Earlier this year, Just$ave Foods engaged our Charlotte marketing agency to help them reinvent their in-store brand experience and make their aisles more fun to shop. Boy, did we ever.

We partnered with Martin Lindstrom, international branding consultant and author of Brandwashed and Buyology, to better connect with the average Just$ave shopper in a way that would authentically resonate with their (mostly) rural, hard-working, penny-pinching target psychographic. So after pushing our big brains to their strategic and creative limits, we designed and executed a more rewarding shopper experience based around a few principles of retail gamification.

Imagine a grocery store where, in addition to every day low prices, you can play crazy games and win stuff in every aisle. Where your kids get custom animal shopping carts that talk to them, where employees (trained by a Disney consultant) become game show hosts and actually have fun while working. Customers get to take a turn on the giant “Spin & Win” or discover the roving “Deals on Wheels” – a custom cart outfitted with LED lights and a real air-powered lottery ball hopper (driven here by our very own Landis Trainor).

From branded shwag to outdoor advertising to brand guidelines to a whole store environmental facelift, we activated the refreshed brand across all available touchpoints.

Early results are in. The new Just$ave experience has already launched in two test markets, and after just a few short weeks, same-store-sales are up in the double digits and counting.