PlayAbly Podcast Episode 28: Gamify the Aisle: In-Store Retail Gamification That Works

After a brief hiatus, the PlayAbly Podcast is back — and Angelo’s hitting the road. From LA to New York, he’s meeting with brands IRL to show how retail gamification isn't just for your Shopify store — it works just as powerfully in-store. We dive into PlayAbly's latest interactive retail activation with Central Perk, blending shoppable games and live trivia for discounts in a real-world Friends café.

From the psychology behind blind box mechanics like Pop Mart and Labubu, to Disney’s physical scavenger hunts and JetBlue’s 25-city loyalty challenge, this episode explores how today’s most engaging brands are using gamification to turn wait times into playtimes — and purchases.

You'll hear ideas for:

• Turning retail lines into customer loyalty programs
• Driving retention marketing with trivia, collectibles, and surprise reveals
• Building VIP programs that feel more like adventures than point systems
• Using QR codes and Shopify gamification to delight customers wherever they shop

Whether you're a DTC founder, CRM marketer, or retail brand manager looking to elevate your customer journey, this is your crash course in activating loyalty through play.

📍 Want Angelo to visit your store on his JetBlue gamification tour? Reach out and book a demo — mention the PlayAbly Podcast for a special offer.

Want to see what PlayAbly can do for you? From cool custom games to PlayAbly Gamified Rebates, we (probably) have a solution for your ecommerce shop woes. Book a meeting with the great and powerful John here.

Transcript

Welcome back to the PlayAbly podcast. It has been quite a hiatus, but joining back with me is Angelo. Welcome, Angelo.  



Angelo, you are going to be going on, a bit of a road show, traveling around a bunch of different places, talking to people in stores. and bringing on this whole retail gamification, focusing on things that we can do both in store as well, as online.

I just love to talk about that. 

Yeah, I'll be on the road. I'm in LA right now. Gonna go to San Diego, for a day or two this week to visit some brands. Then I'm off to Denver to visit some brands in Denver and Boulder, and then San Francisco New York, and Chicago. So I'll be on the road the next four weeks, which is gonna be super fun 'cause there's nothing I love more than traveling, visiting clients and brands that we can work with and show them how awesome our games are.

Our games, can be used on their online stores, like how we currently have them, but also in store. we've been working with, different QR code systems. Loyalty, signups, post purchase, ways to get people to continue to buy after they buy the first time. 

To earn a discount before coming into the store. I think we just had Central Perk launch, right? 

Yes. I gonna talk about that. So we just had Central Perk Launch, which I guess was backed by Tom K. so that's cool.  

 I'm a huge friends fan, so that's why I'm super excited to have the game live.

if the Listening Central Perk is the coffee shop that the friends frequented, they have a location in Boston, the game just went live. it's on their website if you go to central Perk a really interesting use case is that we're gonna also tell them to have. The game available to scan at the store.

So while you're waiting for your coffee the game is a quick trivia game. we worked with Warner Brothers. They gave us the questions and made it intentionally hard. you only have 15 seconds to get all the trivia questions right. if you get three right in 15 seconds, you get a discount you can redeem in the store.

it worked great. Online. if you're playing online, you can, get a discount for the online store. when you're in the cafe sitting on that famous orange couch, you can play a game. if you're good at  Trivia you can get a 10% or 15% discount on your purchase.

I love that idea of entertaining people whenever they're in a line. I live in Hawaii, so every day. We go to the mall, there's a giant line at the Hawaii Stuy store. 'cause I guess We have limited edition products that they don't have anywhere else.

it is a huge line. every day as well as The Designer stores. these are things that you know, you could be. Endearing people to your brand, helping them earn discounts. or special offers, getting them to sign up for loyalty programs. So I just, I feel like that's something that is really missing nowadays. Everything has become so transactional.  

yeah, there is, 

oh, I want this product.

I'm just gonna Google it. Let me get it from Amazon for convenience. And now more than ever people are trying to shop at Amazon thanks to the Bezo Sanchez wedding. people were really mad at billionaires for all of their tax cuts, rightfully I think being able to build that sort of brand development is a great start. before we started recording, we were talking also about the product gamification that people can do in store. 

