The Brand Objective

As a children's ice cream snack brand, Paddle Pop has been supporting children's growth and development for more than two decades by inspiring their imaginations through various adventure stories and animated films. As a brand, Paddle Pop invites parents to create fun moments with their kids because playing together can have a positive long-term impact on a child’s growth and development.

The pandemic led to kids spending a lot of time at home, with limited outdoor activities or classes to keep them occupied. This meant that parents were struggling to find ways to build productive habits in their little ones while trying to spend quality time with them. Moreover, encouraging healthy snacking became the need of the hour. Could all these concerns be solved at once? Paddle Pop believed so. Through the brand’s commitment to this #GoodSnacksForAll movement, Paddle Pop’s ice creams contain the goodness of milk & fruit and are limited to no more than 110kcal calories.

With the relaunch of its popular chocolate ice-cream variant – the all-new ’Choco Magma’ in Indonesia, the brand wanted to drive product consumption by creating a fun, engaging activity that parents could take part in with their children to cultivate healthy snacking habits. In this endeavor, Paddle Pop was mindful of two things: 1) Translating the brand vision into an innovative concept that helps parents keep their children engaged while remaining worry-free about the snacking needs of their children 2) Partnering with a technology provider that can not only build a unique experience but effectively measure the campaign performance and drive visible results through store footfalls

The Solution

As a forward-thinking brand, Paddle Pop saw gaming grow beyond being just a buzzword and decided to provide a rewarding gamified experience on mobile for users to learn about the relaunch and taste the new product. ‘Fun-filled play’ was at the heart of the entire campaign, driven by insights on challenges being faced by parents during the pandemic

Paddle Pop partnered with Mindshare Indonesia and InMobi to create a gameplay experience that needs no preparation and is all fun for parents and children alike. This meant that parents could resume their daily chores or together engage with their kids in an interesting game that fostered learning. To execute this mission, Paddle Pop took the following steps:

1) Defining and targeting the best audiences for the campaign: The "Choco Magma" variant of Paddle Pop was relaunched at an affordable price, empowering consumers from all income categories to enjoy the goodness of the ice cream. Hence, to accurately reach potential Indonesian mothers aged between 25 to 45 years through advanced behavioral data signals, Paddle Pop leveraged InMobi-Gojek Audiences. These niche audiences helped the brand get a single view of the Indonesian parents by targeting across income levels, browse and buy patterns, brand affinity, and media behavior.

2) Charting a 'game-plan' to drive full-funnel efficiencies: To drive significant impact across awareness, consideration, and conversion stages, the brand decided on key messages and elements that add value to each touchpoint, nudging users further along the journey. The brand showcased a short video to grab the users' attention to the 'Choco Magma Land' and delivered an adventurous ice cream making gamified experience to drive consideration. As the last step, Paddle Pop re-engaged users with rich media banners to drive some real conversions and then went on to accurately measure the campaign performance with a brand lift study.

The brand launched the campaign with animated banners to grab users' attention to the gamified experience. Followed by the CTA 'Click to know more', the banners redirect the users to the gaming microsite.

Elevating customer engagement with gamification: The real apotheosis of the campaign is the gamification experience that managed to get the family together and encouraged them to take on the immersive puzzle-adventure, multi-level gaming experience that enables the player to make Choco Magma ice cream in real-time. The reward-based gaming enticed consumers to play and win exciting prizes. The top 6 winners on the leaderboard got to win a free package of Paddle Pop Choco Magma ice cream. With coordinated activities to achieve across different game levels, the experience kept the users focused throughout. Paddle Pop launched a microsite with interesting gaming elements that gave the users an exciting ride of adventure in 8 steps:

Step 2: The next step personalizes the user journey with a simple age verification process. The page asks users to confirm their age by choosing the suitable CTA 'I am 18 years old or above' or 'I am under 18 years. If users clicks the former CTA, they are taken to the next step, and upon the tap on the latter CTA, users can see a customized message 'If you are under 18 and want to play, please seek your parents' assistance.' Users 18 years of age and above are redirected to a login page, where they can log in or sign up with their name and mobile number to enter the 'Choco Magma Land.'

Step 3: The next card shows the game narration with an engaging short video that welcomes the user to 'Choco Magma Land,' wishes them good luck for the game, and entices users with a message 'Let's go on an adventure of making Choco Magma.' The next instruction reads 'Complete all the levels to win prizes' with a CTA to 'Swipe up.'

Step 4: Once users swipes up, they are redirected to 'Magmaland Map,' and the short video runs the user through the glimpses of the adventure. The first video shows the first mission called 'The chocolate garden' that users must accomplish in the game. The video instructs users to collect the chocolate seeds from trees by tapping on the screen. The more seeds the player collects in 30 seconds, the higher the points.

Step 5: Upon completing the mission 'The Chocolate Garden,' the player can see their score before the second mission pops up. The Magmaland map progresses to the second level called 'The Cattle Farm' with a short video instructing the user to tap on the cards to match the same cards. The cards are themed around the ingredients of the Paddle Pop Choco Magma ice cream. Higher the number of matching cards, the higher the player's score.

Step 6: The player gets to see the score from the second mission, 'The Cattle Farm,' before the third mission shows up. The third mission is called the 'The Choco Magma Factory,' and the short video instructs users to tap on the ingredients to make their very own ice cream. If the user syncs the loading time of ingredients with the time of release of the ice cream stick, the mission completes. The game is open for 30 seconds, and more the number of ice creams the user creates, the greater their score.

Step 7: As the final step in the gaming experience, players can see the score on the 'The Choco Magma Factory' and the consolidated score from all three levels. The last two banners display the leader board with the top 10 players and an option to share the game with family and friends on social channels.

Step 8: From the last banner, players can sign out, and Paddle Pop shows the leader board scores and options for players to claim prizes.

The game was available on low-specification phones to maximize the reach and impact of the campaign. 4) Aiding Recall and Driving Footfalls: The brand displayed animated rich-media banners post the game session to aid recall and facilitate store footfalls. The CTA on the banner 'Buy Now' enabled engaged ad viewers to find the nearest stores based on their current location.

5) Leveraging Consumer Intelligence to Measure Campaign Performance: Paddle Pop conducted a survey on InMobi Pulse to evaluate the lift in awareness, consideration, and purchase intent. Surveying the target audience from across Indonesia, the brand saw a significant lift among the 35 to 44 years age group in consideration, purchase intent, message association, and ad recall.