The best Christmas marketing campaigns built as games give people a reason to return through December, launch in step with the shopping calendar and pay out in something the brand sells. Below are ten examples, from McDonald's daily app games to Coca-Cola's snowball fights at 7-Eleven, with sourced results where published and launch dates for planning this season.
We chose them from more than 1,000 games in the library. Each was made for the Christmas season, gave the player rules and an outcome, and served a commercial goal. Advent calendars and scratch cards have their own section below. Figures link to sources, and agency claims are marked.
Which Christmas campaigns brought people back every day?
X-MASters — McDonald's (2020)
Agency: This Page Amsterdam · Mechanic: Mini-games · Platform: App
From 1 to 23 December, McDonald's Netherlands reskinned its app and opened a new mini-game each day. Each game offered a daily prize plus X-Medals that ranked players on a leaderboard; 15 medals opened a final game for the main prize. Super X-Medals were hidden in a TV spot, on bus-stop posters and on tray liners, so the media plan became part of the hunt. By 2023, December in the app belonged to Getaway Island, a snowy 3D island.
Result: This Page Amsterdam, which built the games, lists 23 unique games, a two-year run and 200,000 players (This Page). The Getaway Island case reports more than one million app visitors in December (Dutch Digital Design).
BK Village — Burger King (2024)
Agency: Monks · Mechanic: Puzzle · Platform: Web
Burger King put its holiday deals inside a game. Royal Perks members entered a snowed-in town, decorated a cabin of their own and once a day opened its mailbox to claim that day's offer from the 31 Days of Deals, which began on 1 December (Marketing Dive). A sled run and a weekly draw filled the gaps. Burger King had just reported a 0.4% decline in US comparable sales for the third quarter (same source).
Result: We found no published results; it is here as the clearest case of a deals calendar turned into a place.
Data Piñata — 2degrees (2025)
Agency: Digital Arts Network · Mechanic: Arcade & action · Platform: Web
In New Zealand, Christmas falls in summer, when the mobile market fills with discount offers. 2degrees offered a prize instead of a price cut. In earlier seasons, players opened a mobile site and hunted piñatas in augmented reality; which one appeared depended on location, weather, date and time of day (2degrees). In the 2024–25 season, anyone could play, but only 2degrees customers could claim the data they won, one prize a day, valid for 24 hours (2degrees). The latest season, Data Piñata Battle (datapinata.nz), had players build their own piñata and fight friends.
Result: In November 2023, 2degrees said the previous season saw three million piñatas whacked and more than 280,000 people win over four million hours of data (2degrees). The agency counts 816,000 players to date (DAN).
Which Christmas games sold product or brought people into stores?
Snowball Effect — Coca-Cola (2011)
Agency: Leo Burnett, Ted Perez And Associates · Mechanic: Arcade & action · Platform: App
Snowball Effect ran in 6,400 US 7-Eleven stores for Arctic Home, Coca-Cola's holiday programme for WWF's polar bear work (MediaPost). In the free app, players threw virtual snowballs at Facebook friends, and each throw was a challenge that explained the cause. Bigger snowballs came from checking in at a 7-Eleven or entering codes from Coke packs and Slurpee cups, and top scorers won iPads every week.
Result: Coke sales at 7-Eleven rose 20%; more than 50,000 snowball fights in nine weeks reached an estimated 6.5 million Facebook friends, and the campaign helped raise $700,000 for Arctic Home, according to its One Show entry (The One Show).
Bullseye's Playground — Target (2014)
Agency: 72andSunny, Google Art, Copy & Code, Plan8, Psyop · Mechanic: Puzzle · Platform: Web
From 2 December 2014, shoppers opened Target.com/Play on a phone for six winter games, from sledding to a snowball fight. Codes hidden around the store opened new characters and levels, so progress meant walking the aisles. Target gave $1 to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital for every game played, up to $1 million (Target). Our retail gamification guide has more games that send players down the aisles.
Result: Target published no outcome figures that we could find.
