PlayAbly Podcast Episode 10: Black Friday Strategy Part 2

In this second episode of our Black Friday series, CEO and Founder John Cheng breaks down how advent calendars can drive customer engagement and boost holiday sales. Discover the psychology behind these calendars and why they’re an effective tool for capturing customer attention in a high-competition season. John shares examples of how brands can leverage ecommerce gamification and incorporate gamification in ecommerce to introduce product features, build brand affinity, and gather valuable customer insights through interactive, gamified experiences. Tune in for actionable tips to make advent calendars a core part of your holiday strategy!

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Transcript

PlayAbly Podcast Episode 10: Black Friday Strategy Part 2

Kajal: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Playably Podcast. Joining me is our CEO and founder John Cheng. We will be continuing our conversation on Black Friday Marketing and what you can do to make it worthwhile. Welcome, John. 

John: great to be back. 

Kajal: So one of our products that we offer is the advent calendar and we've talked about it in another podcast, but I don't think we've ever actually talked about what it is.

Can you define what the advent calendar is? 

John: Yes. The Everett calendar, was actually invented back in the 1800s, by the Germans at it's most basic level, it's a calendar in which, you get a little prize or a little challenge every single day leading up to the holidays, I believe it started as a way for parents, to control the excitement, and anxiety of the kids by metering out, little rewards, every day as it got closer to the holidays, the rewards get bigger. and more [00:01:00] exciting. the point is every day you had something to look forward to. And that was something that kids and adults, loved across the board.

Kajal: what is it about the advent calendar that makes it such an effective marketing tool? 

John: Yeah, so there are two levels, right? Like one on a psychological level, and then one in terms of the macroeconomics of the holidays and why it works so well. if we start with the psychographics, you can actually decompose Advent calendars into a couple of standard game mechanics, 

That you'll see in a lot of free to play games like FarmVille one of which is this idea of achievement. So every day, you have a new challenge and, a new prize to get. that is a gamification technique, that is very effective in terms of giving people intrinsic reasons to want to play the game, this idea that you don't know what you're going to get every day. you can see this on loot boxes. You can see this [00:02:00] in daily challenges and games, if you know exactly what you're going to get every day, then you have, much more, agency in terms of actually wanting to do it or not.

But if you don't know, That increases your motivation to want to come back and check those things out. that's something that's incredibly powerful as a psychological tool is this idea that it's unknown. And then finally, because you had to put together a streak in order to get the big final prize, you have to come back every day.

especially for people who are completionists, when you start something, you really want to finish it. that's an incredible tool for them, in terms of motivating them every day to come back if we marry those mechanics with what the dynamics are during the holidays, it's a very noisy marketing environment and super expensive when it comes to buying ads, 

So if you're trying to get people's attention, By paying for ads to get in front of them. that's often, [00:03:00] a losing battle because you're competing with huge ad budgets, that can definitely outspend you, But if you're able to hook their attention with an advent calendar, and some of these mechanics where not only are you introducing them to certain rewards, but the opportunity, even the emotion of them coming back every day of their own volition driven by this tool, they are starting to self identify with the brand.

They're bringing themselves back without you having to spend any money. And so we have seen, even with the same level of rewards or achievement that you can get much more out of them because you have the opportunity every day to, Show them something new about the brand. Explain an additional concept about the product.

and this repeated interaction is the best way, to sell product because it generates a genuine relationship between you and the customer. And that's why, even after the holidays, there's a lot of uses for this type of, appointment type calendar, but during the holidays [00:04:00] is especially important because other channels are so much more expensive during that time. 

Kajal: And I know it's not exactly the same, but when you were talking about the mechanics, I was thinking about the monopoly, McDonald's game, because I would always go back and you don't know what you're going to get. you always want to, Try and get them all.

even if you know, the chances of winning are really low, I wanted to complete that board and spent a lot of money considering I normally only order a happy meal and I had to upgrade that to an actual meal to get the little prizes. 

John: On the one hand, it is absolutely a game mechanic.

On the other hand, even looking back on that, there's an element of fun, right? There's an element of entertainment that most brands don't provide on a day to day basis, right? The experience typically is a very static one, where you go, you see the price, you see a description.

And you may or may not decide to buy, right? But if you start to connect your brand with things [00:05:00] that are fun, entertaining, and have, some degree of uncertainty that is how you establish emotional bonds, that last over time, You’re not spending all your marketing dollars on prospecting and Facebook ads, but instead, genuinely engaging your customers showing and explaining things about your product that will benefit them in the long run.

Kajal: Yeah. It's something you definitely can't buy at that sort of building customer loyalty, their affinity, even just building your own brands. 

John: I think affinity is a great term for it, because affinity is built over time. It's built with novelness. It's built with, self identification with the brand.

