To retain its position in the increasingly competitive convenience store vertical, QuikTrip leveraged technology to deploy an in-game advertising campaign that achieved impressive results while seamlessly integrating into the habits of the brand's target audience.
Objective
With a thickening field of competition in the convenience store space, QuikTrip was faced with the challenge of maintaining a strong presence and effectively communicating new offers, products, and services to their local customers.
Recognizing that a substantial portion of its core consumers were avid gamers, the brand saw an opportunity to leverage in-game advertising to connect with their audience.
Context
QuikTrip embarked on a year-long journey, launching an evergreen campaign to ensure their presence was felt by customers residing near their stores.
The campaigns were not static. Instead, QuikTrip masterfully rotated creative to keep pace with the brand's latest offerings and maintain top-of-mind awareness among its local customer base. QuikTrip even changed creative depending on the season. For example, over the winter months, the colors and imagery used reflected the festive season; over the summer, QuikTrip used warm and refreshing creative to connect with audiences enjoying the summer break.
Following each campaign iteration, a meticulous review process unfolded. QuikTrip examined the outcomes, scrutinizing the performance of each ad in the context of specific games. This granular approach allowed the brand to discern which games were most effective in reaching the target audience and helped them to improve creative to ensure the ads were catching player attention while naturally feeling part of the experience.
Target Audience
QuikTrip's primary focus was on engaging individuals residing near the brand's brick-and-mortar stores. To execute this with finesse, QuikTrip strategically divided the target audience into two distinct tiers, defined by Designated Marketing Areas (DMAs), facilitating seamless scalability.
This DMA-based segmentation empowered QuikTrip to precisely tailor its marketing efforts to local nuances and demographics, achieving a remarkable balance between scale and precision.
Creative and Media Strategy
QuikTrip strategically deployed its ads across Anzu's non-disruptive, in-game placements across a selection of 80-plus premium mobile and PC games curated from Anzu's extensive inventory, spanning a wide spectrum of gaming genres — including sports, racing, roleplay, and casual entertainment.
The essence of QuikTrip's success lies not only in strategic placement but also in the art of concise messaging and eye-catching creative. Each ad was thoughtfully crafted to be succinct and easily comprehended. This precision in messaging culminated in the campaigns' resounding success, as the ads resonated with their target audience. These ads seamlessly met players within their beloved gaming environments, enriching their gaming experiences in a way that felt entirely organic.
Through a full-year partnership, QuikTrip ran several display and video ads within Anzu's intrinsic in-game ad placements, frequently rotating in new video creatives to promote seasonal messaging with images of mouthwatering food options available within their stores, keeping the creative fresh and the messaging unique.
By aligning advertising efforts with Anzu's PC and mobile inventory game list, QuikTrip was able to engage with its audience across locations where you would expect to find ads in real life, like around sports stadiums, along roadsides, and on the side of buildings, creating an authentic brand experience.
As QuikTrip included in-game advertising as part of the larger media mix, Anzu's partnership with Oracle MOAT provided quality assurance for QuikTrip with in-game viewability verification and allowed for QuikTrip to append IVT measurement through its preferred partner for additional measurement.
In a digital landscape marred by ad-blocking rates averaging 37 percent, with 52 percent of consumers tuning out TV commercials and a staggering 65 percent skipping video ads, QuikTrip saw an opportunity with Anzu.
Gaming emerged as the perfect medium for QuikTrip, offering the ability to position ads prominently and capture the elusive attention of its target audience. Unlike other oversaturated digital channels upon which ads jostle for user attention, gaming provided QuikTrip with an exclusive platform to captivate players located near physical stores.
Furthermore, the in-game advertising channel excelled in driving upper-funnel awareness, aligning perfectly with QuikTrip's objectives. Anzu's non-clickable in-game ads were strategically designed to enhance player experience by preserving their gaming immersion — a crucial factor in the success of the campaigns.
The results were nothing short of extraordinary, ushering in a new era of brand impact. QuikTrip's in-game foray delivered expansive reach, unrivaled engagement, and noteworthy enhancements in critical business metrics. This transformative journey marked a turning point in the brand's approach to connecting with its audience.
By harnessing Anzu's geo-targeting prowess, QuikTrip achieved an astounding feat — an audience of over three million engaged gamers, meticulously homing in on their desired (DMAs).
The campaign's results were a testament to this exceptional partnership, amassing:
QuikTrip's partnership with Anzu was nothing short of a game-changer, redefining the boundaries of campaign excellence.
A player-centric approach, guided by best-practice creative principles, laser-focused targeting within the right games at precisely the right moments, and the strategic placement of ads in locations mirroring real-world settings all came together to deliver a series of triumphant campaigns for QuikTrip.
