Starbucks Summer Game

Overview

Ideated, creative directed and launched a fully new concept and game mechanic for Starbucks’ Summer Game to drive member engagement from a previously declining business.

Game outperformed forecast across all metrics except transactions – more members were playing and spending at a higher rate, however over less transactions. These results were consistent with member spend in the COVID environment.

problem

We needed to create a new game mechanic to solve the problem of not having continued engagement from users in the previous year. This new mechanic needed the following:
- Enable personalization
- Sustained engagement
- Deeper gameplay

solution

Create a simple game mechanic— drop a ball and win. We introduced different ball designs for the user to enable personalization, unlock new levels/buckets to win as the user plays to keep the user engaged and create different levels of different skins to provide a deeper gameplay.