And if you invest in that, they often say you're better off with, one rabid fan rather than, a hundred people who are tepid about you. it's building that super fan, that will continue to spread the word be the loyal customer. and be the basis by which you build your business.

Kajal: We love those people in our customers and clients, [00:06:00] whatever they are happy to do a testimonial or review for us, refer a friend. It's always our best customers. So we love that. can you give us some examples of like what happens each day on the advent calendars? 

John: Sure. going back to this concept that the reward and the challenge is variable, right?

You can imagine the experience where you get to the calendar for your day, you open it up and a screen pops up and you as a consumer have no idea what it's going to be that day. it could be anything from a simple matching challenge. a personality quiz, or simple facts about the brand that we run a quiz off of, 

So the key part of that, from a consumer perspective is that it's a variable. It's interesting. It's interactive. In some cases we've seen people even come back the same day to keep playing the game, if they didn't get the score or even if they did, just cause the game is fun. From a brand perspective, what's really interesting is we'll sit with you and talk about your objectives, 

[00:07:00] Do you have a very, complicated product like a next generation mattress where you have to explain the features and you have to differentiate from the competitors. Well, in that case, we'll design games and many challenges that organically teach the consumer about what it is you're trying to show them, 

So an interactive experience where you're bouncing eggs off the mattress and showing why your mattress, is more comfortable than the other one. They incepted your brand ideas into their head just by playing the game. And it's games that come up with you based on your objectives right?

So the experience is every single day you open up something new. and every day it's something different. if you complete the challenge, 15 days in a row, and that's, dynamic with the brand, Then at the end of that, they win, something much more substantial, 

And on the flip side, you'll know the people who have done all the challenges come every day to your site done the streaks those are the Consumers you want to invest in because they have raised their hand And said hey, I want to be a super fan of your [00:08:00] site of your brand and so, that's where you can spend your time attention and obviously build that relationship over time 

Kajal: And since they are tracking the streaks, they are logging in with their emails.

So we know exactly who everyone is, for segmentation and email marketing. 

John: Yeah. that's a great point, right? Especially with repeated interaction with people. we have the opportunity to understand their psychographics, we'll see people who are real competitors, who won't leave a challenge unless they have the highest score, In the future, when you market to people like that, you can use that information to present them with the opportunity to be the first to get a reward or see a product, as opposed to someone who's a completionist who wants to explore every single product in detail, we'll see that through the game as well.

And you can give them a whole different flow and different set of information, they will appreciate. I think that's the key to it games are a way to not only reveal themselves, but give you their identity, we have a 300 percent higher opt in rate for [00:09:00] emails because it's a natural part of the advent calendar, and games to record your achievement, store, where you are in, progress to do that, we have to be able to contact you, right? So it's a very natural interaction 

horrible pop ups that you get as soon as you get to the site. You're bombarded with, give me your email when you don't know anything about the brand. You don't know anything about the product and you're already, shoved in your face with all this stuff, actually having a real experience.

shows a lot more empathy for who it is you're trying to work with. 

Kajal: When people achieve a high score or do really well or just had a fun experience they're more apt to share on their socials, then you get free marketing of, evangelists saying, Hey, this is fun.

You can click right here and join them as well. 

John: all these, New York times games, were driven completely off the back of people sharing. Right. And it's because people were so excited about their achievement. They want to show off. It's a natural kind of social behavior.

if you can incorporate that [00:10:00] into your brand, the opportunity for them to become ambassadors or carriers of your message, is something you just can't buy. you can't buy your way to that kind of fervor. but with interactivity, with gameplay, with, truly providing experiences that are fun, there's no reason that can't happen.

Kajal: And we're pretty close to the holiday season. time is ticking down. There's a lot of Black Friday plans in place. If it was a small team or an already stretched team and they signed up today, how long would it take them to have something live? 

John: as we said, we will do as much deep customization as you want based on your strategic objectives, right?

if it's specifically around the holidays, what I would suggest and what our team has been focused on is, if you've already got your Black Friday plans and, promotions laid out, keep focused on that. we would launch the day after Black Friday, to pick up anyone who didn't buy from you during [00:11:00] that time period, but give them the opportunity to earn some of those same discounts and awards, leading up to the holidays, some of that wallet is spent on black Friday, but a lot of it is still especially for people who want the best deals, people still shopping, people still looking. so starting with cyber Monday, if we signed up today, we could get you, built out with a seven day calendar with a lot of interesting, exciting challenges, that are ready to go.

To launch, and lead you into that Christmas, end of the year holiday, with a set of new customers and new relationships that will be super important in the new year. 

Kajal: And that is usually the downtime for a lot of companies, especially in e commerce after the holidays, the January to March sort of slump.

so that's a great time to have new people to be marketing to. 

