Price Chopper/Market 32 recently launched a Daily SurPRIZE game on its app and website to encourage interaction with its rewards program. The game builds on the grocery chain’s history of digital engagement with its customers, including its Spin-the-Wheel game in the fall of 2022. Its latest game celebrates frozen food month and will provide chances for its customers to earn AdvantEdge Rewards points, discounts through exclusive eCoupons, charity donations, and more. Partnering with tcc Global, the grocer has invested into digital engagement to drive customer loyalty and sales.
Loyalty360 spoke with Dan Dmochowski, President, North America for tcc Global, about the recent Daily SurPRIZE digital game and how gamification and digital engagement fit into Price Chopper/Market 32’s customer loyalty initiatives.
For those who may not be familiar with tcc Global, can you give us a brief overview of your company? What you do, how you do it, industries you work with?
Dmochowski: tcc Global is an international marketing company specializing in customer loyalty, engagement, and digital marketing solutions that help brands connect with, identify, and reward their customers. tcc’s industry experience spans over 30 years, with its origins in Europe. Today, tcc partners with brands in over 70 countries, supported by 34 offices worldwide — including North and South America — focusing primarily on grocery, supermarket, and convenience store brands.
tcc Global's cloud-based solutions allow brands to expand their customer loyalty programs to earn and redeem capabilities, opportunities, and reward options. In the grocery vertical, many brands offer shoppers a "cents off" fuel discount as a reward. While this is a proven approach, tcc’s solutions offer a differentiated way for brands to engage their customers and provide additional earn and redeem options. By incorporating various reward and redemption modules, brands can give their customers a reason to engage beyond a fuel discount.
It was recently announced that tcc Global’s partner Price Chopper/Market 32 is launching Daily SurPRIZE, Frozen Food Frenzy, a themed digital game. This builds on the success of an initial launch of the game, which came out at the end of last year. Can you tell us a little about the Daily SurPRIZE mobile game and what you saw during the initial holiday launch?
Dmochowski: tcc has a long history of providing digital mobile games to supermarkets and convenience store operators. Like many retailers, Price Chopper was looking for ways to increase digital engagement with its best customers. As we discussed options with Price Chopper, we decided to deploy tcc’s gamification solutions to encourage Price Chopper customers to engage more regularly with the Price Chopper app and website.
The results of the initial effort last year — Daily SurPRIZE, Spin the Wheel — were super strong. Here are some metrics Price Chopper has shared:
- traffic to the AdvantEdge Rewards site was 5x higher by the end of the game than the prior weekly average
- during the game window, the daily SurPRIZE site was our #1 or #2 site for web traffic within the entire pricechopper.com domain
- engagement with our online redemption options for Rewards more than tripled during the game and is now at a sustained higher rate since
- new site registrations increased by a factor of 3x in the game window vs a prior weekly average
What makes Daily SurPRIZE unique is its seamless integration into Price Chopper’s digital assets and AdvantEdge Rewards program. Because the game resides on tcc’s rewards platform, it appears natively in Price Chopper’s app and website, and is linked to the shopper’s login and points systems. As a result, customers can play the game, win their prize and redeem right on the platform without leaving the Price Chopper experience. And the fact most of the prizes are sweepstakes entries and bonus points make it a more cost-effective prize structure for the retailer.
What learnings did you take from the initial launch for this new version of the game?
Dmochowski: tcc has run hundreds of similar games in multiple channels around the world so I can’t say we had any new revelations but more an affirmation of previous experience. We then built on the strengths of the first game with the new Frozen Food Frenzy game—namely play once per day, quick and easy experience, well-timed notifications via email and push messages, prizes the customer valued, etc.
For Daily SurPRIZE, Frozen Food Frenzy we introduced e-coupons as a new prize category. Price Chopper is attempting to build awareness and usage of its digital coupon offering and saw the game as a means of introducing this offering to a broader audience. The e-coupons also created a partnership opportunity with the CPG supplier community.
How can brands measure the success of their digital engagement and gamification efforts? Are there key metrics or KPIs you typically recommend?
Dmochowski: Every retailer will have its own reasons to run a game or objectives to be achieved by a game. We then design a game to achieve those objectives. Price Chopper’s goals for the game included user registration, site visits, points redemption, and user sales increase. As stated above, the game was very effective in achieving these goals.
How can brands understand the best engagement or gamification capabilities to introduce to their audience? With a variety of options from games, sweepstakes, instant wins, etc., where is the best place to start? What is one piece of advice you would share with brands looking to improve their customer loyalty, engagement, or experience strategies?
Dmochowski: At the risk of sounding self-serving I think brands need to find a reliable partner who has the technical capability and experience to design a game to achieve the desired results of the brand. That partner can help clarify objectives and create a game to deliver the desired metrics. Running real time digital games is serious business with considerable downside if the game is not executed well. You don’t want to go this route alone. You want to partner with someone you trust.