Pair The Players And Jerseys Memory Game
- Brand
- FAF
- Year
- 2021
- Objective
- Engagement
- Industry
- Entertainment
- Mechanic
- Arcade & Action
- Platform
- Web
- Agency
- Playable
Objective
The Finnish football association bet that fans who could name national-team players would feel more loyal to the team — and set out to turn that recognition into ticket and merchandise sales. With a small marketing team, they also needed every email to work harder: collecting opt-ins, lifting order conversion, and running largely on autopilot through the season, with Euro 2020 as a one-off chance to grow the subscriber base fast.
Solution
A fan clicks into a campaign from an email, a social post, or FAF's own game hub and lands on a branded page for a 20-to-60-second play. In the flagship memory game, they flip tiles to match each national-team player with their shirt number; other moments swap in a name-the-player quiz, a pre-match score prediction, a post-match "man of the match" poll, or a birthday gift box that opens to reveal a code. Cart abandoners get a wheel of fortune to spin in the third reminder email. Every session ends the same way: a screen offering a newsletter sign-up with merch and ticket discounts, a promo code, or a shot at winning a signed jersey. The same games run on repeat all season, with only the opponent, date, or line-up swapped out underneath.
Results
More than 350 gamified campaigns launched since 2021. The memory game alone drew 4,000+ sessions, 225+ registrations, and 840+ clicks through to the FAF game hub. The birthday campaign reached 40% of email recipients within 8 months, generating 21,000+ sessions, 16,000+ registrations, 2,900+ clicks on the gift-redemption button, and a 21% lift in email-to-order conversion despite a smaller discount than before. The abandoned-cart wheel-of-fortune game was played by about a third of third-email recipients and lifted cart recovery by 35%. During Euro 2020 alone, FAF doubled its opt-in database, with over 50% of game participants subscribing to the newsletter.
- 1
Players first meet the game embedded in the association's own channels — a social post, a newsletter block, or the game hub — then click through to a dedicated campaign page branded with the Finland national teams, where the flagship memory game is presented.
- 2
The core mechanic is a matching game: the player flips cards to pair each national-team player with their correct jersey number, working within a fixed number of attempts (ten) before the round ends.
- 3
Finishing the round prompts a newsletter sign-up, offering merch and ticket discounts in exchange for an email address and marketing consent.
- 4
The end screen also routes players onward into the association's game hub, where other formats such as the "Guess the player's name" quiz continue the session.
- 5
A separate birthday-triggered strand replaces a plain promotional email with a gamified one: a button leads to a page showing an on-screen gift box, which the subscriber opens to reveal a congratulatory video and a discount code, claimed via a "Redeem your gift" button into the store.
- 6
Another branch responds to cart abandonment: after two standard reminder emails, a third invites the shopper to spin a wheel of fortune, and the resulting discount can be applied to the items left in the cart.
- 7
Around major tournaments the program adds match-tied mechanics — predicting a score before kickoff, voting for the best player after the final whistle, and prize draws for signed jerseys and merchandise.
- 8
Subscribers who go quiet for six months are pulled back through a reactivation email sequence built mainly from these games, using play itself to restart the dialogue.
