AICPA and Ad Council Launch Free Digital Game 'Yesterday's Tomorrow'

New Game from 'Feed the Pig' Financial Literacy Campaign Helps Millennials Build Savings Skills

June 28, 2017

New York (June 28, 2017) – As many adults in their 20s and 30s are keenly aware, building a solid financial foundation is critically important. In fact, research shows that one in three millennials (34%) rank saving as their number one goal. To help these young adults navigate the path to prosperity, the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) and the Ad Council, today launched Yesterday’s Tomorrow, a free digital financial literacy game. The new game will help players understand the long-term impact of their financial choices and take control of their personal finances. Yesterday’s Tomorrow is part of the organizations’ joint public service campaign, Feed the Pig.

Yesterday’s Tomorrow ( https://game.feedthepig.org/) teaches players to consider how financial decisions they make now might impact them later in life, and encourages them to develop a relationship with a future version of themselves. Research shows a majority of millennials see clear benefits from playing digital games. Two in three (67%) say that games are important in helping them to learn how to create winning strategies and seven in ten (70%) feel it aids them in learning how to solve problems. With Yesterday’s Tomorrow, Ad Council and AICPA are tapping into the positive impact games can have to help millennials develop healthy financial habits.

Yesterday’s Tomorrow helps young adults realize the importance of making positive financial decisions early in life, and shows the long-term benefits of being financially savvy.” said Gregory Anton, CPA, CGMA, chair of the AICPA’s National CPA Financial Literacy Commission. “With Yesterday’s Tomorrow, the Feed the Pig campaign is utilizing gamification to help millennials set themselves up for future financial success.”

" Yesterday's Tomorrow offers a fun, fast and educational gaming experience," said Lisa Sherman, President and CEO of the Ad Council. "Young adults are playing online games more now than ever, providing the campaign with an unconventional approach to reach millennials with money saving resources.”

The digital game is presented in the narrative form of a photo album, with snapshots that represent both required and elective financial decisions that people make throughout the course of their lives. Whether the player decides to work a part-time job while in school, get married, or travel the world, they learn the impact their decisions have later in life as the game progresses. Developed by Crafter.life Studios, Yesterday’s Tomorrow is available at FeedThePig.org. The game takes approximately 15-20 minutes to play through.

In 2016, the AICPA, Ad Council and Games for Change (G4C) partnered to launch the Feed the Pig Challenge, which invited game designers to propose a digital game that encouraged young adults to make saving part of their daily lives. The winning game, Yesterday’s Tomorrow, was submitted by Scott Garner, who presented to a panel of financial and gaming experts at the Tribeca Film Festival’s Games and Media Summit.

Yesterday’s Tomorrow is the latest resource from the Feed the Pig campaign, which aims to educate and support young adults ages 25-34 to help them develop better money habits. While one in three millennials (34%) rank saving as their number one goal, a majority of millennials (65%) say impulse buying and not establishing a personal budget (62%) get in the way of saving more. These statistics underscore the importance of teaching millennials good money management habits early in their financial lives.

The Feed the Pig website offers a range of interactive tools including calculators and free subscriptions to weekly savings tips via email to help foster positive saving habits. To date, the Feed the Pig campaign has received more than $440 million in donated media through the Ad Council’s model.

The CPA profession launched a unified financial literacy initiative, 360 Degrees of Financial Literacy, twelve years ago.  The effort brought together the AICPA, state CPA societies, and individual CPAs to address financial illiteracy. To learn more, visit feedthepig.org or 360finlit.org.