Chevrolet wanted to do something special for the guests visiting their vendor showcase at The Big E 2022. Every year the two-week long fair in West Springfield, MA draws in crowds in the hundreds of thousands and 2022 is no exception. In fact, by the end of the first weekend, over 287,000 people have visited the fair. With such a high turnout, you can see why Chevy wanted to make a big splash. Our team at Jack Morton was asked to create a unique experience that will entertain visitors and promote Chevrolet's latest vehicles. Working together, the creative minds on the team came up with The Chevy Trail, a spoof of the popular 1970s computer adventure game The Oregon Trail. Through a series of interactions at The Big E, visitors could gain virtual 'miles', building out their Chevy Trail maps and earning some awesome physical prizes as they go. With the idea in place, the team reached out to me to design the user interface and flow that would make it all possible.
At the beginning of the project we had several meetings internally, as well as with our client team at Chevy, to create a detailed list of all of the users stories, edge cases, and additional considerations that would be critical for this project. In addition to implementing Chevy's existing user registration forms, a few features we decided to include were avatar and vehicle selection, using personal devices to scan activity QR codes, and viewing progress along the digital trail. At this time, we brought in experts in both design and development to discuss any possible limitations (whether technical or time sensitive) and prioritized features accordingly. We then fleshed out the ideal flows for users to register and participate in the digital experience.
With the action-level flow in place, I got to work piecing together a prototype. Using Axure, I created screens and components for every possible interaction point that a user may face. I paid close attention to the onboarding process, ensuring that users would know exactly what to expect and how to scan and complete tasks... but also ensured to add error-correction and helpful dialog where and when it might be necessary.
The wireframes were then presented to the internal team for feedback and revisions, before being shared with Chevy for another round of feedback and updates. Once updates were made and the designs locked, we were able to move ahead to visual designs.
To keep with the theme of the Oregon Trail we decided to give this game an 8-bit look and feel, so we brought in a designer who specialized in creating retro pixelated assets. I handed off the wireframes to him and walked him through the desired imagery and copy expected in each screen. We took care to ensure adequate space and consideration were kept in regards to Chevrolet's logo and other branded guidelines.
Over the next couple of weeks, as the designs came to life, we held meetings to compare the visual designs with the wireframes to ensure everything was as expected. We paid careful attention to ensure that WCAG accessibility guidelines were met with each image display, copy, or call-to-action. During this time we began our development phase, building out screens and components as they received final design approval.
During development, we kept in contact with our engineer to ensure the functionality and displays matched up with designs. Our developer was present for many of the calls throughout the beginning of the project and was well aware of our process flow, as well as the content of each component. While he was hard at work on the main interactions of the game, our other team was handling the implementation of the Chevy user registration form. Using the wireframes as a guide, developers were able to focus on specific tasks within the overall flow and build them out in tandem. As screens were completed, meetings would be held to allow developers to demo their progress.
As the game was being built out, our team ran several rounds of QA to ensure that the functionality matched up with what was approved during the wireframe phase and discover any bugs or opportunities. Any issues discovered would be logged and prioritized by members of the team to provide our developer with a detailed list of issues. Once updated, we continued with demoes and Quality Assurance until we had things just right.
After ensuring the application functioned as intended, the next step involved its testing with the Chevy team. Subsequently, the team allocated time to train their staff on assisting users with the game. The training process proceeded seamlessly, indicating that we were well-prepared for the imminent fair commencement. This preparation was impeccably timed as we finished less than two weeks prior to The Big E event.
1,603,354 visitors attended The Big E during the massive fair's 17-day run. Throughout the event, over 1,700 participants engaged in The Chevy Trail game, traveling an average of 700 miles along the journey (visiting approximately 3-4 vehicles or activities within Chevrolet's showcase space). Because of the game and activities surrounding it, we saw visitors remain at the Chevrolet showcase over 3 times longer than previous years! Of these participants, 20% were in the market to purchase a new vehicle and 66% were not current Chevrolet owners. This means we were able to give a closeup view of vehicles like the Colorado, Traverse, Trailblazer, and Equinox to an audience that may otherwise not have considered Chevy for their next automobile. This game was a definite win and worth the price of Chevrolet's vendor admission at The Big E.
During the game's rollout event at the 2022 Big-E, Chevrolet saw increases in foot traffic, engagement, and lead collection
