In the spotlight:

"Take care of your Froggu"

2025 Bronze Effie Winner

Effie is about awarding ideas that work, educating about effective marketing and showcasing the best work to enhance learning in our industry.

CAMPAIGN NAME

Take care of your Froggu

CATEGORY

Best of Europe: Retail

CLIENT

Żabka Polska sp. z o.o.

LEAD AGENCY

180heartbeats + Jung v. Matt

CAMPAIGN DESCRIPTION

In Poland’s highly competitive convenience retail market, Żabka operates in a category where brands are constantly fighting for attention, loyalty, and app engagement. With nearly 12,000 stores and a strong neighbourhood presence, Żabka had built a distinctive, friendly brand loved for its informal and playful personality.

As retail increasingly moved into digital spaces, the challenge was to keep customers engaged beyond the store visit. With competitors investing heavily in app experiences, promotions, and gamification, Żabka needed a fresh way to drive interaction, strengthen loyalty, and make everyday shopping moments more entertaining.

The opportunity was clear: turn the brand’s “Little Frog” identity into a playful digital experience that would bring customers closer to Żabka and encourage more frequent engagement with the app.

THE CHALLENGE

For Żabka, frequency and habit are key to success. As a convenience retailer, the brand relies on regular visits and impulse purchases, making customer engagement and loyalty essential drivers of growth.

The app had become Żabka’s most important communication channel, as the brand does not rely on traditional printed flyers or promotional catalogues. However, keeping users engaged was becoming increasingly difficult. In a world where people have dozens of apps competing for their attention, simply having an app was no longer enough.

At the same time, competitors were rapidly expanding their retail app experiences with gamification and entertainment features, raising the bar for digital engagement. Żabka needed a new way to make its app more relevant, encourage more frequent interactions, and strengthen the habit of visiting both the app and the store.

The challenge was clear: create fresh, engaging experiences that would turn app usage into a habit and keep Żabka top of mind in customers’ everyday lives.

STRATEGIC APPROACH AND EXECUTION

Żabka’s strategy was to transform app engagement from a functional habit into an entertaining and emotional experience. The brand created Froggu — a unique gamified character within the app, where customers’ in-store purchases influenced their virtual pet’s development, while caring for Froggu unlocked rewards in stores.

Users could create and personalise their own Froggu, customise its appearance, complete missions, and progress through levels. Built around a cheeky personality, playful language, and humorous interactions, Froggu was designed to create a more personal and engaging relationship between customers and the brand.

The game became the main touchpoint, supported by owned and earned channels including push notifications, email, social media, and PR. Missions were directly connected to business objectives, encouraging purchases of Żabka’s private-label products and driving visits through challenges linked to coffee, GoodFood products, fries, and Żabka Nano stores.

By turning everyday shopping into a playful experience, Froggu aimed to increase app usage, strengthen customer loyalty, and make Żabka part of customers’ daily routines.

Clear evidence of success:

One third of Żabka’s 7.5 million app users engaged with Froggu in 2023

32% increase in shopping frequency among Froggu players

24% boost in Average Revenue Per User (ARPU)

Froggu transformed the app from a functional shopping tool into an entertaining and engaging brand experience

RESULTS

26% sustained growth in engagement among users who continued playing Froggu.
50% of Froggu players were aged 24 or younger, successfully engaging a younger audience.
15% increase in app usage frequency, growing from 3.88 daily interactions before playing Froggu to 4.45 after reaching level 10.
18.5% click-through rate on Froggu push notifications, outperforming the app average of 15%.
158,085 players completed the game up to level 100, proving strong engagement and retention.
2.7 million+ virtual items purchased, demonstrating high interaction with the Froggu experience.
Over 550,000 in-game purchases of virtual items, including 203,941 “Froggengers” movie tickets, 215,104 virtual coffees, and 138,513 “fin manicure” services.
36% increase in daily loyalty coin usage, rising from 33 coins before starting Froggu to 45 coins after reaching level 10, strengthening the link between gameplay and store activity.

WHY A BRONZE EFFIE? Here's what the jurors said.

"Good and original idea in the world of retail apps."

"The case was an insight-driven, highly creative app-based strategy with measurable results and effective audience targeting."

"Exceptional strategic execution and sustained engagement depth. The Froggu gamification demonstrates mastery of behavioural psychology — 158,085 players completing all 100 levels over an average of 130 days proves that the brand created genuinely compelling content, not just a promotional gimmick. The creative consistency (character design, humour, metaphorical connection between the frog and convenience store) is textbook best practice for brand building."

"The data rigor within the measurement framework is impressive: clear attribution, multiple funnel stages, and longitudinal tracking from entry through completion. The campaign significantly overdelivered on all stated objectives (213%-382% of targets), proving strong internal validity."

"The insight that young audiences need emotional engagement through playful brand experiences is sharp, and the targeting success (50% of players aged ≤24) validates the strategy. The integration across touchpoints (push notifications 18.5% CTR vs. 15% benchmark, email 35.34% vs. 19.96%) shows cohesive execution."

"The context provided gave a strong sense that the challenge facing the brand was significant. The strategy and solution that led to the creation of a new business solution — such as the entertaining feature in the sales app — were the strongest aspects of this submission, effectively supporting sales value and frequency."

Check out the full Case Study!