Snackable Engagement
Revolutionising Consumer Engagement and loyalty with Kellanova’s Poptopia
Client
Kellonova (Pringles)
My role
Director of Experience
Output
Web-app
Deliverables
Strategy, Game concepting, UI, UX,
In partnership with Kellanova, we developed Poptopia: an expansive digital playground designed to redefine how consumers interact with Pringles across Europe. Seamlessly blending immersive experiences with advanced personalisation, Poptopia transforms every pack into a gateway to playful, rewarding engagement. A bold step forward in digital FMCG brand experience, driving loyalty, enriching consumer insight, and creating lasting emotional connections.
The Problem
A passive consumer experience in a competitive landscape
In a saturated snack market, Pringles faced a challenge: how to move beyond one-off purchases and build ongoing relationships with consumers. Traditional FMCG engagement was largely transactional, offering limited opportunities for interaction, insight, or brand-building.
Consumers wanted more than just flavour: they wanted fun, relevance, and recognition.
Pringles needed a way to:
Create continuous engagement beyond the point of sale.
Capture first-party data to better understand consumer preferences.
Deliver personalised experiences that resonate with their core audience: Social Explorers.
The solution
A gamified, data-driven destination
We created Poptopia, an always-on digital platform that:
Offers interactive content, competitions, and personalised experiences.
Uses QR codes on every pack to bridge physical and digital worlds.
Captures valuable first-party data through registrations and repeat interactions.
Built on a reusable Adobe-based Design System, Poptopia delivers:
Scalable personalisation across 39 European markets.
Real-time insights into consumer behaviour, flavour preferences, and location data.
A dynamic space that evolves with user input, driving targeted media, product innovation, and creative optimisation.
Impact and results
A new era of snackable engagement
Poptopia has redefined how consumers interact with Pringles, turning a moment of purchase into a gateway to ongoing value. By strategically harnessing first-party data and consumer insight the experience has:
Shifted the experience from transactional purchase to ongoing brand participation
Created repeatable, playful interactions that reward curiosity and return visits
Deepened engagement through personalised, gamified experiences
Established a scalable experience framework adaptable across markets and moments
Set a new benchmark for immersive digital experience within FMCG
Won a Bronze award from The Drum for digital engagement innovation
93%
Increase in return vists
133%
Increase in engagement duration
40%
Improvement in operational efficiency through design system reuse
39
European markets successfully launched
THE PROCESS
Discovery and Strategy
We began by exploring the emotional and behavioural drivers of Pringles’ core audience, Social Explorers, who seek novelty, playfulness, and connection. Understanding what motivates repeat engagement was key to designing an experience that would go beyond transactional interactions.
Key Objectives
Identify the drivers of repeat engagement
Define how gamification could support FMCG loyalty
Establish a data strategy that balances value exchange with privacy and trust
From these insights, we distilled four core principles to guide every aspect of the Poptopia experience. These principles became the benchmark for design decisions, ensuring the platform was consistently aligned with audience expectations:
Experience Playful – Make every interaction fun, surprising, and engaging
Remain Unexpected – Introduce novelty that keeps users curious and returning
Reward Loyalty – Recognise and incentivise repeat engagement through meaningful rewards
Champion Community – Foster shared experiences, collaboration, and social interaction
These principles provided a clear framework for translating strategy into experience, guiding the design, gamification, and content decisions that would define Poptopia.
Consumers were willing to share data.
but only when the experience felt fun, rewarding, transparent, and relevant. This shaped our approach to content, UX, and data capture.
Design and prototyping
With strategy in place, we moved into iterative design, exploring multiple concept versions, wireframes, and visual/technical approaches to ensure the platform was engaging, playful, and innovative—while remaining feasible to build and intuitive for users to navigate.
Design Highlights
Designed for mobile-first interaction, ensuring accessibility across devices
Produced wireframes and journey maps covering the full user experience: from sign-up and log-in to gameplay, winning and losing mechanics, ensuring smooth and engaging flows
Developed a modular Design System to support rapid localisation and easy content updates
Created gamified experiences tailored to seasonal campaigns and flavour launches
Refined multiple concept stages to balance novelty with simplicity, including variants to meet legal and cultural requirements across all markets
Insight-Driven Iteration
Leveraged data from previous standalone campaigns and ongoing user behaviour to guide design decisions
Iteratively adjusted experiences based on real user feedback and engagement trends
Ensured the platform evolved in ways that remained relevant, rewarding, and easy to navigate
ENGAGEMENT MECHANICS
Dynamic games, partnerships, and always-on participation
Poptopia has been designed to be a living digital world made up of themed “islands,” each delivering a different type of interaction and value. This modular structure allowed the platform to evolve continuously, introducing new challenges, partnerships, and moments that kept engagement high over time.
Gamified Experiences & Cultural Moments
We launched a rotating programme of games aligned to major cultural and sporting events, including football-inspired experiences timed to global tournaments such as the World Cup. These time-bound activations created urgency, drove repeat visits, and positioned Poptopia as a destination that evolves with what consumers care about.
Brand Partnerships & Premium Rewards
Strategic partnerships elevated both gameplay and reward value. A collaboration with Hasbro introduced a clue-solving game with the chance to win all-inclusive, themed holidays, while a Nintendo partnership offered highly aspirational prizes including a trip to Japan and Nintendo Switch game bundles. These experiences tapped into gaming and travel culture, driving strong participation and brand affinity.
Always-On Engagement
Alongside campaign-led moments, always-on islands encouraged habitual use. These included free-to-play games, UGC spaces, and dedicated feedback and survey areas, allowing users to play, create, and share while giving the brand direct access to consumer insight.
Insight-Led Evolution
User behaviour, performance data, and direct feedback informed how experiences evolved over time, ensuring the platform remained relevant, avoided fatigue, and consistently delivered meaningful, rewarding interactions.
By combining cultural moments, premium partnerships, and always-on engagement, Poptopia transformed occasional interaction into an ongoing relationship with the brand.
Development and Delivery
Working closely with Kellanova’s global teams, we delivered a platform that was secure, scalable, and deeply integrated with marketing and media ecosystems.
Technical Delivery:
Built on Adobe Experience Manager for content agility.
Integrated analytics for real-time performance tracking.
Enabled GDPR-compliant data capture and segmentation.
Operational Efficiency:
Achieved a 40% increase in efficiency through reusable components and streamlined workflows.
Supported 39 market launches, each tailored to local consumer behaviours and brand priorities.
Testimonial
“Through this collaboration, we've not only created an unparalleled experience for Pringles enthusiasts but also forged a unique opportunity for Pringles and Kellanova to enter a new space where they weren't present previously.”
Paul Humpries
Vice president of Consumer Experience at Kellanova
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