi hali

Bring a friend. Or make a friend.

3rd PlaceIntegrated campaign for Gen Z · Team project
Pixel-art volunteers: planting a sapling, donating blood, reading, harvesting, in a wheelchair, caring for a dog, carrying a first-aid kit

At a glance

Context
Akbank × IAB UniChallenge+ 2026, a student competition
Result
3rd place
Timeline
July 2026, two weeks. About 10 days from the brief (21 July) to the final pitch (31 July)
Programme
An IAB bootcamp: talks and workshops by agencies and Akbank in the mornings, mentored group work in the afternoons
Team
Student team, with a mentor
Deliverables
Research and personas, campaign concept, pixel-art visuals, media plan and KPIs
Skills
Desk research, persona building, integrated campaign planning, funnel and KPI setting, teamwork

The brief

“No young person should miss out on this project.”

Since 2015Şehrin İyi Hali (“The City’s Good State”), Akbank’s volunteering program
20K+young people matched with 30 NGOs over 10 years
4 monthsa digital communication plan for August–November

Akbank wanted a digital campaign that gets Gen Z to volunteer through Şehrin İyi Hali, its volunteering program, while keeping the bank’s trusted image.

Our idea

Young people do want to volunteer.

They just want to take the first step together.

Starting alone is what holds people back, so we borrowed an idea from gaming: going from solo to co-op.

1

A better city starts together.

2

Invite a friend, start doing good.

3

Kindness grows when it’s shared.

How we worked

We had about ten days from the brief to the final pitch, alongside a full programme of talks. We split up the work, but every decision went through the whole team.

Audience

Getting to know Gen Z

  • Desk research: we went through academic studies on young people and volunteering, and backed every claim with a source.
  • Personas: we turned the research into four people (Ege, Duru, Selin and Can), each matched with a real NGO and a concrete reason they hadn’t started yet.
Research
Personas

Brand & creative

Staying Akbank, speaking Gen Z

  • Pixel art: we chose it because the research showed how close Gen Z is to gaming culture. It let us be playful without losing Akbank’s trusted tone.
  • One idea, many formats: we carried the co-op idea across a main film, Reels, X posts and in-app notification mockups.
Why pixel art
Platform mockups

Media & KPIs

Planning backwards from the goal

16M+reach →120K+visits →8,900+applications →830+active volunteers
  • Targets: we set a target for every step from reach to active volunteer, and split the budget across channels to match.
  • Formats: we matched each stage with a platform format: X Premium and scheduled notifications, TikTok effects, Spotify host-read ads and YouTube creator partnerships.

Figures are the targets in our campaign plan.

Funnel timeline
Expected impact

What I took from it

One of my favourite parts was creating something with people I had just met. We all came in with different ideas, and finding a way to bring them together in such a short time was both challenging and exciting.

I learned that working together isn’t about agreeing on everything; it’s about finding something valuable in each other’s ideas. I also got to see what it’s like to create for an established brand, where you have to be creative while staying within certain boundaries.

We placed 3rd, but what I really took away was the experience of making something together.