More than one million shoppers are already engaging with Ksubaka playSpots every month – in just two cities, Singapore and Beijing.
Ksubaka (formerly playTMN) engages people on remotely-managed touch screen displays, known as playSpots, strategically located inside retail stores.
Ksubaka goes beyond simple consumer engagement, delivering what it describes as “true Moments of Joy’, or ‘MoJos’ created through short, familiar and bite-sized interactive apps leveraging the language of games.
Ksubaka’s bespoke gamified experiences are built around the reasons to believe in the advertised product, making it the hero and bringing consumers into the heart of the brand story. Most importantly these MoJos take place a few feet away from the store shelf, right when consumers are ready, willing and able to make purchasing decisions.
Shoppers are offered to extend the experience to mobile, where they can redeem rewards, collect loyalty points or link to the brand social networks. Advertisers are able to track all campaign metrics through Ksubaka’s world leading real-time online dashboards.
Brands which have already trialled the concept include Clear, Coca-Cola, Colgate, Dove, Head & Shoulders, Heineken, Kellogg’s, Lifebuoy, Nescafe, Oreos, Sunsilk and Wall’s Ice-Cream.
Following US$5 million of funding, used to develop, deploy and optimise its solution, Ksubaka will embark on a Series B fundraising drive in the fourth quarter of this year, which will be used to ramp up rollout and scale its platform across Asia.
Ksubaka has been testing and optimising the platform for 18 months in Singapore and launched four months ago in over 15 per cent of Beijing’s hypermarkets.
Julian Corbett, CEO and founder of Ksubaka, says brands have struggled to engage with consumers at scale at the point of purchase and Ksubaka, by delivering a permission based, fun, interactive and immersive experience enables brands to gather in-store the equivalent real-time metrics they enjoy online – and they benefit from significantly increased sales.
“We started Ksubaka with the idea that advertising did not need to be interruptive and a nuisance. By using known play patterns, there is a form of content people actually enjoy and that is effective. Because you cannot fake play and it generates rich data, it delivers unparalleled results for brands in-store, the location where $24 trillion are spent annually.
“We have been gratified by tremendous results and are now looking to extend our ambitious roll out plans and build up our management team.”
Corbett says an average store with Ksubaka playSpots generates over 100,000 MoJos a year. Recent campaigns have seen 12 per cent of those who complete a Ksubaka experience connect via their mobile on WeChat, with a further 22 per cent sharing the event on their timeline.
Each playSpot is used by someone on average every five to 10 minutes and a hypermarket with 10 Ksubaka playSpots will engage 10 per cent to 15 per cent of footfall. The Click-Through rates are above eight per cent.
