Valentine's Day 2024: 5 gamification campaigns and what marketers can learn from them
Elevate your Valentine's Day marketing with gamification. Dive into 10 creative campaigns that blend emotions with engagement, driving sales and building lasting connections.
Valentine's Day is not only a day for celebrating love and romance, but also a prime opportunity for brands to boost their sales, collect relevant marketing permissions, or even gather preference data from their audience.
No matter the main marketing goals you want to achieve with your Valentine’s Day campaign, with the right marketing strategy in place, you can captivate your customers and make this season of love a profitable one.
Let’s explore five creative Valentine's Day marketing campaigns from various brands with different marketing goals to inspire you.
Understanding the importance of Valentine's Day marketing
Valentine's Day is not just another holiday on the calendar; it is a day dedicated to celebrating love and relationships. It is a time when people express their affection for their partners, friends, and family members, most of the time using gifts or quality time.
In fact, according to a YouGov custom survey, 33% of Brits were planning to celebrate Valentine's Day in 2023, which was a 23% increase compared to 2022. But while most Brits were not planning to celebrate, a vast majory would still mark the occasion with a gift - over 41% were planning to give a greeting card, 20% chocolates or sweets, and 18% flowers. Only 22% were not planning to give any gifts.
As a business, you have the unique opportunity to be a part of this celebration by offering products, services or prizes that enhance the experience of love and togetherness. This occasion is all about emotions, and by tapping into the power of love, you can create a strong connection with your customers. By crafting marketing campaigns that resonate with their emotions, you can drive sales and foster loyalty.
Gamification + Valentine’s Day campaign = The perfect match
But first, let’s see a few reasons why you should gamify your Valentine’s Day marketing campaigns this year.
- Enhanced engagement: Gamification adds an element of fun and interaction to your campaigns. It transforms a passive audience into active participants, making your Valentine’s Day campaigns - and brand - more memorable.
- Data collection tool: Whether it's preferences, behaviors, or contact details, gamification can turn your data gathering campaign into a seamless and engaging Valentine’s Day experience for your audience.
- Shareable excitement: When participants have a good time engaging with your campaign, they're more likely to share their experience with friends and family, amplifying your brand reach.
- Extended brand exposure: A well-crafted gamified Valentine’s Day game will keep participants engaged for a longer period. This extended exposure ensures that your brand stays on their radar, increasing the likelihood of conversion and loyalty.
- Relevant prizes for increased motivation to participate: Offering prizes directly related to Valentine's Day, or with relevance to your brands' products and services, ensures that your campaign is timely and attracts more participants.
5 creative Valentine's Day marketing campaigns
When it comes to marketing during Valentine's Day, it is essential to understand the role of emotion. Emotions play a significant role in decision-making, and by tapping into the emotions associated with this holiday, you can create a powerful connection with your customers. By evoking feelings of romance, joy, and togetherness, you can make your brand resonate with your target audience on a deeper level.
Let’s dive in to five different Valentine’s Day campaign with various marketing goals.
1. Comwell Hotels: Heartfelt drop game
Marketing goals: Collect marketing permissions & boost sales
Comwell Hotels engaged its audience with a heart-themed drop game, encouraging participants to collect hearts while avoiding broken ones.
Those who score 1,000 points in under 60 seconds enter a draw to win a pampering stay for two—a perfect Valentine's Day treat. The draw took place on Valentine’s Day, adding an element of anticipation.
2. Pure Nails: Swipe for love and prizes
Marketing goals: Collect marketing permissions & preference data
Pure Nails, the professional nail polish supplier, took a unique approach by using a 'swipe it' game to collect data on participants' preferences. Players swipe right or left to enter a draw for Halo’s fabulous Valentine’s bundle. The campaign cleverly promotes social media follow-ups and showcases selected products, driving engagement and potential sales.
3. Dermosil: Wheel of fortune for love
Marketing goals: Collect marketing permissions & boost sales
Dermosil, a finish beauty brand, simplified the Valentine’s Day experience with a simple, yet powerful wheel of fortune, allowing participants to win discount codes, free products, or free delivery for their online shop.
The campaign efficiently collected marketing permissions while also directing participants to Dermosil's website with a compelling call-to-action to use the prize they won.
4. Ooni: Finding your perfect Ooni match
Marketing goals: Drives sales & collect valuable data
Ooni added a playable touch to Valentine's Day with a personality test to help participants "find their match" among Ooni's ovens. The campaign cleverly directed participants towards which of Ooni’s oven would be the best match for them, depending on the frequency they wanted to use the product, the heating function preferred, etc.
The campaign was used both to boost sales as Ooni’s oven could be the perfect Valentine’s Day gift, and as a data collection tool. The answers provided by participants in the personality test were great knowledge for Ooni’s marketing team, that could be used for personalized email and remarketing campaigns.
5. Intimina & Lelo: Memory game for the perfect love bundle
Marketing goals: Drives product awareness & gain new social media followers
Intimina and Lelo partnered for a memorable Valentine’s Day campaign, featuring a memory game where participants could win the possibility to enter the draw for the "perfect love bundle”, which included two products from Intimina and two products from Lelo.
By showcasing products from both brands behind each of the cards of the memory games, the campaign promoted product awareness. Additionally, at the end of the experience, participants were encouraged to follow both brands on Instagram for an extra entry in the contest, enhancing their social media presence.
3 tips to enhance your Valentine's Day marketing campaigns
Let's explore some additional tips to help you maximize your marketing results during this romantic season:
1. Offering Valentine's Day specials
Create exclusive promotions, such as buy-one-get-one offers or bundled packages, to entice your customers to purchase. Consider partnering with other brands, like Intimina and Lelo did, to offer joint promotions, which can attract new customers and increase your sales.
2. Creating an enhanced Valentine's Day shopping experience
Transforming the act of shopping into an experience can leave a lasting impression on your customers. For example, using personality tests like Ooni did to help your customers find the perfect gift for their loved one is a great way to improve their shopping experience. Also, giving out free delivery or offering gift-wrapping options to make the process more convenient for your customers can help a lot!
3. Building customer relationships on Valentine's Day
Valentine's Day is an excellent opportunity to strengthen your relationship with your customers. Show them how much you appreciate their support by sending personalized playable campaigns with great prizes or exclusive loyalty offers. Engage with your customers on social media by running special contests or asking them to share their love stories.
Try an interactive experience this Valentine’s Day
Valentine's Day is far more than just a celebration for couples, it's also a significant opportunity for brands to generate outstanding marketing results, such as boosting sales or collecting valuable data about their audience. By capitalizing on the season of love, understanding the value of on-theme Valentine’s Day prizes, and implementing innovative and playable marketing ideas, you can create a Valentine's Day campaign that will resonate with your customers and drives results.
Elevate your strategy with Playable—the gamification platform behind all the highlighted campaigns in this article. Make Playable your go-to for crafting a captivating seasonal marketing campaigns that leaves a lasting impression on your audience and drives success.