How Gamification Boosted Tamimi's Themari Loyalty Program From Points To Play

Introducing Tamimi Markets

Tamimi Markets is one of Saudi Arabia’s most iconic grocery chains, founded in 1979 as the Kingdom’s first modern supermarket through a partnership with Safeway. Today, the brand operates over 100 stores from coast to coast, serving millions of Saudi and expatriate shoppers with an extensive range of local and international products. In 2023, the Public Investment Fund (PIF) acquired a 30% stake in Tamimi Markets, recognizing the brand as a national champion poised for accelerated regional growth.
As part of its digital transformation, Tamimi Markets launched the Themari loyalty app—a mobile-first rewards platform that allows customers to earn and redeem points across purchases. But Tamimi’s ambitions went beyond basic point accumulation. They wanted to create memorable, culturally-resonant experiences that would drive habitual engagement and strengthen emotional brand loyalty.

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Challenges

Despite having a growing digital loyalty base through the Themari app, Tamimi Markets faced a familiar challenge for large retailers: most customers engaged passively—earning and occasionally redeeming points—but rarely interacted with the brand beyond the checkout counter. Seasonal moments like Saudi National Day and Ramadan presented enormous potential for deeper engagement, but the existing loyalty infrastructure wasn’t designed for interactive, time-bound campaign experiences.

Tamimi’s marketing team, identified several critical gaps. First, they needed a way to drive daily active engagement within the app rather than sporadic visits. Second, they wanted to blend physical in-store experiences with digital rewards to create omnichannel moments. Third, the technical integration timeline was a major concern—they needed to launch their first campaign in weeks, not months, and their own app wasn’t fully ready for gamification at the outset.

Additionally, Tamimi saw an opportunity to bring in brand sponsors like Almarai to co-fund campaigns, but this required a flexible platform that could accommodate custom rules, branded game assets, and sponsor-specific reward structures without heavy custom development.

• ‍Speed to Market & Technical Limitations: Tamimi’s primary initial concern was the technical integration timeline. With major events like the Saudi National Day deadline approaching and their own mobile application not ready to integrate with, they needed assurance that engaging campaigns could be launched quickly without causing delays or requiring heavy IT resources.‍
• Sustaining Engagement Year-Round: Beyond a single successful event, the challenge was to maintain customer interest consistently throughout the year across varied seasonal themes, avoiding engagement fatigue.‍
• Connecting Digital to Physical: The partner required a flexible solution that could launch digitally (web or app) while maintaining a strong connection to the physical store experience to drive footfall.

The partnership hinged on Gameball's ability to provide a flexible solution that could be launched rapidly while maintaining a connection between the digital reward and the physical store experience.

Solution

Gameball became Tamimi Markets’ gamification partner, starting with a rapid deployment for the Saudi National Day 2024 campaign. Because Tamimi’s own app wasn’t ready for the first activation, Gameball’s team built a dedicated web-based Spin-the-Wheel experience from scratch—a branded landing page connected directly to Tamimi’s existing Themari loyalty program. Customers could scan QR codes in-store, verify their phone number, spin the wheel, and have rewards deposited directly into their loyalty wallet via SMS.

This initial campaign proved the model: a combination of physical in-store signage, influencer promotion on social media, WhatsApp distribution, and digital rewards created a seamless online-to-offline loop that drove significant foot traffic and app engagement.

Building on that success, the partnership expanded rapidly across overtwo years so far with nearly campaign every month, with the following gamification tactics:

• Rapid Deployment Acquisition Games
  
  • To capture high-traffic moments like Saudi National Day, we built a "Spin-the-Wheel" web experience linked directly to Tamimi’s existing loyalty program. This allowed for instant deployment without complex app updates, bridging the gap between in-store footfall and digital sign-ups via simple QR codes.

• Recurring  Seasonal Challenges:‍
  
  • Focused on daily active usage (DAU) and habit formation. We utilized the "Smart Quiz" engine for extended campaigns like "Back to School" and "Ramadan Daily Trivia."
    
