Over the years, the digitalisation of things has rapidly changed the way we live, the way we consume things. Children are spending more time in digital spaces than ever before, using a range of mobile apps, social media platforms, connected devices, and online games from earlier ages. For half a century, Kinder has been delivering joy through its Kinder Surprise & Kinder Joy by creating light family bonding moments over its toy-assembly found in every chocolate egg. In 2020, Kinder embarked on its journey to digitally transform its toys aimed at providing safe & meaningful content and be part of family playtime.
Kinder Joy & Kinder Surprise have long been synonymous with joy, sparking delight in children with their chocolate eggs and hidden toys. Our mission? Transform these beloved products into a groundbreaking Phygital experience, merging the physical and digital worlds seamlessly. Our goal was to create engagement starting from our product through a global solution that’s both safe and meaningful, enhancing those precious family bonding moments. According to the University of Oxford, the criteria for digital content for kids are: Safe, Fun, & Qualitative Content (1) delivered through a bite-sized experience (2), and enjoyed within the family context (3).
Measurements:
Qualitative Content: Oxford’s Pedagogical Approach, Trusted-Platform Certifications, App Popularity, Top 50 Apps for Family Educational games genre. Bite-Sized Experience: Time-Spent & Usage over time. Meaningful for Families: Family-Friendly Surveys, # of Families engaged
To create engagement in a meaningful way, we needed to reinforce good behavior. Thus, our focus is on reinforcing family playtime, complimentary to our toy assembly found in every chocolate egg. Supported by recent studies emphasizing the family context in fostering meaningful play, Applaydu offers a balanced experience of Playing and Learning.
For children aged 4-7, play significantly contributes to learning: cognitive development, emotional well-being, social competence and creativity. However, In today’s world, kids are often exposed to passive, unsecure, non-educational content, to some extent it’s inevitable that their data is exposed and sometimes with a hidden cost. In fact, 97% of commercially available apps for kids (globally) claim to be educational. In a study to assess children’s educational apps found that most of the top-downloaded children’s educational apps scored low on educational values.
(Our) Creative Strategy: How can we make A LITTLE digital experience A LOT more meaningful?
Qualitative Content: Our app resonates deeply with parents who prioritize meaningful play. It offers a curated selection of games that enhance children’s cognitive abilities across various topics: Memory, Analysis, Multitasking, Organization, Reading & Writing Creative & Self-Expression, Travel, and more. Fundamental skills are nurtured when we empower children to better comprehend and understand with the world around them, fostering essential life skills along the way. Bite-Sized Engagement: Central to our approach is the belief in safe, positive, and constructive screen time experiences, each session thoughtfully designed to fit within 15 minutes. We’ve introduced a dedicated feature where parents can set time limits and monitor their child’s progress with weekly reports, ensuring a balanced and enriching digital interaction. Family Moment Enhancer: Our app is not merely a solo endeavor but a catalyst for family moments. By encouraging parent-child collaboration, it cultivates an interactive and playful environment that sparks meaningful conversations and bonding moments at home.
This key strategic criteria was answered by a partnership between Kinder, Gameloft and Oxford to create meaningful engagement. The approach was to tap on the buyers of our product to recruit users and deliver an experience that’s 50% fun and 50% learning moment from digital experience.
How It Works:
Developing Applaydu was a multi-year journey involving intensive technical development, consumer testing, and application of Oxford’s educational guidelines. Launched in 2019, the app has evolved through several seasons, continuously improving based on user feedback and data-driven insights. The journey’s early development required more than a year of technical development, repetitive consumer and quality tests with a thorough application of Oxford Educational Content Guidelines. 2019 - concept & technical development, 2020 and 2021 (season 1), 2022 - (season 2), 2023 (season 3), 2024 (season 4).
With a video game experience as Kinder toy’s new digital extension, we delivered social Impact to Families by extending playtime starting from the physical toy assembly and into a safe digital experience for families, therefore reinforcing positive behaviors of Family Playtime.
Applaydu delivered our 3 success criteria: (1) Safe & Qualitative Content: Applaydu commands a 4.4 stars rating in Google and Apple. The app is recognized with Coppa Certified Kid-Safe Seal, Educational App store Certified, and Teacher Approved on Google appstore. Applaydu stands out as a Top 50 Game in the Family Games Genre globally while emerging as a standout choice especially during the Easter period (2024) in Europe: #1 Italy, #2 France, #5 UK, #2 Germany. The app is tested across Oxford’s rigorous guidelines with 3 games already validated by Oxford’s Department of Education. Delivering a compelling, (2) Fun Bite-Sized Experience with 14.3 minutes average session, we engaged the intended experience to optimize kid’s safe digital usage under 15 minutes. (3) Enjoyed within the Family Context, Applaydu has over 22M new families playing Applaydu in 2024, and over 68M+ families playing Applaydu since 2021. Since it was launched, we've given a total of over 322M+ meaningful game sessions, and 113M+ game sessions coming from 2023-2024 alone.
In a comprehensive study encompassing 1600 participants, our internal research confirms that the app is seen as a safe app among moms. Embraced for its safety and celebrated for bringing families together, Applaydu is perceived to spark positive family moments during playtime.
