“All right, listen up. There’s usually one dress in each size. So when the store doors open, fan out! Blow these whistles three times when you locate the dress, and we’ll come running.”
Monica instructs Phoebe and Rachel as they stand in a queue outside a discount store in Brooklyn called Kleinman’s that has a 50% off sale.
On a mission to find Monica’s perfect wedding dress, all three swarm into the store and soon Monica finds the dress only to see another woman named Megan clutching it.
Known for her bold attitude, Monica eventually pins Megan to the ground while Phoebe and Rachel manage to take the dress and escape.
Season 7, Episode 17 (The One with the Cheap Wedding Dress)— This scene from ‘Friends’, a popular TV show, accurately depicts people trying to get their hands first on rare or limited edition items while shopping.
But why are we narrating it to you? It signifies 3 out of 8 gamification drives — Scarcity, Accomplishment, and Social influence, which retail brands can adopt to boost sales.
Kenzo, for example, launched a gamified e-shopping campaign in October 2018 by leveraging such gamification drives to increase sales of new Sonic sneakers.
Let’s see how this French luxury fashion retail brand and brands like Aldo and Jimmy Choo use gamification in retail.
1. Kenzo Shopping League
To launch their exclusive sonic sneakers online, which were limited to only 100 pairs, Kenzo built a fantastic shopping game called Kenzo Shopping League.
The goal was to turn online shoppers’ frustration over fast-selling limited-edition products into
thrill by challenging them to fight for Kenzo’s limited-edition sonic sneakers and catch them.
As mentioned above, Kenzo used the Scarcity gamification drive by having the game open for only 12 hours, accessible only to a limited number of players and irreversible exits.
The shopping game rules were simple.
- Join the queue
- Catch the sneaker
- Play the game by tapping on Tiger’s head as fast as players can
- Winners with the highest score were redirected to e-shop with sneakers in the cart for checkout
(Disclaimer: This image is for informational purposes only. Opinions or points expressed represent Kenzo’s views
and don’t necessarily represent the official position or policies of Gamize by OGL.)
Here comes the most exciting part. If two players caught the sneakers simultaneously, they got to battle their opponent and win to buy the sneakers.
(Disclaimer: This image is for informational purposes only. Opinions or points expressed represent Kenzo’s views
and don’t necessarily represent the official position or policies of Gamize by OGL.)
Kenzo’s retail shopping gamification was so successful that it got 20k players within a day!
All the 100 pairs of Sonic sneakers were sold out in a few hours, surpassing their previous online sales by 6x.
2. Jimmy Choo CatchAChoo
Adopting a gamification strategy similar to a treasure hunt game, Jimmy Choo, a leading luxury retailer brand in fashion footwear, launched the ‘CatchAChoo’ trainer hunt game on social media.
Yes, Jimmy Choo designed the Choo Hunt gamification campaign for people who love fashion and fitness as they had to go around the streets of London looking for a pair of Jimmy Choo trainers.
Here’s how it worked:
- London inhabitants had to follow CatchaChoo on Facebook, Foursquare and Twitter to win a pair of free Jimmy Choo trainers
- After following, they’d get updates where a Jimmy Choo representative occasionally “checked in” at a public London venue and dropped hints about her activities
- Shoe fanatics could then race to find the representative carrying a pair of shoes
- The first to track her down and say, “I’ve been following you”, received a pair of Jimmy Choo trainers
(Disclaimer: This image is for informational purposes only. Opinions or points expressed represent JimmyChoo’s views
and don’t necessarily represent the official position or policies of Gamize by OGL.)
What a classic example of real-time treasure hunt gamification, right? As a result, posts with @CatchAChoo mentions increased by 40% on social media, with 4k mentions.
1 out of 17 people were chasing Jimmy Choo in London with 111 checks in 4 weeks!
Moreover, their sneakers’ offline sales jumped by 33%, with 90% coming from word-of-mouth.
3. ALDO Mood Board
As per the introspection psychological factor, people want to get to know themselves better, and ALDO, a premium shoes and accessories retailer, used this aspect in their ‘Mood Board’ game.
While introducing its new perfume collection, ‘A is for ALDO’, the shoe retail brand used a personality-based gamification strategy where they encouraged customers to find their mood board.
ALDO invited its customers to pick from a bundle of different Instagram images after logging into Facebook. Their choices then generated a mood board of 9 images.
As colours speak for personalities, the mood board result resonated with different colours of ALDO perfumes (Red, Blue and Yellow), with a link redirecting to that particular fragrance on ALDO’s microsite.
(Disclaimer: This image is for informational purposes only. Opinions or points expressed represent ALDO’s views
and don’t necessarily represent the official position or policies of Gamize by OGL.)
Additionally, ALDO’s mood board game result had a short personality description, which users could share across their social media handles.
The campaign helped ALDO generate new product awareness and create a visual experience for the brand.
4. Gucci Arcade
In continuation with product-specific gamification activities, retail, Gucci, an Italian luxury brand in leather and fashion goods, remains an excellent example.
In 2019, Gucci launched Gucci Arcade, adding 70s and 80s arcade video games to their app, starting with Gucci Ace and Gucci Bee.
While the arcade games didn’t directly take players to the products post-playing, the goal was to enhance app engagement by motivating players to play and dive into vintage games.
However, the Gucci Ace game does refer to Gucci’s Ace sneakers, and the Gucci Bloom game refers to Gucci Bloom Fragrance. Today, the app has over 1 million downloads on Google Play Store.
(Disclaimer: This image is for informational purposes only. Opinions or points expressed represent Gucci’s views
and don’t necessarily represent the official position or policies of Gamize by OGL.)
Gear Up for Retail Gamification
Kenzo, JimmyChoo, ALDO, Gucci and many other retail brands have changed how they engage their customers and sell via a simple gamification: Combining products with games.
If you’re a retail brand with an online presence and found the above gamification campaigns interesting, you’re on the right track!
With winter coming, say you want to launch your winter collection in November and gain new collection awareness.
For this, similar to these retail brands, you can also add a contextual game like Penguin Skip.
Check out how you can use games in retail using Gamize, a SaaS gamification software.
Step 1: Pick a Game Template
Choose your Game template from the ‘Games Library’ and customise it for your campaign.
Step 2: Set an Offer
Decide how you’d like to reward players for engaging. It could be via core game mechanics like Points, Coins or brand discount vouchers.
Step 3: Configure Campaign Rules
Align the game template and offer along with a scoring mechanism. You can also create and add a leaderboard and click ‘Next’ to schedule the campaign.
Step 4: Schedule Campaign
Once done setting campaign rules, schedule your campaign, select if you have a user action in mind for the game to trigger, fixed frequency and launch.
For more information on how to set up a game in an online retail store, visit Gamize today.