    • Mechanics included daily questions, timed answers, and competitive leaderboards.
    • High-value incentives (e.g., "Top 10 win iPads") drove consistent daily logins for 30+ days.
    • This transformed passive buyers into daily active users by gamifying their knowledge of the brand or season.

• Monetizable (Online-to-Offline) Ad Inventory for ProductDiscovery,
  
  • We turned the gamification platform into a digital media asset. Campaigns like "Catch & Collect" and the sponsored "Smart Quiz" (featuring brands like Puck and Almarai) allowed Tamimi to sell "digital ad inventory" to their suppliers sponsoring the prizes (e.g., iPads, products) in exchange for deep engagement, effectively subsidizing the loyalty program costs.

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Key Features Implemented

• ‍Spin-the-Wheel: Web-based game with phone verification, reward probabilities, and direct loyalty wallet deposit via SMS.‍
• Daily Quiz (Fawazer Themari): 30-day Ramadan trivia with leaderboard, daily point rewards, and weekly SAR 1,000 cash prizes for top players.‍
• Catch & Collect Game: Timed in-app challenge where shoppers collect branded product icons for instant rewards. Used for Almarai co-sponsored Saudi National Day campaign.‍
• Omnichannel Activation: QR codes in-store, influencer reels on Instagram, Telegram community engagement, WhatsApp distribution, and social media promotion.‍
• Sponsor Integration: Custom game assets, branded rewards, and flexible probability/capping rules to support co-funded campaigns with brands like Almarai.‍
• Loyalty Wallet Integration: Seamless connection to Themari points system so all campaign rewards flow directly into the customer’s existing loyalty balance.

The Result

Beyond the numbers, the campaigns delivered meaningful qualitative impact. The Ramadan trivia created a daily ritual for Themari users—the leaderboard competition and Friday bonus points drove habitual app opens that extended well beyond the campaign window. The Almarai-sponsored Saudi National Day activation demonstrated a repeatable model for brand-funded gamification, where Tamimi could generate engagement while offsetting campaign costs through sponsor partnerships.

The in-store QR code activations during the 45th Anniversary and Saudi National Day campaigns bridged the digital-physical divide, turning routine grocery trips into interactive brand moments. Instagram influencers and Telegram community channels amplified the campaigns organically, with users sharing leaderboard positions and trivia results with their networks.

Why it worked

The Tamimi campaign succeeded because it uniquely bridged the gap between their digital and physical presence across varied touchpoints:

• Instant Time-to-Market: By using a dedicated webpage at first, then using SDK mobile app integration, Gameball delivered the campaign instantly, allowing Tamimi to hit their critical national holiday deadline, which was a core pain point.
• The Hybrid Reward Loop: The mix of physical and digital rewards created a compelling loop. Winning a digital reward (via the webpage) immediately gave the customer a powerful reason to visit the physical store to claim their prize, directly driving foot traffic and sales.
• Variety Drives Retention: By offering a variety of game mechanics suited to different seasons, from the instant gratification of Spin & Win to the skilled-based, daily habit of the Ramadan Quiz, the experience remained fresh, keeping customers coming back repeatedly throughout the year.

Key Takeaway

Tamimi Markets’ journey with Gameball illustrates a powerful principle for retail brands: loyalty isn’t built through points alone—it’s built through moments. By layering gamification on top of their existing Themari loyalty infrastructure, Tamimi transformed passive point collectors into active daily participants who looked forward to engaging with the brand.

The phased approach—starting with a single rapid-deployment web campaign and scaling to in-app games, sponsor integrations, and community-driven competitions—offers a practical blueprint for any retailer looking to evolve from transactional loyalty to experiential engagement. The Almarai co-sponsored campaign further demonstrated that gamification can become a revenue-generating channel, not just a cost center, by attracting brand partners willing to fund interactive customer experiences.

For brands operating at scale in competitive retail markets, the lesson is clear: culturally-relevant, time-bound gamification campaigns—especially those tied to national celebrations and seasonal moments—can unlock engagement rates that traditional loyalty mechanics simply cannot match.