Sneak King / PocketBike Racer / Big Bumpin' — Burger King (2006)
Developer: Blitz Games · Agency: Crispin Porter + Bogusky · Mechanic: Arcade & action · Platform: Xbox and Xbox 360
From 19 November to 24 December 2006, customers could add an Xbox game to a Burger King value meal for $3.99 (Wikipedia). Players crept up on strangers to hand over burgers, raced pocket bikes or rammed rivals in bumper cars, all in the world of the chain's TV ads. Full story: Burger King's Xbox games.
Result: The three games sold 2.5 million copies in their first five weeks and ranked among the top 10 best-selling games of 2006, according to EGM citing Ad Age (EGM).
Which Christmas games won reach and attention?
Christmas Shopper Simulator — GAME (2014)
Agency: 101 · Mechanic: Simulation & strategy · Platform: PC and Mac
GAME, a UK games retailer, faces bigger-spending general chains every December. Instead of buying reach, it released a free PC and Mac game: a gift list, a countdown and a shopping centre with deliberately unstable physics, where shelves topple and shoppers go flying. It launched on a live Twitch stream, and players posted their own runs on YouTube (D&AD).
Result: Over 1 million downloads and 36 million YouTube views, according to its D&AD Wood Pencil entry (D&AD).
Holiday Dash — Amazon (2023)
Agency: The Gang · Mechanic: Mini-games · Platform: In-game
Amazon's Holiday Kids Gift Book, a printed toy catalogue, ships to over 30 million American households. Since 2022 Amazon has turned the book into a Roblox game each season: a QR code in the catalogue opened the first, Trip Around The Blox (Chris Lumain), and the 2024 book carried QR codes again (The Gang). In the 2023 edition, players raced through animal-themed mini-games such as the Downhill Derby sled race and spent tickets on Boxhead avatar items; every two weeks the community voted on the next item.
Result: More than 7.7 million visits over three months, 30.8 million votes and 778,000 items claimed, according to the agency (The Gang); Chris Lumain, a senior art director at Amazon, adds that players came from 169 countries (Chris Lumain).
Game of Phones — T-Mobile (2022)
Agency: Reflektor Digital · Mechanic: Quiz & trivia · Platform: Web
T-Mobile turned its leadership's holiday message into a game. On a phone, laptop or VR headset, players explored a snowy 3D copy of its headquarters, found holograms of its 17 senior leaders and answered their trivia for tokens. Playing helped steer a $100,000 donation among three non-profits.
Result: T-Mobile reported that more than 400,000 people completed the game, an 8,700% increase on its 2021 holiday campaign (T-Mobile release via Stock Titan); the developer had earlier put players at over 200,000 (Reflektor Digital on the three.js forum).
Red One Hangar — Red One (2024)
Agency: Livewire · Mechanic: Simulation & strategy · Platform: In-game
To launch the Christmas film Red One, Amazon MGM Studios put a raid inside Anime Defenders, then a Roblox hit with over 2.75 billion lifetime visits. From 1 November, two weeks before release, players could defend the North Pole against 25 waves of snow creatures and earn a polar-bear unit and avatar items from the film (Livewire).
Result: Livewire reports 163 million game visits, but not how many of them played the raid (Livewire).
The ten campaigns at a glance
| Game | Brand | Year | What it did | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| X-MASters | McDonald's | 2020 | Daily in-app mini-games to 23 December | 200,000 players (developer) |
| BK Village | Burger King | 2024 | Daily deals inside a holiday village | Not published |
| Data Piñata | 2degrees | 2025 | Piñata game with daily data prizes | 816,000 players (agency) |
| Snowball Effect | Coca-Cola | 2011 | Snowball fights fuelled by store visits | Coke sales at 7-Eleven up 20% |
| Bullseye's Playground | Target | 2014 | In-store code hunt for mobile games | Not published |
| Sneak King / PocketBike Racer / Big Bumpin' | Burger King | 2006 | Xbox games sold with value meals | 2.5 million copies in five weeks |
| Christmas Shopper Simulator | GAME | 2014 | Free shopping game built for streaming | Over 1 million downloads, 36 million YouTube views |
| Holiday Dash | Amazon | 2023 | Roblox mini-games built on a gift book | 7.7 million+ visits in three months (agency) |
| Game of Phones | T-Mobile | 2022 | Trivia hunt across a 3D headquarters | 400,000+ completions (T-Mobile) |
| Red One Hangar | Red One | 2024 | Holiday raid inside a Roblox hit | 163 million game visits (agency) |
When should a Christmas campaign launch?
