Q8 Danmark A/S, a Danish energy supplier with a national range of fuel stations & shops, wanted to engage customers, inform them of Q8’s sustainability aims, and drive traffic towards their stations by promoting their social responsibility campaign: to fight food waste. The campaign involved handing out food bags to lucky winners in partnership with Too Good To Go, a mobile application that directs customers to restaurants and stores with a surplus of unsold food.

With Q8 and Too Good To Go working in close partnership, food bags are always available at Q8 stations – the challenge was to increase the volume distributed. Informing customers about the offer was the biggest hurdle, as it’s not easy to promote an ongoing campaign in a retail environment seen by consumers as a brief convenience stop.

“By adding Playable’s gamification to our campaigns, we’ve interacted a lot more with our customers in a fun and non-intrusive way while generating incredible results for us and our partners”.

– Simone Clausen, Marketing Coordinator, Q8 Danmark

Leveraging gaming to educate and engage

Q8 Denmark worked with Playable to create a game on their website that was both educational and enjoyable. Through Playable’s easy-to-use interface, Q8 were able to teach customers about food waste, before introducing a fun and competitive food-themed drop game that allowed them to engage with players. The universe of the game was easy to understand, and the rules were simple. A game with an educational element was the perfect way to raise awareness of both brands, shine a spotlight on their altruistic work and food bag offer, and encourage foot traffic to Q8 stations.

Transforming environmental aims into actions

Q8’s sustainability strategy aims to reduce food waste at their stations. They are also moving towards offering more plant-based products and ultimately aim to use no plastic in their stores. Not only did Playable’s game promote Q8’s offering of Too Good To Go food bags, it also educated the high number of users about their broader sustainability goals.

“Being able to make a game that addresses our sustainability goals and taps into our corporate strategy is just fantastic. This is a huge win for us.”

– Simone Clausen, Marketing Coordinator, Q8 Danmark

Why does Playable work for Q8? Gamification is a game-changer

When Q8 first approached Too Good To Go about a food bag giveaway, they experienced some challenges to get the campaign off the ground. Too Good To Go had done a similar giveaway before, but fewer people than anticipated cashed in their winning food bag vouchers and overall results were less favourable than hoped for, so they were slightly hesitant to try gamification. In this campaign the steps in the customer journey were a bit longer, too, as people had to copy a code to another site to redeem their winning food bag. 

Fortunately, despite initial concerns, the results were well worth the effort. The only notable difference between Too Good To Go’s former campaign and this one was the use of the game to inform and engage the players. Playable’s customisable, user-friendly platform added huge value, with big wins for Q8, Too Good To Go, and many lucky customers!

“The campaign definitely met its goals. With over 800 hours of total playing time, it must be said that a lot of time has been spent in Q8 and Too Good To Go’s common universe. We were delighted that a big percentage of the prizes were redeemed – that’s something extra good for us.”

– Lea Mosegaard, Partnership Manager, Too Good To Go

Gamification grows customer engagement across borders

The success of the Q8 campaign not only reassured their partner Too Good To Go – it converted them into gamification cheerleaders! Seeing the competitive advantage Q8 gained because of the game, Too Good To Go has since presented the campaign wins internally with the aim of implementing gamification in 17 other territories. Not only aiming to expand, Too Good To Go have also made some optimisations to improve voucher redemption numbers in Denmark; customers can now click a link and the code will automatically be inserted into their app. 

Q8, meanwhile, have educated their customers on the importance of reducing food waste and have promoted their offering of Too Good To Go food bags more widely, seeing a big increase in footfall and collection of food bags from stations.

“It’s a pleasure working with Playable. There’s always a team member on hand if I have any questions and their proactive team are extending my knowledge of possibilities in the gamification world.”

– Simone Clausen, Marketing Coordinator, Q8 Danmark

The next step: more partners in more regions

The success of Q8’s campaign has grown their confidence in implementing games with other business partners and they are excited to now expand the companies they work with. The Too Good To Go success story has been a strong card to show, not only to new partners but also to Q8 stations in other countries. Stations in Sweden have been looking to this campaign and are very interested in leveraging gamification, and Q8 has big plans to use gamification in their app across countries with the help of Playable. 

Playable is helping Q8 and their partners win. In fact, they have campaigns with partners lined up for most months in 2022. Following the success of this Too Good To Go campaign, Q8 are excited to leverage Playable’s gamification offering with some of their other big partners such as Carlsberg, Red Bull, Mars, and Royal Unibrew.

“Gamification has become so important to Q8. It’s now a big part of our strategy for our commercial campaigns.”

– Simone Clausen, Marketing Coordinator, Q8 Danmark

Gamification has helped educate Q8’s customers on their social responsibility aims, made them aware of Q8’s ongoing food bag giveaways, and increased footfall in stations. Gamification has been a joint win for Q8 and Too Good To Go, who both saw increased customer engagement and improved food bag collection.