Elevate your Valentine’s Day marketing with gamification. Dive into 10 creative campaigns that blend emotions with engagement, driving sales and building lasting connections.
Valentine’s Day is not only a day for celebrating love and romance, but also a prime opportunity for brands to boost their sales, collect relevant marketing permissions, or even gather preference data from their audience.
No matter the main marketing goals you want to achieve with your Valentine’s Day campaign, with the right marketing strategy in place, you can captivate your customers and make this season of love a profitable one.
Let’s explore 10 creative Valentine’s Day marketing campaigns from various brands with different marketing goals to inspire you.
Valentine’s Day is not just another holiday on the calendar; it is a day dedicated to celebrating love and relationships. It is a time when people express their affection for their partners, friends, and family members, most of the time using gifts or quality time. As a business, you have the unique opportunity to be a part of this celebration by offering products, services or prizes that enhance the experience of love and togetherness. This occasion is all about emotions, and by tapping into the power of love, you can create a strong connection with your customers. By crafting marketing campaigns that resonate with their emotions, you can drive sales and foster loyalty.
But first, let’s see a few reasons why you should gamify your Valentine’s Day marketing campaigns this year.
When it comes to marketing during Valentine’s Day, it is essential to understand the role of emotion. Emotions play a significant role in decision-making, and by tapping into the emotions associated with this holiday, you can create a powerful connection with your customers. By evoking feelings of romance, joy, and togetherness, you can make your brand resonate with your target audience on a deeper level.
Let’s dive in to 10 different Valentine’s Day campaign with various marketing goals.
Marketing goals: Increase email lists & collect preference valuable data
Club Brugge kicked off the love season last year with a genius interactive campaign. Participants had the chance to win a VIP experience for two at the club by simply selecting their 5 favorite Belgian opponent teams. The clever twist? They must register and provide details about the person they’d like to bring along, helping Club Brugge build its relevant email list. Plus, by knowing supporters’ favourite 5 opponent teams, the club can send personalized emails ahead of the games against these specific opponents with special discounts, enhancing fan engagement.
Marketing goals: Collect marketing permissions & product awareness
KÄHLER, a Danish ceramics manufacturer, offered participants a chance to win a romantic evening at Tivoli, a Danish amusement park, with a 3-course Valentine’s day dinner by scratching 3 identical images. KÄHLER took the opportunity to showcase some of their products behind the cards, which served as a great way to inspire participants with possible Valentine’s Day gifts for their loved ones. The campaign not only showcases their product offerings but also includes a link to their website at the end of the experience, enticing participants to explore and possibly make a Valentine’s Day purchase. This is a great example of how a playable campaign with a precise user journey can lead to an increase in sales.
Marketing goals: Collect marketing permissions & boost sales
Rosendahl, a family-owned housewares and kitchen utensil company, did a very similar campaign to KÄHLER using scratchcards but they added an extra incentive to their campaign by promoting a 30% discount on the Grand Cru champagne glass as a Valentine’s Day offer at the end of the campaign.
Adding discount codes only available to participants is a great way to reward participation, and people have a higher tendency to redeem discount codes they won.
Comwell Hotels engaged its audience with a heart-themed drop game, encouraging participants to collect hearts while avoiding broken ones. Those who score 1,000 points in under 60 seconds enter a draw to win a pampering stay for two—a perfect Valentine’s Day treat. The draw took place on Valentine’s Day, adding an element of anticipation.
Marketing goals: Collect marketing permissions & preference data
Pure Nails, the professional nail polish supplier, took a unique approach by using a Swipe It game to collect data on participants’ preferences. Players swipe right or left to enter a draw for Halo’s fabulous Valentine’s bundle. The campaign cleverly promotes social media follow-ups and showcases selected products, driving engagement and potential sales.
Dermosil, a finish beauty brand, simplified the Valentine’s Day experience with a simple, yet powerful wheel of fortune, allowing participants to win discount codes, free products, or free delivery for their online shop. The campaign efficiently collected marketing permissions while also directing participants to Dermosil’s website with a compelling call-to-action to use the prize they won.
Marketing goals: Brand awareness & engagement/education
Techonomy, a Playable partner, created a campaign for Unox in partnership with KNSB, the Royal Dutch Ice Skating Association. They presented a fun quiz related to ice skating in The Netherlands. Participants entered a draw to win a unique Valentine’s Day gift—an ice-skating date along with limited edition Unox Valentine’s Day hats. The campaign’s prize aligned with the festive Valentine’s Day theme while also going together with KNSB’s mission of promoting ice skating in The Netherlands.
Marketing goals: Drives sales & collect valuable data
Ooni added a playable touch to Valentine’s Day with a personality test to help participants “Find their match” among Ooni’s ovens. The campaign cleverly directed participants towards which of Ooni’s oven would be the best match for them, depending on the frequency they wanted to use the product, the heating function preferred, etc. The campaign was used both to boost sales as Ooni’s oven could be the perfect Valentine’s Day gift, and as a data collection tool. The answers provided by participants in the personality test were great knowledge for Ooni’s marketing team, that could be used for personalized email and remarketing campaigns.
Marketing goals: Drives product awareness & gain new social media followers
Intimina and Lelo partnered for a memorable Valentine’s Day campaign, featuring a memory game where participants could win the possibility to enter the draw for the “perfect love bundle”, which included 2 products from Intimina and 2 products from Lelo. By showcasing products from both brands behind each of the cards of the memory games, the campaign promoted product awareness. Additionally, at the end of the experience, participants were encouraged to follow both brands on Instagram for an extra entry in the contest, enhancing their social media presence.
Marketing goals: Brand engagement & collect marketing permissions
Djurs Sommerland invited their audience to scratch and win two tickets to the amusement park for a fun and memorable date at the park. The campaign not only kept the park top of mind during the winter months while they are closed but also serves as an opportunity to collect marketing permissions.
Let’s explore some additional tips to help you maximize your marketing results during this romantic season:
Create exclusive promotions, such as buy-one-get-one offers or bundled packages, to entice your customers to purchase. Consider partnering with other brands, like Intimina and Lelo did, to offer joint promotions, which can attract new customers and increase your sales.
Transforming the act of shopping into an experience can leave a lasting impression on your customers. For example, using personality tests like Ooni did to help your customers find the perfect gift for their loved one is a great way to improve their shopping experience. Also, giving out free delivery or offering gift-wrapping options to make the process more convenient for your customers can help a lot!
Valentine’s Day is an excellent opportunity to strengthen your relationship with your customers. Show them how much you appreciate their support by sending personalized playable campaigns with great prizes or exclusive loyalty offers. Engage with your customers on social media by running special contests or asking them to share their love stories.
Valentine’s Day is far more than just a celebration for couples, it’s also a significant opportunity for brands to generate outstanding marketing results, such as boosting sales or collecting valuable data about their audience. By capitalizing on the season of love, understanding the value of on-theme Valentine’s Day prizes, and implementing innovative and playable marketing ideas, you can create a Valentine’s Day campaign that will resonate with your customers and drives results.
Elevate your strategy with Playable—the gamification platform behind all the highlighted campaigns in this article. Make Playable your go-to for crafting a captivating seasonal marketing campaigns that leaves a lasting impression on your audience and drives success.