How the Isle of Wight Follies Treasure Hunt Saved the Seaside Café - It could be you!

Isle of Wight Follies
Aug 13
4 min read

For fifteen years, our little seaside café was part of the holiday tradition for many families. Cream teas, bacon sandwiches, the sound of the sea just across the road, it was idyllic. We never made a fortune, but we made a living, and we loved it.

How the Isle of Wight Treasure Hunt Saved the Seaside Café

Then, last summer, everything changed. Two new cafés opened within 200 yards. Both were slick, modern, and well-backed. Suddenly, we were just another option on the strip, and not the new one.

“Some days I’d look out and see people heading in there, while we sat empty.”

We panicked. We boosted Facebook posts, £50 here, £100 there, showing our cakes and specials. People “liked” the posts, but they didn’t come through the door. We took out ads in the Isle of Wight County Press, bought a couple of weeks of radio time, signed up to local business directories, and even tried leaflet drops. The cost was frightening, and our takings kept dipping.

“We once spent £300 on a boosted post… it got likes, but no new customers walked through the door.”

By the end of the season, our marketing spend was in the thousands, and our profits were barely there. We started having the conversation no business owner wants: “Can we even keep going next year?”

“Why keep throwing money at ads that people scroll past or ignore? £500 this year so far!”

That’s when we heard about the Isle of Wight Follies.

The “Game” That Guides People to Your Door

We’d seen people walking around with little passports, scanning QR codes, and talking about mythical creatures. We didn’t think much of it until we realised those people weren’t just wandering aimlessly, the game was sending them directly to local businesses.

Here’s how it works:

The Player Gets the Passport: Visitors and locals buy or are given an Isle of Wight Follies Passport. Inside are challenges, locations, and spaces for collectable cards.
Your Business Becomes a Destination: As a Follies partner, your business is added to the game as a stop. Players are guided right to your location, either through the app or the printed passport.
The Incentive to Spend: Players can only collect their unique card if they make a purchase. It doesn’t have to be big, a coffee, a sandwich, or a gift, but it gets them buying.
Ongoing Footfall: Because they’re chasing all the mythical creatures and locations, players keep moving around the island, and keep coming back to you with friends and family.

What We Gained

When we checked the price, we saw it was half the price of our last boosted post at £150, for a full year!

In the first month alone, we made that back, and then some, just from new customers who’d never visited before. We also sold ten passports, which were provided to us at no cost; they earned us about £70, meaning in reality, the plan effectively came down to £80 (for a year), as the passports were provided to us at no cost.

“We weren’t just a café anymore, we were part of the island’s adventure.”

The Isle of Wight Follies partnership has a lot more going on than we expected. First, there’s the Isle of Wight Passport itself, the central hook of the game. We not only have them here for customers to use, but we can even sell them to tourists, giving us a bit more revenue in the process. It’s amazing how many visitors want one the moment they see it.

“I didn’t think we’d make money selling the passports, but we’ve sold ten of them, every little helps.”

Then there are the collectable cards. Each partner business gets its own, and they’re supplied to us completely free of charge. Players can only get our unique card by buying something from us, which instantly encourages extra spending. The reactions are priceless; adults and kids alike light up when they get their card, and more often than not, they buy more to complete their collection.

“One customer posted a picture of our latte art next to their card, it got 200 likes and three of their friends visited the next day.”

The marketing doesn’t stop at the door. The Follies team shares and creates social media posts, including “creature sighting” videos filmed at our location and edited by Follies themselves. These go out on their channels and ours, driving more curiosity, more footfall, and more reasons for people to come and see what the fuss is about.

We also proudly display the Follies Seal of Participation on an A-board outside and in our window. You’d be amazed how often people stop, point, and ask, “What’s this all about then?” And while they’re asking… they’re also ordering a latte.

“The seal is like a badge of adventure, people see it and walk in.”

One of the biggest advantages? Exclusivity. Follies has a policy of selective business partnerships, which means the café over the road and the one 200 yards away can’t get the same service as we have it. If you’re in, your competitors are out! All Follies players come to us.

And this isn’t some faceless national scheme. Follies is built by and for Isle of Wight businesses. Their focus is on helping local independents thrive, not the big chains that happen to have a branch here. That matters to us because it feels like our marketing partner actually cares about keeping money in the island economy.