Holiday Dash
View the case- Brand
- Amazon
- Year
- 2023
- Objective
- Engagement
- Industry
- Retail
- Mechanic
- Mini-Games
- Platform
- In-Game
- Agency
- The Gang
Objective
Amazon wanted to give its annual print Holiday Kids Gift Book a second life beyond the mailbox and meet Gen Z on the platform where they already hang out: Roblox. The campaign needed to beat the engagement of the previous year's Roblox activation, pull players into decisions about the campaign itself — down to voting on which items get made — and reach far more countries than the roughly 30 where Amazon actually operates, since Roblox is available everywhere.
Solution
Players arrive in a forest lobby led by a fox and her animal crew, then pick from a rotating lineup of racing-style mini-games, each built around a different animal and setting. Racing, dodging obstacles, and finishing courses earns seasonal points and Amazon Tickets, which players cash in back at the lobby for limited-time avatar items from the "Boxheads" line — characters styled after Amazon's shipping box. Every two weeks a new item goes up for a community vote, and only the winning design gets released. The showpiece mini-game, Downhill Derby, has players customize their sled before racing it down a hill. Getting in required no download search at all: kids scanned a QR code printed right in the mailed gift book to drop straight into the game.
Results
7.7M+ visitors from 169 countries in three months, 144M total gameplay minutes, a 94% positive player rating, 30.8M votes cast in the item-voting system, and 778K UGC items claimed. QR codes in the mailed gift book connected the game to 32M+ North American households. The 2024 follow-up, Joyful Horizons, drew 15.7M+ visits over five months and 491M+ virtual gifts exchanged, with 30M+ community votes cast. As of 2026, the underlying Roblox experience has accumulated 22.3M+ visits and 150.8K favorites across all its yearly editions.
- 1
The player's entry point is a QR code printed in Amazon's paper Holiday Kids Gift Book, which leads into the Roblox experience.
- 2
Inside, the player lands in a festive forest lobby hub, greeted by the Fox and her forest friends (an owl, a raccoon, and a bear); the interface shows which of the campaign's seven seasons is active, each with its own rewards and mini-games.
- 3
From the hub the player queues into competitive multiplayer races, each mini-game themed around a different forest animal and set in its own location; a round strings four of these mini-games together, and the highest scorer at the end earns up to 20 seasonal points.
- 4
The campaign's centerpiece mini-game is Downhill Derby, a sled race down a hill where the player customizes their vehicle before racing rivals to the bottom.
- 5
Simply staying in the experience pays off: every five minutes the player receives a gift of random power-ups, seasonal points, or Amazon Tickets.
- 6
Seasonal points carry a deadline — any not spent in the lobby before the season changes are lost.
- 7
Back in the lobby, the player spends accumulated points and Tickets in a UGC shop for free limited-edition avatar items (18 across the campaign), including the Amazon-box-themed "Boxheads," which the player then wears across Roblox.
- 8
Every two weeks, the player is shown four candidate designs for an upcoming avatar item and votes; the winning design is later released into the shop.
- 9
A separate path to points is redeeming promo codes: the player opens a code-entry field via an icon in the top-left corner, enters a code, and confirms to receive points.
