Heres an idea

We were looking for innovative ways of getting the message across to tenants about reducing rent arrears. I was playing Monopoly and the idea struck. I thought it might be good printing a rent arrears board game in our newsletter.

It was loosely based on Monopoly, but we couldn’t get permission from Waddingtons to use features such as chance cards and community chest, so we took some elements away and made it different. We called it “Rent First Please: The Eviction Edition”.

It took me a couple of hours to put the design together. I tried to come up with something that went from a clear rent account to eviction but it also offers advice, with squares recommending you come to us if you’re in trouble. It’s also got a list of rules for paying your rent in the middle of the board. I then passed it to our marketing department and they did the graphics.

It’s in full colour and you could play the game by rolling a dice and following the instructions. But it wasn’t really created so people could play it – it’s more about catching their attention.

The newsletter went out to 18,000 tenants and quite a few people noticed the board game. Tenants have said they looked at it and thought they should contact us. So it worked.

The trouble is you can’t measure its impact. We also run poster campaigns and had a £1000 prize draw for people who had a clear rent account at the end of last year. But people still come in for an arrears interview and mention the board game.