In recent years, the Liquid-Plumr® brand has established a strong presence on its social channels, but left the website behind, with shallow content and a low visitation rate. With the website a key digital asset, Current set out to execute an integrated campaign anchored in compelling web content to meet the following objectives:
Through consumer research, Current learned:
Armed with this knowledge, Current set out to develop an online game called Clog Culprits to serve as an anchor on LiquidPlumr.com to draw consumers back repeatedly. Current capitalized on the idea that multilevel games, involving strategic thinking, have the potential to greatly increase engagement and time spent on websites. This would translate to more exposure to the brand and product attributes in an engaging and compelling way.
Clog Culprits successfully captured the target's attention while educating key consumers on the full line of Liquid-Plumr® products in a truly memorable way, surpassing its initial goals and re-launching with another instant win promotion for an additional nine weeks following its initial run.
Clog Culprits was developed using custom illustrations and design. By utilizing a popular game model that consumers were familiar with, Current could mitigate consumer issues and user-error and create a positive brand experience.
In gameplay, each level changed to feature a different product in a setting that depicted where it should be appropriately used, such as the kitchen sink or bathroom tub. Within each level, a different type of clog was featured, showing consumers the appropriate product to use to destroy each diagnosed problem. The game also included educational level interstitials, which provided players an additional opportunity to learn about the product benefits. These level interstitials also provided the opportunity for users to share the progress of their game play with their friends and family across Facebook and Twitter.
During the initial launch, Clog Culprits incentivized consumers to play with an instant win promotion overlay that awarded daily cash prizes and free Liquid-Plumr® product to three players each day. The instant win component was a catalyst for generating repeat visitors to the website. Consumers could come back multiple times throughout the promotion duration to increase their chances of winning.
The Clog Culprits game and instant-win overlay were promoted and featured via:
Overall, Current was successful in meeting the program objectives of creating engaging website content for the brand:
Objective: Developing sticky content for the site to help educate consumers about the full Liquid-Plumr® product line and individual product attributes
Clog Culprits was the most visited page on the LiquidPlumr.com website. Most notably, prior to the launch of Clog Culprits, the average time spent on LiquidPlumr.com was less than 1 minute. Once Clog Culprits launched, consumers played the game an average of 8 minutes, bringing up the average time spent on LiquidPlumr.com to 5 min and 20 seconds.
The game was played more than half a million times (566,269 game plays) and more than 2.8MM levels were played. The promotion received 373,433 entries from 41,090 unique entrants showing that users came back an average of nine days throughout the promotion duration to play and enter.
Objective: Create an opportunity for the brand to stay top of mind with consumers for all their clog care needs
As part of the instant win submission, consumers could opt-in to the Liquid-Plumr® e-newsletter. The brand typically sees a 15-20% opt-in rate with promotions, but Clog Culprits drove a significantly higher opt-in rate at 33%.
In addition, 10% of unique entrants shared the game itself and the progress of their game play with their friends and family on Facebook and Twitter which brought new audiences to the LiquidPlumr.com website.
Liquid-Plumr® successfully captured the target's attention while educating them on the full line of Liquid-Plumr® products in a truly memorable way. Clog Culprits was so successful in meeting its goals that it re-launched with another instant win promotion for another nine weeks after its initial run of 13 weeks.
The success of Clog Culprits initiated the future planning for the brand. In 2015, the marketing plan shifted to focus more on digital initiatives and the brand launched an interactive gaming hub on the website with plans to feature three new custom games.
The game was built to be evergreen and remain active even when promotions are inactive. The game is still playable and continues to serve as a primary product educational tool for the website. Consumers continue to return to the game today to destroy those pesky Clog Culprits.