John: Yeah, and you'll have their emails, their psychographics, what they were most excited about, and how they like to interact with you. it's even an opportunity to work in some product discovery in terms of [00:12:00] seeing what people are attracted to.

as you think about your product planning for next year, and what you want to offer, having data is always an advantage that will pay off. 

Kajal: We love data. We can't talk about advent calendars without talking about. physical advent calendars. If a company has a physical advent calendar, should they still have a digital calendar?

How would that work together? 

John: Right. So if you've already educated and have a fan base that is conditioned to collect and buy those things, we've seen it work in two ways, One is the physical calendar might have limited quantities giving them a digital experience first to earn the right to purchase or, get a discount on the physical one. is Awesome. that doubles or triples engagement and gets you actual data attached to, that physical product that you wouldn't have otherwise.

the other opportunity is to integrate the two experiences, right? So there's an online and offline [00:13:00] experience. we've seen companies like Lego do this effectively in which you open up your physical calendar. But then go online and play that character or, use those parts in a digital game that is a deeper integration that might require a lot more coordination so for this year, I think starting with using a digital advent calendar in partnership with your physical one, would be very easy to have the same branding, the same type of rewards, represented digitally, in a way that allows you to touch more customers than the physical one would.

Right. the physical one, is a lot pricier, only certain people can afford, or, have access to, the digital one is much more scalable, allows more people to partake, get exposed get awareness and ultimately, use that for broad reach with your physical one as, the reward for that digital experience.

Kajal: Company's advent calendar. 

John: my kids get the Trader [00:14:00] Joe's, advent calendars every single year, and I am shocked that they are patient every single day and actually open it on the day they're supposed to, because frankly, as a kid, I never would have.

each of my three kids, gets their own calendar every morning, they run downstairs check it out and see what it is, a little chocolate, a little treat. I see that and just go, wow, that is a memory. And a conditioning that will carry them through their whole lives.

And I think a lot of us have had those types of experiences before. So when you see it in a digital experience, it's very familiar. it makes sense. And it kind of harkens back to the fun and the anticipation that you can attach to your brand, Like, waking up in the morning, wanting to check something out.

Imagine that is your brand they're doing that for, Imagine they're checking out what you're offering that day. building on what happened, the day before they start to think about, being only two days away from, getting the free t shirt or the [00:15:00] physical ad encounter.

that's an emotion. that's going to be tied with your brand, once again, as we described that you just can't buy, especially with ads. 

Kajal: I loved the Panda Express game. I mean, I love Panda Express, but they had a game each week. It was a matching game.

Unfortunately, it was the same game every week. 

John: wouldn't let that happen. 

Kajal: The prizes changed every week and I wanted to know what the next prize was just because we eat so much orange chicken. In Hawaii here, we have chow fun in addition to the chow mein.

John: And the new spicy chicken too, right? 

Kajal: Like the new spicy chicken. 

John: We've had that.

Kajal: And I can see applications for this beyond Black Friday, right? Like a countdown to an anniversary for a company, any big product launches. 

John: launches, especially, I think would be super effective, right? from the idea that you want to make sure your super fans are aware and maybe they get first look.

a lot of what we see with, D2C is similar to free to play games where you have a 2% [00:16:00] conversion rate. So 98 of the 100 people are never gonna buy. If you could get a really good idea of who that two, three, four, five, you could double it, to five people who are likely to buy, not only double your sales, but you could really focus on who your fans are and who they will be.

so product launches, company events, any of the holidays leading up to them, imagine the opportunity to capture mind share with your highest potential client ahead of time. I have a mechanism to speak to them, work with them, entertain them, ahead of time before you're out there scrambling like everybody else, trying to make your numbers for the month.

you've already done the work ahead of time where they are thinking about you, they're conditioned to come to your site and they're learning about the product of their own volition. that idea of organic marketing, from a gamification perspective is just so powerful.

Kajal: And from a further away perspective, I can [00:17:00] understand that it would be great for this holiday season in particular, just because of the economy and a lot of people are planning to spend less and really want to research more and not just be served up something from like a T moon and just impulse buy.

Thank you. 

John: Yeah, there's so much noise in the market right now, we've talked about it in multiple sessions, but Facebook ads, ROAS is at an all time low. finding ways to connect because your customers are out there, the fans for your products are out there.

It's just getting the ability to connect with them and making sure they realize you have something that will benefit them. 

Kajal: Well, thank you, John, for joining us today and having all the advent calendars. As a reminder, feel free to head to our website, playably. ai, to book a demo.

you may meet John. He does a lot of our demos. And we'll be back with our third Black Friday episode tomorrow. 

John: Looking forward to it.