Continuing to innovate with its loyalty program and customer engagement strategies, Thirsty Camel Bottleshops is exploring gamification as a new way to reach consumers, following a successful trial of the Can Smash Footy Finals digital game.
While member exclusive deals and points-based rewards systems are important elements of building consumer loyalty, Thirsty Camel is thinking beyond transactional behaviours when considering consumer loyalty.
Rachel Brown, Loyalty and Digital Marketing Manager, Thirsty Camel, said that gamification is one way the group is engaging with its consumer base on a different level.
“This isn’t about transactional behaviours or getting our members to spend money. It’s about getting them to engage with the Thirsty Camel brand and Hump Club program in a more meaningful way,” she said.
Thirsty Camel’s digital games are exclusively available to Hump Club members, inviting consumers to sign up or sign in to play for bonus product, merch or vouchers to spend in-store or online.
“By completing a certain level, you’ll get automatic My Offer vouchers into your Hump Club account. What we’ve seen in our trial game, Can Smash, is an uplift in signups and engagement. What we tracked here was engagement, traffic through to the game, and people returning to play again to try and earn that reward,” Brown said.
Brands that incorporate gamification into their strategies see a 47 per cent increase in engagement, and the response from Thirsty Camel consumers has certainly confirmed this statistic. The group’s first digital game, Can Smash, exceeded the brand’s expectations whereby the benchmark for a successful digital game is an average of two to three plays per user and Can Smash surpassed that number significantly with a reported 20 plays per user.
For Brown, the Thirsty Camel brand is uniquely suited to this innovative style of engagement.
“Considering our brand is a talking camel, we’re allowed to have fun with it. We can play in a space that’s cheeky and irreverent, and we have a great advantage in being able to be agile and try new innovative things to see if they work for the program,” she said.
Following the initial success of Can Smash, Thirsty Camel aims to launch new games for other key purchase occasions.
“We’ll be working on building a custom digital game into every national campaign moving forward so that we can support with genuine Hump Club engagement,” Brown said.
As well as building loyalty, digital games such as Can Smash offer new avenues for Thirsty Camel to communicate with its customers.
“What’s great is that there is also the opportunity to build in additional features to the games. To reset and try again, they have to watch a video or complete a survey. This is valuable data for us to better understand our loyalty customer and be able to provide them with the best experience,” Brown said.
Now in the seventh year of its loyalty program, Thirsty Camel has 200,000 Hump Club members in the eastern states. This makes a significant difference to member stores’ bottom line, with the average Hump Club customer spending $55 per transaction, compared to $40 per transaction for a non-loyalty customer.
Like Adrian Moelands, Thirsty Camel General Manager, Brown emphasised the importance of the Thirsty Camel membership in ensuring the success of its innovative loyalty initiatives.
“None of these innovations count without engagement from our members. We’re counting on them on the front line to believe in the program and encourage their customers to join.”