Fanta Western Europe,
Halloween 2019, ‘Too Dark?’
This is the third of our annual campaigns to drive the association between Fanta and the Halloween occasion.
Each year took a similar overarching tactical approach…
- …meet the audience on their preferred platforms (namely Snapchat + Instagram)
- …engage them with transgressive ideas based around Halloween
- …give them the tools to create and share unique content that they could personalise
- …and model that behaviour via influencers.
This time, we
had an additional challenge of a product launch - ‘Fanta Dark Orange’: same orange flavoured Fanta but in the form of a strange, black liquid.
This product needed to be central to the campaign idea but the campaign needed to also work without it (because some markets weren’t releasing the Dark Orange flavour but still needed a campaign toolkit).
Our provocative idea, Too Dark?, pushed at the edges of what was acceptable in soft drink marketing.
This time, the Snapchat lenses were intentionally macabre, working closely with Snapchat to push the boundaries of what was possible at the time. We really encouraged the Snapchat team to help us achieve something special beyond their usual branded lenses so we could offer real value off-pack and engage an audience who have otherwise seen it all before.
The user was presented with a candle... blow it out to bring on the darkness, triggering an experience that was both disconcerting and technologically innovative:
The Face Peel took your own face and peeled it like an orange to reveal something gruesome inside.
The Demon stepped out of the darkness and replaced your face with something from a nightmare using 3D mapping and depth-tracking light effects.
The Smoky Ghost appeared in the vapor from the extinguished candle wick, with a bespoke smoke-face effect.
There was also an AR marker lens, unlocking the creature on pack to crawl around in front of you (featured in video at the bottom of the page). All of these were technological “firsts” for Snapchat.
We shot a series of promotional ads, which I directed, for social media (Snapchat and Instagram) that heroed each lens.
More promotional ads for social, which I also directed, amplified the core creative idea of the campaign. Had we gone too far this time?
The campaign was a successful end to the trilogy of Halloween campaigns. Across Western Europe, at the end of this 3-year program, Fanta had established a 9% uplift in year-on-year sales over the Sept/Oct/Nov period. We’d also accounted for 17 years of cumalative Snapchat lens usage, but that’s way too scary to think about.
Watch this video for more information on the 3 year Fanta Halloween project.
Credits
Agency: Movement
Creative Direction & Strategy: Mark Freeman
Experience Director: Tim Ash
Creatives: Mike Stone, Tom Shelton, Lewis Peat
Too Dark Videographer: Neal Parsons
Post Production: Flock London
Snapchat Lens Development: Snap Inc.