Shiver Me Frosters® Pirate Battle Game

Mac's Convenience Stores

The pirate game website featured custom 3D rendering (done in-house) including pirate characters that were also featured on some of the in-store POS.

The Shiver Me Frosters® Pirate Battle Game was designed to push boundaries while simultaneously driving traffic to the newly launched MyMacs.ca website and sales to Mac’s Convenience Stores. The highly successful campaign engaged over 9,000 players from December 7, 2009 to April 25, 2010 to compete in a multi-player online game in order to win prizes, including a new car.

Shiver Me Frosters® pioneered the way for Multiplayer Online Contest Gaming Systems (MOCGS), encouraging players to shop at Mac’s in order to play the game and win prizes.

This stats screen was never visible all at once. Within the visible window, players scrolled around to 6 different views plus 2 hidden views with game hints.

Why most contests suck

Old contests are boring. People are suspicious that you’re just trying to grab their personal information, and they believe that the chances of winning a random draw are really slim unless it’s a very limited number of entries.

Simple social media contests have limited value. Sure, you can build your Twitter following by giving prizes to your Twits and you can reward your Facebook Fans for “liking” you, but how likely are any of these contest entrants to divert an extra $25,000 of spending into your stores?

Did you just say $25,000?

That’s right! The winner of Shiver Me Frosters® diverted $25,000 of spending to Mac’s over the five-month run of the game. And he wasn’t alone! The top points earner enlisted 12–15 of his family and friends to move their shopping to Mac’s too! But don’t take our word for it, listen to them tell you:

Traditional vs. Social Media Advertising?

This is a tough question on many people’s minds. It’s tough because Social Media is relatively new and, by many, not well understood. Return on Investment seems to be the chief concern and there seems to be a lot of pressure to choose.

Our approach is pretty straightforward — they are different sets of tools and we use each where they are best suited. This campaign included the following components:

• MyMacs.ca Online Community Website
• Pirategame.ca Interactive Game Website
• Comprehensive In-Store POS Materials
• 10 Million Printed Game Cards
• Facebook, Twitter & YouTube
• In-Store Video Ads
• Targeted Pay Per Click Advertising
• Live Give-Away Event

This custom diecut counter stand was positioned near checkout counters in Mac’s Stores.

This custom diecut cling was applied to glass cooler doors inside Mac’s Stores.

This YouTube video was created as a fun way to announce the grand prize finalists.

All this and invaluable business analytics data?

Without giving away too much, our system allowed for tracking of redemption rates for individual stores and individual players. We could report on which stores were executing the program effectively and which stores were skipping out. We could report before and after results to determine the effectiveness of incentives to improve store-level execution, and we could identify individual customers and their shopping habits.

Try to get that kind of data from a Twitter contest.

Was Mac’s happy with our results?

Absolutely! We exceeded our target of driving over 10,000 users to register on the MyMacs.ca website, players were diverting thousands of dollars of spending to Mac’s Stores, and players could pin-point all of the Mac’s Store locations in their city. (Derek was happy with the results, too ;)

Based on the success of this contest, we are already working on two similar-style contests for the 2010/2011 season! Watch MyMacs.ca for details!