The examples follow two calendars. Games people must discover start early: Burger King's Xbox titles went on sale on 19 November, Snowball Effect was announced on 8 November 2011 as a nine-week promotion (MediaPost), the Red One raid opened on 1 November and Data Piñata's 2024 season ran from 4 November 2024 to 19 January 2025 (2degrees). Games inside an app people already use start on 1 December and follow the calendar day by day, like X-MASters and BK Village.
So a new build should be tested by late October. If that is unrealistic, use a channel you already own and start on 1 December.
What made people come back and share?
- A reason to visit every day. X-MASters' daily game and prize, BK Village's daily mailbox deal and Data Piñata's one prize a day, with data that expires after 24 hours.
- Rewards tied to what the brand sells. Bigger snowballs from codes on Coke packs, BK Village's daily deals for Royal Perks members, data only 2degrees customers can claim.
- Sharing built into play. Snowballs hit friends, chaos is funnier on a stream, and Amazon's 2024 edition counted 491 million+ virtual gifts found and given to other players (The Gang).
- Distribution that already existed. A gift book, 6,400 stores, a loyalty app, a Roblox hit.
Where do advent calendars and scratch cards fit?
They are in the library too: quick to play, cheap to run and good at collecting opt-ins. Alka Insurance's quiz calendar drew 1.2 million+ registrations in December 2024 (Playable); Søstrene Grene's drew 263,239 registrations, 44,585 of them unique (Playable); Coop Denmark's daily scratch cards, slot machines and wheels of fortune logged 2.25 million plays over 24 days of December 2023 (Playable). All three figures come from Playable, which built them and sells the format. Alka's calendar is one of the insurer cases in our banking and fintech guide.
Choose by goal. For registrations and a daily habit, a calendar of quick games does the job. For longer play, put a deeper game behind each door, as X-MASters did, or open a new house each December morning, as Google's Santa Tracker did. Santa Tracker can still be played, like the rest of our still-playable collection.
When is a Christmas game the wrong tool?
- When it would launch late with no owned channel. Most of the games above had stores, a catalogue, an app or a host game to carry them.
- When the budget covers the build but not the season. These games need weeks of content, votes, prize stock and moderation.
- In regulated categories. For alcohol, gambling-style prizes or children's audiences, clear prize and platform rules with legal first.
FAQ
What are the best Christmas marketing campaigns built around games?
Strong examples with published results include Coca-Cola's Snowball Effect, whose One Show entry reports Coke sales at 7-Eleven up 20% in 2011; GAME's Christmas Shopper Simulator, credited with over 1 million downloads in its D&AD entry; and Amazon's Holiday Dash on Roblox, with more than 7.7 million visits in three months, according to the agency. Each had a ready route to players: 7-Eleven's stores, streams and YouTube, and Amazon's mailed gift book.
What are good Christmas promotion ideas beyond discounts?
Turn the offer into something players earn. 2degrees gave away mobile data through an AR piñata hunt instead of cutting prices; Burger King delivered its 31 Days of Deals through a village players visited daily; Target gave $1 to St. Jude for every game played, up to $1 million. The offer stays, but people act to get it. See more sales-driven games.
What makes a good Christmas social media campaign?
A reason to involve someone else. Coca-Cola's snowballs were thrown at Facebook friends, reaching an estimated 6.5 million of them. GAME's Christmas Shopper Simulator was made to look funny on a stream and earned 36 million YouTube views. In both, sharing was part of playing rather than a button added at the end.
How can a game work alongside a Christmas advert?
Use the advert as a way in. McDonald's Netherlands hid Super X-Medals for X-MASters in a TV spot, on posters and on tray liners, so every placement pointed to the app. A game can also stand in for paid reach: GAME launched its simulator with a Twitch stream instead of a bigger media buy.
For more seasonal ideas, browse the loyalty and in-game worlds collections or our Halloween campaigns, and send us any Christmas game we have missed.