How the Starbucks Advent calendar web game skyrocketed engagement

As the holiday season approaches, brands face a dual challenge: capturing attention in a saturated environment and building lasting connections with their customers.
To address this, Starbucks chose a simple, fun, and incredibly effective tool: the web-based Advent calendar game.

A clear objective: use gamification to boost app engagement.

During the Christmas season, Starbucks wanted to drive mobile app usage while engaging its community.

Rather than flooding customers with promotional messages, the brand opted for a universal and unifying mechanic: the digital Advent calendar.

Integrated directly into the Starbucks app, this web game allowed users to participate every day for a chance to win prizes and discount vouchers.

A simple mechanic, designed for repeat engagement and driving store traffic.

The success of the campaign relied on several key drivers:

- A smooth and accessible gaming experience,
- Daily rewards that created a regular habit
- A drive-to-store strategy, encouraging users to collect or redeem their winnings in-store
- A mobile-first experience, seamlessly integrated into the existing customer journey

The result: the game became a daily habit, and the brand became a part of its customers' everyday lives throughout December.

Concrete, measurable results powered by our expert solution.

More than 286,000 participants took part in the campaign. But beyond the numbers, it is the quality of the experience that stands out in customer feedback.

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Starbucks success story: "The feedback has been extremely positive. Customers were very happy and excited about the chance to win up to one prize per day.
They praised the ease of play and the platform's user-friendly design.
This digital Advent calendar created a real daily ritual with our customers, strengthening their brand loyalty during a key period like December.
It is a fun, effective solution that we are definitely planning to roll out for other key events."

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‍Why web games are a powerful tool for key events.

This activation perfectly illustrates the potential of web games during strategic periods:

-Turning attention into interaction
-Generating repeat visits over several days or weeks
-Adding value to commercial events beyond just promotions
-Collecting qualified data, integrated into the CRM journey

When well-designed, a web game becomes a true performance driver, capable of combining brand image, traffic, and business value.

With Weezio, activate your key events differently.

We support brands and retailers in designing simple, high-performance, and quickly deployable web games tailored to all key events: holiday seasons, sporting events, sales campaigns, or product launches.

Quizzes, Advent calendars, instant win games... Experiences designed to engage, encourage repeat visits, and drive performance. The Advent calendar is a great promotional mechanic for brands

Looking to boost engagement with a web-based game? Contact us to create a custom activation that reflects your brand.
You can also manage this campaign entirely on your own using our contest platform, Weezio.

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