Success Story
Building a strong e-commerce operation is essential to most consumer brands. For Danish skincare brand Ecooking this was no different, except that the company has managed to create much better results than anticipated. The secret? Well, skillful application of gamification proved itself as a game-changer for the marketing and e-commerce professionals at Ecooking.
The company has only been doing e-commerce for a couple of years. When Morten Junge Bertelsen, Global Head of Ecommerce, started in his position, he decided that gamification should be a central engine in Ecooking’s e-commerce machine, alongside the usual suspects like Google and Facebook. Today, he does not regret this choice:
“By ways of merit alone, Playable is now placed alongside Facebook and the other channels we usually use. To be honest, I am surprised by this turn of events, but the results speak their own clear language.” – Morten Junge Bertelsen, Global Head of E-commerce, Ecooking
“By ways of merit alone, Playable is now placed alongside Facebook and the other channels we usually use. To be honest, I am surprised by this turn of events, but the results speak their own clear language.”
The initial idea was to let gamification drive lead generation for newsletter permissions. This worked very well for Ecooking, but it soon turned out that gamification could work wonders at other points in the sales funnel, much closer to the customer’s buying decision.
The commercial power of gamification has revealed itself again and again. One telling example is a personality test that was designed from one of the many Playable game templates: The recommendations that resulted from the customer’s interaction with the test immediately led to online purchases and the conversion rate hit a very impressive level.
Morten’s analysis is that the customers were guided through their decision process to a level where price didn’t matter as much and where they were ready to complete the purchase.
With Playable we have an online ‘sales person’ that makes sure that the customer has a great experience and is much more likely to leave with goods in the bag. Just like what would happen in a real store. The ‘Foundation Finder’ personality test has been extremely helpful in making our make-up collection the success it is.” – Morten Junge Bertelsen, Global Head of E-commerce, Ecooking
With Playable we have an online ‘sales person’ that makes sure that the customer has a great experience and is much more likely to leave with goods in the bag. Just like what would happen in a real store. The ‘Foundation Finder’ personality test has been extremely helpful in making our make-up collection the success it is.”
Always-on campaign
Find your Foundation – Quiz
Sessions
23,200
Min. per visit
01:19
Hours spent with brand
384
Start/end campaign
Valentine’s Day – Spin the Bottle
15,366
Conversion Rate
64.6%
Sec. per visit
00:47
Hours with brand
146.3
Ecooking is a sponsor for the Danish football club FC Midtjylland and used gamification to bring the sponsorship to life. This was so successful that today Herning, the hometown of the club, is the location where Ecooking sells more products for men than anywhere else. This was achieved with just a single game campaign which was launched when Ecooking was introduced as a new sponsor.
Playable is the perfect tool for brands that want to ensure a uniform experience across physical shops and e-commerce platforms. Ecooking learned this when they opened their first own flagship store in Copenhagen as the first in a string of stores.
Playable played a central part in the launch of the store and continues to do so in the ongoing marketing – gamification is the motor in influencer campaigns, events, store openings, sponsorship activations etc.
For Ecooking this means that gamification helps them create a rich customer experience across all platforms. No matter where the customer meets Ecooking, the experience will be a nice one.
“Gamification is so essential to our journey, because it supports our brand awareness, our lead generation and our sales. I dare not imagine where we would have been if we hadn’t partnered with Playable.” – Morten Junge Bertelsen, Global Head of E-commerce, Ecooking
“Gamification is so essential to our journey, because it supports our brand awareness, our lead generation and our sales. I dare not imagine where we would have been if we hadn’t partnered with Playable.”
– Morten Junge Bertelsen, Global Head of E-commerce, Ecooking
Gamification became the marketing discipline that connected the departments of marketing and e-commerce at Ecooking. Branding used to ‘live’ in marketing and sales in E-commerce, but this gap has been bridged by Playable. Today, the two departments are much closer in both mindset and daily operations.
“Never limit yourself to thinking that gamification is just a fun add-on to your ‘serious’ marketing machine. Gamification can be used at so many points in your customers’ journey, so unleash yourself and let your people test all they want – because it can do almost anything.” – Morten Junge Bertelsen, Global Head of E-commerce, Ecooking
“Never limit yourself to thinking that gamification is just a fun add-on to your ‘serious’ marketing machine. Gamification can be used at so many points in your customers’ journey, so unleash yourself and let your people test all they want – because it can do almost anything.”
Working with gamification can be, yes, a playful experience for marketers and e-commerce professionals. At least, that’s what happened at Ecooking. Morten Junge Bertelsen decided to let Playable present the thirty game templates and then let the team play around to find out which games make sense in the Ecooking marketing landscape.
Setting creativity free has served Ecooking well. Gamification stimulates the employees to keep searching for improvement, because it speaks to their playful selves and because the results are immediate. They can quickly see what works and what doesn’t – one of the unique advantages of gamification.
“I chose to let my employees decide which games should be applied where. They were allowed to think outside the box and take chances and this meant that they soon understood the principles and the potential of gamification, not just relating to their own area of responsibility but to the entire business. This has been a big part of our success with gamification; giving employees the power to do what they feel is relevant in each case.” – Morten Junge Bertelsen, Global Head of E-commerce, Ecooking
“I chose to let my employees decide which games should be applied where. They were allowed to think outside the box and take chances and this meant that they soon understood the principles and the potential of gamification, not just relating to their own area of responsibility but to the entire business. This has been a big part of our success with gamification; giving employees the power to do what they feel is relevant in each case.”
Ecooking has been nominated for the ‘E-handelsprisen’, which is the Oscars of the e-commerce sector in Denmark. This is impressive given the company’s brand focus and very short history in e-commerce. Playable has a prominent place in the case, stating that we helped Ecooking innovate and execute so successfully.
Having created a powerful gamification setup across the marketing and e-commerce teams, Ecooking is now zooming in on other markets in close collaboration with Playable. Gamification is now one of Ecooking’s most valued marketing tools and it will help the brand enter new markets and focus areas successfully both with regard to brand building and commercial results.
“The biggest AHA-moment was when I saw the effect gamification could have on sales – and not just brand awareness and lead generation. Ecooking is brand-focused and not competing on price – so it was a pleasant surprise that cleverly designed gamification campaigns managed to speed up the customer journey in the way they did.” – Morten Junge Bertelsen, Global Head of E-commerce, Ecooking
“The biggest AHA-moment was when I saw the effect gamification could have on sales – and not just brand awareness and lead generation. Ecooking is brand-focused and not competing on price – so it was a pleasant surprise that cleverly designed gamification campaigns managed to speed up the customer journey in the way they did.”
“We are saving a lot of time and money due to the scalability of the Playable platform.”’