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Everyone can win with *MY Drakes*

The Kick OFF

Drakes Supermarkets is the largest independent grocery retailer in Australia. They operate on the principles of a family business and are passionate about supporting local manufacturers and suppliers. Drakes Supermarkets has kept its focus on the important aspects of the business: the customers.

Drakes just wants the shopping experience to be the best it can be. With this in mind, Digital Noir joined them to help create an exciting new digital product!

The Research

After extensive research with focus groups and surveys, we realised that the majority of people weren’t really sure why they are using services like Fly Buys when they make purchases. We wanted to bring a service to Drakes customers that was truly beneficial, something that actually gives value back and, importantly, something that was fun to use.

During initial workshops, swirling brainstorming sessions occurred. The decision was made to introduce a mobile app for Drakes customers. An app that people can use to play and earn discounts on their purchases, track purchases digitally, store fuel vouchers conveniently and much more.

With a varied group of target demographics, we wanted the experience to be really easy and guided given the technological constraints. We needed a guide. We created Drakes’ new digital mascot: D-Rake!

D-Rake is a fun, friendly and helpful South Aussie duck. He is here to guide you. Beginning with rough concepts, he started to materialise surprisingly quickly…like he was eager to come to life! We chucked the classic Drakes attire on him and the rest is history.

A Guided Experience

We really want the digital experience to be guided, and now with the help D-Rake we could do just that. He’s with the user every step of the way from onboarding, giving useful tips or just being overly charming and humorous when need be.

App feautures

The goal was to provide value. We did this by creating a fun game customers could quickly play during checkout at any store with a simple scan, on a win they would receive a discount on their purchase!

We experimented and prototyped many different game types. We weighed up and tested games that needed more interactions, games with quicker one tap plays and fun win/loss scenarios.

Who wants a bunch of paper receipts in their cars? We introduced digitally stored purchase receipts and fuel vouchers. Customers will also automatically enter competitions to win free stuff if they buy certain items, how cool is that?!

The Merch and Materials

To tie everything together, we also created the physical marketing materials and some awesome D-Rake merch to go with it. We made a slick website landing page where D-Rake can tell you about the app in his own little way.

Development & Testing

We worked closely with Drakes and 2 other vendors to create a mobile app that allows users to link their purchases at checkout to their account. This required connections between the mobile app, the mobile backend, the Point of Sales system and the Drakes system.

We added additional features to the app over time including push notifications, coupons, surveys and more.

Drakes pivoted a few times at the start of sprints based on their priorities and how their distribution timeline was working. We worked on a future version at the same time as the intended live version, so that we could fast track the distribution cycle and get new features to their customers quicker.

We conducted testing in-store to make sure all of the systems correctly connected without any issues. This identified edge cases in many of the systems that had to be fixed before the app could be launched to the public.

Wrapping Up

We found working with Drakes a really rewarding experience. They gave us the freedom to flex our creativity and use our knowledge and experience to create a product that we are really proud of and we think will bring a huge amount of value to Drakes’ loyal customers. 

…we also gained a lot of knowledge into the psyche of toilet paper hoarding and how retailers deal with it.