I'm at my sister's house, and my niece has five La Booboos.

 

wow. 

The one, she also has a super rare, or the ultra rare, whatever the rarest one is. my brother-in-law, might resell it. she doesn't get the plate with it. in case she doesn't bring that one out. she was saying that at Chocolate Plaza's, why I'm in the OC right now, there used to be a lot of wines to Pot Mar.

when that trend started, thanks to Lisa from Black Pink, who put Lab Booboos on her. LV bag because she's their brand sponsor. 

Or 

she's the brand ambassador for lv. Good for her. I think that's what sparked the Labu Graze. So there were long lines at the pop mart shop at Plaza. since then she said the lines have gone down because now everybody's ordering through the app.

When It Comes to product gamification, part of Pop Mart's success is obviously attributable to Lisa, and putting lab boobies on the map. But What makes the bubu trend exciting is the blind box mechanic, which is, essential to all the pop

Mart products. Products that they sell. for those not familiar what that means is you don't know what you're purchasing. if you buy a boo box from the macaroni set, there are six or eight different colors and you don't know what you get until you buy the product and open it.

I remember seeing on TikTok, a couple of months ago, lots of unboxing videos where people would have eight boxes and  open ' them  to see, what they got. I think what the blind box mechanic does,

but it's like, you know, um. We talked a little bit about how everyone hates billionaires. Rightfully I also think that the vibes are generally low with all the economic uncertainty, which we hear from our brands, and consumers. the blind box, like having this affordable luxury treat, is a reason why people are, gravitating towards the blue boost.

the surprise development is also really exciting. people are recording, their reactions when they open up a little boo booo. no matter what, even if you don't get the labu boo you wanted, you still get a labu boo. if you do get the lebua you wanted, it's an extra dopamine hit, right?

Because there's a sense of excitement of oh, will I get the ultra, will I get this color? And so if you get the color, then it's like a win-win. So I think that gamification of the mystery box or the blind box element is what has gotten a lot of people to buy into it. 

If you didn't get the one that you want, then you're gonna buy another one to   Keep trying for the one that you want. So I think that's also a way that gamification drives people to get repeat purchases, but also to get them to engage and post videos and put their boos on all their birkins or all their bags.

And I think it's important because it's not a new element, right? We've seen this before with Pokemon cards. People doing the polls. I think I was at a collector's thing and somebody was just live streaming consistently ripping open new packs and showing them on the live stream, 

Crazy 'cause people wanted to share that dopamine of oh yeah, you gonna pull out hollows, you gonna pull whatever I don't even know now what the rare cards are that they want. But I think it's cool 'cause it expanded that concept to people who  necessarily into the blind boxes before 

Even get, collectors items. I think people who had never even heard of a la booboo a couple months ago now maybe know all the different types that you can get. Giving something for people to focus on. it's a little bit of joy and it's fun, which I think is the most important part of the whole game.

totally. I think the other piece of the la booboo is that, not to make it gender, we had Pokemon cards before, I don't know what the gender split is of male to female, but it does feel the girls and gay are all over the boob boos.  

the stories by us have.

Like outfits that you can get for you can buy a Birkin for your Labu Booo. You could buy a laboo for your boo bubu.  

wait, so they have mini laboo to go with your, I don't think they're authentic. 

So I think it's a labu, but it's all meta level of Labu. And actually I think it's really surprising.

we just announced that they're building a big pop mart store. Here, and I was like, oh, wow. They're clearly double down, On the fact that this is gonna be a consistent trend for them. 

their stock has been doing really well recently 

The founders net worth has gone up a lot. even if the lab goes down, they still have other IP and brands to take advantage of.

  With the blind box mechanic. I don't think it's going away anytime soon. Plus adults are really into toys now. 

Yeah. I don't know if you saw, 'cause you're not a Disney person like I am, but, I like 

Disney. 

