Virgin America - Kringle Vision

Virgin America - Kringle Vision

For a little “gamified” social media fun this Holiday Season, Virgin America ran a campaign called Kringle Vision.

Open to consumers in the United States, the Kringle Vision campaign was announced on December 8th with a short video on the Virgin America’s Facebook page and a funny animated GIF posted to Twitter. The 15-second video and partner GIF depicted various well-known figures (i.e. Abraham Lincoln, Mona Lisa, the Queen of England Airline’s own celebrity founder Sir Richard Branson) wearing ‘Kringle Vision’ glasses.

The initial and subsequent posts (which include Instagram) encouraged people to visit the campaign microsite , where they could order their own set of special glasses, enabling them to unearth secret images hidden within Holiday-themed pictures.

Every day from December 17th until December 25th, Virgin America uploaded a new coded image across its social media channels. To the naked eye, the red-tinted images look like simple festive pictures of things like a nutcracker, Santa Claus riding a white horse , and a reindeer in the snow. For people with Kringle Vision glasses though, other images (like Virgin planes taking off, and a lady on water skis with a bag Christmas gifts) appeared.

Gamification is an increasingly popular tactic being used in marketing campaigns across a variety of industries. Gamification techniques work by leveraging our natural desire to socialize, compete, learn, achieve status and express ourselves.

In a previous gamification effort (2013) Virgin America ran the “Go Big” Bingo promotion, encouraging those in the Elevate frequent flyer program to play bingo over in-flight Wi-Fi.