Doughnut and hotdog chain, Donut King, has shifted its focus from traditional marketing channels to towards an engagement marketing strategy aimed at tech savvy mobile consumers.
The Retail Food Group owned chain said its recently launched gamification app has reached over 320,000 downloads, and for the past six weeks it has been in the Google Play and Apple App Store’s top charts, often overtaking App giants like Gumtree, eBay, Skype and Twitter.
The app’s popularity and extensive gameplay saw it reach the number one position in Apple’s App store and the Google Play store last week.
Donut Rush is an infinite running game, where the main characters – known as Donut Warriors – collect donuts as they race throughout a fantastical land.
The aim of the game is to earn as many points as possible, which can be redeemed within the game for vouchers that can be used for free donuts. vouchers at Donut King stores nationwide for free donuts.
Kevin Wordon, chief digital officer for Donut King owner Retail Food Group Limited, headed up development of the App and said the campaign was a taste of the company’s current focus on engagement marketing and innovation.
“RFG is embracing engagement marketing by utilising technology like the Donut Rush app to communicate with our customers through a fun, interactive channel,” Wordon said. “Our customers are tech savvy and mobile, and with this app, we have managed to get them engaged and in touch with the brand directly and at a fraction of the cost of more traditional marketing methods.”
Wordon said the latest data shows their customers are, on average, engaged with the Donut King brand via Donut Rush for eight minutes and 45 seconds per session, which when put in perspective, is over 17 times the length of a 30-second ad.
“With over 20 million minutes of gameplay and 2.85 million gameplay sessions, the immersive brand engagement is priceless,” he said.
“This is where a comprehensive omni-marketing strategy comes into play, utilising point of sale displays, bunting, posters, stickers on coffee cups, LCD displays, digital and social advertising and a TV commercial to drive app downloads,” Wordon said.
In addition to the high return on investment already gained by the development of Donut Rush, Kevin also noted the significant increase in subscribers by over 300 per cent.
“The app is integrated with our marketing automation platform, Marketo, which we use to track our customers’ journeys across our business, effectively marketing to the various stages of a purchase pathway.
“RFG has embraced engagement marketing head on, rolling out an organisation-wide approach to data driven communications, providing brands with an enhanced opportunity to engage with customers in a cohesive way across all channels.” he said.
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