In the last 30 years, half of all bees have disappeared. When we know that they are behind 84% of the food we find in supermarkets, there is an emergency for Carrefour to act.

As a world leader in food transition, it is our responsibility to make sustainable and healthy food accessible to all, which includes fresh fruit and vegetables that will disappear from shelves if bees continue to be endangered.

We have a duty to act on behalf of the younger generations, as they are the consumers of tomorrow. But how do you raise awareness and educate the new generation in a fun and interactive way?

It’s easier to change behavior when it is entertaining and iconic.

As the biggest food retailer and leader of the food transition, we launched “The Last Beehive”, an educational immersive gaming experience to save bees online and generate donations to save them IRL.

We created characters half-fruits/half-bees representing the fruits and vegetables that could disappear without the bees. Players needed to save them from real-life enemies : pesticides, parasites, hornets, heatwaves, etc.

Everytime a bee was saved in the game, a purchasable game asset was added in the Sandbox marketplace, then sold for the benefit of bees. Indeed, all the money collected has been donated to the Beefund of the Fondation de France which finances concrete actions for preserving bees.

Even though Fondation de France acts only in France, bees are endangered worldwide so we needed to raise global awareness.

Rather than use traditional medias to spread the word, we rely on a strategy driven by the usage of our audience:

● Launching a Discord server, to create a strong community and hype the project through mechanics such as ranking roles, sneak peek releases (teasing), rewards strategy (privileges), whitelisting (incentive for community growth that give exclusive access to contests and discussion channels).

● Using The Sandbox to reach highly-engaged audiences, already familiar with this environment.

● Teaming up with gaming KOLs to get both good exposure and trust.

Creating a play-to-learn experience to spread the word on Carrefour’s commitments and environmental implication, and a play-to-earn experience to give access to education in the most entertaining way for our target audience, sell out Game Asset and raise money for BeeFund.

The Last Beehive is a gaming experience created through a partnership between Carrefour, beekeepers and a gaming studio, merging their expertise to defend a world cause. It’s the first game dedicated to saving bees IRL, using game assets as an entry point for donors.

An experience launched through PR and social media :

May 22 : Discord launch to build a community and engage future gamers with 10 worldwide YouTubers.

Jan 2023 : Sandbox streamers engaged their community to complete quests and unlock exclusive assets, including 16 Bee characters.

Material

- The RPG is a stunning reinterpretation of a beehive. The avatar, dressed as a beekeeper, evolves in a gigantic hive from the POV of a bee, in 4 areas.

- 15 cute Bees with their own attributes and personality.

- 1 Bee co-created with the Discord community.

All made out of voxels: a unique modeling technique using colorful 3D pixels.

It was very successful:

● More than 3000 daily players from all over the world.

● 57 minutes average spent in the game

● 112K quests completed

By the end of the game, all the Game Assets were sold out and 100% of the money collected went to the BeeFund, which has now raised a total of 300K euros.

On social media, the gaming community has shared very positive feedback about this initiative and its impact in the real world:

“The idea of providing information on important issues by entertainment is perfect!”

“Great initiative for awareness”

“Great initiative that mixes innovation and ecology”

“I’ve never been so excited for a Sandbox event. I love bees!”

“Great idea, well executed!”

“Leading the way in innovation! Congrats, this gets better and better.”