The Disney told me today, yeah. Anniversary. They have 

These stupid giant plastic keys, and I think they're like $60 or $50. you go around Disneyland and stick it in different key lock holes set up in different worlds. each time you do it, it lights up a light on the key for each world.

You have to get all of them. And then at the end you do it at the main one. these bubbles spread out and it's oh, you got all of 'em. then the key unlocks and there's a secret pin in there, like one of six different ones. there's the iconic Disney thing for the special, 70th anniversary.

So you don't know which one you have to get, you have to go on this scavenger hunt unlock all of the things, and then you get your key prize. you have to actually put in more effort than just buying a thing. these things were selling out every single day.

People were like, does anyone have one? there's no more left in the parks. I'm here in the parks today. which is the first time I've seen that. 

I would totally do that. That sounds fun. remind me did you ever play Kingdom Heart? 

Yeah. 

But yeah, that's what it reminds me of. that's why I would play it, because it totally that's cool.

Yeah, so I think there's ways to pull on the nostalgia of things like different, technologies you can add stuff into, but it's just that element of surprise that people are more willing to do. Things.  

yeah, and I think it's also the engagement, right? Because you even talked earlier about how, it's not just about buying the purchase, The example you gave about the, key blade, you're not just buying it and then that's it.

You actually have to buy it and do something with it. you have to go to the park.  

it's like a big, Plastic key. It's like this big. Oh, that's 

cool. I would totally do that. 

Yeah. And people are getting one for each person in the group and they'd all do it together. I think it's still, going on probably all year. The 70th just started,  

Oh, that's super fun. Yeah. So it's fun and engaging, which makes me not surprised that it's sold out.

But I think there's ways that, other brands, can do things like that. It adds to product discovery if you needed to send people to certain places or do something.  

Speaking of sending people to certain places, did you see, which is great gamification.

JetBlue, just turned 25. And they're running a promotion. Where, if you go to 25 cities 

Yeah. 

starting, through the end of the year, you get mosaic status for 25 years.

Yeah. For 25 years. and they're counting layovers and all the stopovers of cities.  

But you can only go to 

each city once.  

have to go visit 25 different cities. 

And I was like, oh, I would do that if I didn't have a kid. I would do that. You should do that.



Okay, lemme go convert all my United Miles into Jet Blue Miles, and then I can do that. That makes sense. Yeah. It totally would do it. It'd be fun. 

Yeah. and obviously the pricess are gonna cost them money, but it's status, right? It's not just oh, here's a free flight, or here's $500 off or something.

It's like perks that you can, appreciate for a long time and because they have that status for the next 25 years, I'd imagine that people would prioritize flying JetBlue 



Southwest, who now charges you for bags or United with their terrible food when it's not Polaris.

It's pretty bad. 

I totally fly Hawaiian now just 'cause I like the food and the internet is really good brand loyalty is alive and well. I think creativity, bringing things that are fun and engaging to your brand. Like playability. Work on many levels,  

totally. 



No, just that I'm gonna, cancel my united flight 'cause I within the 24 hour window and then rebook on JetBlue so that I can get, yeah, two cities. Yeah. Does it makes sense 25? I could totally do that. 

I think so. 

Yeah. 

And it's the beginning of the period, so you have

I have plenty time.

Okay. I'm gonna look up at a chance for my points now and then I like that gives me more chances to go to a city near you. So yeah, 

if you're interested in, having Angela take you to coffee, show you some cool games that we can build for you and your brand, hit us up. Let us know where you want Angelo to come and meet you.

he will do it on his Quest to 25 cities in Jet.

I should do it. Okay. I'm convinced I'm gonna do it. 

see how easy it is to convince people to do things.

JetBlue, please call us. 

JetBlue,  

some inflight games earn extra points while you're flying. 

Yeah. They do have inflight games, but the games are boring. 

Yeah. If you earn JetBlue points for playing these games while flying I think you'd have a lot more people playing them 

sure.

Thanks for joining me, Angelo, and hopefully it won't be super long until our next podcast, playable podcast. don't forget to mention the Playable podcast if you're booking a demo and you'll get a special author. 

Thank you. 

Thanks.