How to Use a Digital Advent Calendar

Posted by Alistair on 04.04.2023

Digital Advent Calendar How-To Guide Feature

The digital advent calendar is a wonderful festive addition to any of our ready-to-go Christmas games. When purchasing a Christmas game, you’ll see that there’s the option to select ‘Calendar’ under ‘Optional Extras’ on the product page.

Here we’ll dive into what the calendar is, how it works, and how you can use it for your own campaign this Christmas.

If you’re wanting more customisation options for your branded game and advent calendar, get in touch and we’ll be happy to discuss it with you!

What is the digital advent calendar?

The digital advent calendar is a landing page with doors that open to reveal images and short descriptions (usually prizes that you’re giving away as part of your branded game competition).

The top of the page features your company logo, the game logo, and a section of copy, with the doors then linking out to your game.

Future doors are ‘locked’ until the date they’re due to open, with any previously opened doors greyed out to show that they’re in the past.

Furthermore, the leaderboard in your game will automatically reset to reflect the time periods assigned to the calendar doors. In the example below, the game leaderboard would reset every day as people keep coming back to win the next day’s prize.

You can view a demo version of the advent calendar, which links out to a demo version of a Christmas game to show how it all works.

What can I use it for?

The combination of a branded game and digital advent calendar offers up an interactive dream team to help you deliver on your marketing objectives. Popular use cases include:

Increasing brand engagement during a busy period of consumer spending
Counting down to a product launch or special offer
Celebrating a major event (such as a football World Cup)
Generating leads through entries to the game leaderboard
Engaging a corporate or B2B audience (either internal staff and/or business partners)
Simply providing people with a little fun ahead of Christmas!

How many doors are there?

You can have as many or as few doors as you like, with each door opening once. Here are a few examples of campaign length and door frequency:

12-day calendar with daily doors (a popular option for shorter campaigns)
24-day calendar with daily doors (allowing you to count down to Christmas)
1-week calendar with doors available up to certain times each day
1-month calendar with doors opening on selected days only
2-month calendar with doors opening each week

For most clients and campaigns, we’d usually recommend daily doors with daily prizes to keep your audience engaged and coming back for more!

Setting up the digital advent calendar (Budget / Essential / Standard)

With the Budget, Essential, or Standard package, you’ll be setting up the advent calendar in the game editor. You’ll need to add your company logo, campaign messaging, and custom prize images, which will require some basic graphic design skills (or you can simply use the default prize images).

This may sound daunting at first, but fear not – it’s really quite straightforward!

(If you would like support with the setup process, jump to the section on Premium packages).

Step 1: Browse our range of Christmas games and choose the one that’s best for your audience and campaign. If you need some help choosing a game, get in touch and we’ll be happy to advise!

When purchasing the game, select the ‘Calendar’ option on the product page.

Step 2: You’ll receive the login details to your game editor, where you’ll be able to edit various aspects of the game and calendar landing page.

Under the ‘Calendar Page’ tab, you can edit basic details such as the calendar heading, unlock time, and call to action.

Step 3: If you scroll down the calendar editor page, you’ll see a section where you can add your calendar doors. Here you can add information such as the description and opening date.

In the ‘Remain Open’ field, you can choose how long that particular door should remain open.

In most cases, you can simply leave this as ‘Until the next door opens’.

Step 4: Just below the previous fields, you’ll have the option to upload custom prize images (‘Current Door Image’) and their greyed-out counterparts (‘Expired Door Image’).

These images should be a PNG with a transparent background (272 px x 216 px), and you will normally want to ask your designer to put these together based on the template images in the asset download folder.

If you don’t want to add custom prize images, the calendar page will simply show default images.

You can also choose where the door goes to – in most cases you’ll just want to leave this as your game.

Step 5: Once you’ve completed the information for a door, you can continue adding as many as you like by selecting ‘Add Calendar Door’.

You can save your progress as you go using the ‘Save’ button at the top of the screen (or with Ctrl + S).

You can also view your edits to the calendar page at any point by clicking on ‘View Calendar’.

Step 6: Once you’ve completed all of the fields in the editor, test everything to make sure it’s working as expected.

By clicking on ‘View Calendar’, you’ll be able to then click on the number field of a door to see what it will look like on that particular day. Anything in the past will show a greyed-out image and future doors will be locked.

You can click through all of your doors to make sure everything is working as expected.

Step 7: Don’t forget about your Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy pages – they’re not the most exciting to fill out but they’re important! If there’s any information missing in the editor, you’ll be prompted to complete this before launching.

Step 8: You’re ready to hit ‘Launch’ and share the game and calendar with your audience!

If you have any questions or would like to learn more about setting up the digital advent calendar, simply get in touch at hello@peekandpoke.com and we’ll be happy to help.

Setting up the digital advent calendar (Premium)

The Premium package is our ‘white glove’ option, where we’ll be taking care of everything for you. This includes:

Dedicated account manager
Initial briefing call to discuss your campaign and prize structure
Custom game logo, social share image, and prize images
Custom calendar landing page with custom title graphic and social share asset
Custom domain name (e.g. www.yourbrandadventgame.com)
Copy for the game and landing page written by us

We’ll keep you up to date with progress throughout the project, with plenty of opportunities to review and test. Once you’ve tested and approved your game and advent calendar, you’re ready to share with your audience!

Get in touch at hello@peekandpoke.com if you have any questions or would like more information.

FAQ

How much does the calendar cost?

The digital calendar is an optional add-on available for £300 with any of our ready-to-go Christmas games.

With the Premium package option, we’ll be taking care of all the design and setup for you. If you’d like to learn more about prices for customised games and advent calendars, get in touch and we’ll be happy to provide you with a quote.

Is the calendar available for all games?

No. The calendar is currently only available with our Christmas-themed games. If you’d really like to use the calendar with one of our other games, get in touch and we can discuss your ideas.

Can I use the calendar with multiple Christmas games?

Yes! We offer the option to combine the calendar with up to five (!) different Christmas games. You can then choose which game is made available each day or week and the calendar will cycle through them to keep things fresh for your audience.

If you’d like to find out more about this product, get in touch and we’ll be happy to chat.

Can I combine the calendar with event mode?

No. Event mode has been designed for when our games are used at trade shows, exhibitions, or other types of event. They are typically played on the same device or a small number of devices (touchscreens, arcade cabs etc.) and are intended for quick, instant gameplay.

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