Applaydu
Open the game- Brand
- Kinder
- Year
- 2020
- Objective
- Engagement
- Industry
- Food & Drink
- Mechanic
- Mini-Games
- Platform
- App
- Agency
- Gameloft For Brands
Objective
Kinder wanted the toy from every Kinder Surprise and Kinder Joy to have a life beyond the unboxing, without tripping the usual parental anxieties around kids' apps — ads, in-app spending, empty screen time. The brief was to turn a physical purchase into repeat play that draws parent and child into the same activity, lifting how much the toy (and the app) is worth to own. Framed to parents as a learning tool rather than pure entertainment, it was built with input from Oxford's education department.
Solution
A child scans the QR code on the wrapper — or points the camera at the toy itself — and the figure comes to life on screen as an animated 3D character. They lead it through a run of mini-games, then place it in AR in their actual room, snap photos with it, or wear it as a face filter. Every choice made along the way feeds a story that writes itself as they play, growing into a personal storybook. There's no ad or purchase screen in the way — the interface is almost all icons, since most players can't read yet — so a session runs start to finish inside the game and ends with that storybook ready to open and read together with a parent. New worlds and characters arrive each season, so the next egg unlocks the next chapter.
Results
More than 10 million downloads and 322 million-plus game sessions since launch, including 113 million in 2023–2024 alone, averaging 14.3 minutes per session. The app has reached over 68 million families since 2021, adding 22 million new families in 2024, after launching simultaneously in 100 countries in six languages. In-app engagement runs at 70%. Among parents using the app, 87% said it enhances play moments with their kids and 84% said it gives kids a chance to learn something new; the campaign separately measured a 43% net increase in family togetherness, an 8.2% increase in toy likeability, and a 28% increase in perceived value for money. It holds a 4.4-star rating across the App Store and Google Play, peaking at #1 in Italy and #2 in France and Germany over Easter 2024.
- 1
A child and parent download Applaydu for free, with the parent accepting terms and privacy policy before the child's side of the app opens. The child then builds a personal avatar, choosing appearance, hair, clothes and shoes, and selects an age range that sets the difficulty of later content.
- 2
The avatar lands in an icon-only game room that branches into four modes: creating a story, reading finished stories, playing mini-games, and augmented reality. A starter animal character is granted immediately, while every other character must be unlocked.
- 3
Pointing the phone's camera at a QR code from a Kinder Surprise or Kinder Joy wrapper, or at the physical toy itself, unlocks that character as an animated 3D figure and adds it to the player's collection, opening new content and game roles. Without a toy on hand, characters can also be earned by collecting stars in mini-games or by scanning up to three printable in-app QR codes per day.
- 4
In story mode the avatar travels through an adventure, coloring scenery, meeting animal characters and completing mini-games along the way, with each choice branching the plot rather than following a fixed line. Finishing the adventure turns it into an illustrated storybook that can be read aloud with a parent and is saved to a personal library.
- 5
A separate menu offers up to 16 short mini-games grouped across themed islands, including wooden jigsaw puzzles, coloring pages, simple platformers, hide-and-seek and block-stacking towers, plus a racing game where the player steers a character around obstacles and a rhythm game played by swiping in time with the music.
- 6
A "Craft Your Story" mode has the child learn sounds and words and assemble them into an original story, which is automatically saved to the library alongside the adventure storybooks.
- 7
In augmented reality, pointing the camera at a floor or table places an animal character directly in the child's room, where it can be surrounded with decorations, fed, or viewed in its natural habitat outside AR; the character can also be photographed like a real companion or worn as a face filter.
- 8
Completing content earns rewards such as new 3D characters, avatar costumes and personal adventure books, plus furniture and art to decorate the avatar's world; the app runs offline with no ads or in-app purchases.
- 9
A PIN-protected parent section provides a weekly activity report on the child, along with screen-time limits and difficulty settings.
- 10
Each new Kinder egg purchase yields a fresh code and toy for the collection, with the app's roster now exceeding 1,500 characters across 11 themes and new content continuing to arrive in seasonal releases.
