The Fresh Heads - Marbles

Enter our enchanting world

Award-winning marble concept rolling its way through Europe

Lidl Belgium’s 2020 marble collection campaign wasn’t their first promotion with collectable giveaways, but it was the first of its kind supported by a corresponding app to increase engagement and offer an extra communication channel. In the following years the concept was embraced Lidl-wide across Europe, and each subsequent campaign benefited from learnings from the previous. Adding a smart digital extension created an engaging experience and delivered valuable insights, elevating the results of the traditional collection campaign from a short-term sales boost to long-term benefits.

Marvelous marbles

The basics were simple: receive free marbles with your groceries and collect the full set of colorful little monsters.

Those monsters are not only cute, but also love to inform kids on the benefits of fresh fruits and vegetables, stimulating healthy choices in the shopping basket.

New details or features were added along the way to increase the desirability of the collection and the excitement of unwrapping the blind packaging. Think of a new character in a very limited edition, which also gave the lucky finders a chance to win a prize.

in the spotlight

Endless playing fun with a truly unique completer

Smart and seamless bridge between offline and online

Marbles bringing kids outside to play – fitting Lidl’s healthy message

Collect all cute and colourful characters

game-changing app

The game in the campaign app was an addictive maze game, rolling the marbles to the finish in increasingly difficult mazes.

In the first campaign in Belgium, this game alone managed to increase campaign hype and engagement and offered a new communication channel to campaign participants.

The real game-changer however, was the addition of a unique QR code with each marble, making millions of collectibles suddenly trackable. The codes were scanned in the app to complete a digital collection and unlock new levels and features.

The code scanning not only delivered exceptionally in-depth insights into campaign results, it also made push messaging transform from 1-to-all to 1-to-1. After all, the app registered which and how many characters a user scanned, if they were close to completing the collection or rather to dropping out.

Win-win

Some of the countries also hosted a win promotion along with the campaign, connected to the scanning of the QR codes. All the more reason to scan the codes in the app, with all the more insights as a result for Lidl. Different mechanisms were employed to stimulate behaviour at different levels, and push messages were cleverly used to keep participants involved.

Completing the picture

The in-store campaigns were supported by a variety of completers, ranging from a simple marble bag to a cool buildable racetrack.

Truly unique was the 2-in-1 collector box and build-your-own-maze, in line with the maze game in the app.

The completers too were given a UniQode, unlocking an extra world in the game. All subtle ways for the offline and online worlds to reinforce each other.

Small rewards, big impact!

Continuously applying the learnings from the previous campaigns to reap even greater success in the next one paid off. Slovakia’s campaign even received an International Loyalty Award, shared with Lidl Belgium’s mini garden campaign that was running simultaneously. According to the judges, it was ‘far too difficult to choose between these two outstanding entries that achieved creative execution, engagement with their target audience, superb use of technology, gamification and connected use of mobile and social’.

Six countries enchanted by the fresh heads marble concept so far, let's roll to the next!

Character design

Meet The Fresh Heads: lovable little monsters eager to teach kids all about their favourite fruit, vegetables and herbs. The more than 70 colourful characters are the perfect messengers to convey healthy habits to kids and shoppers in a playful way. Designed and developed from scratch by the Magneds studio.

Drago

This colourful, flying kids’ favourite is usually deployed in the campaign as a limited edition. Who manages to collect him will be rewarded , for example with an extra world in the game.

Spooks

Spooks is a loving and loyal friend to all. He’s clumsy and often unlucky, but still never gives up. A role model in perseverance for children.

Shaniqua

Shaniqua is a true diva, the star of the bunch. Her radiant appearance is sure to attract customers’ attention on any channel.

in the spotlight