The Amazing Journey Contest
Visit the site- Brand
- Mentos
- Year
- 2015
- Objective
- Engagement
- Industry
- Food & Drink
- Mechanic
- Puzzle
- Platform
- Web
- Agency
- Cossette
Objective
Mentos was losing ground in Canada: strong brand awareness wasn't translating into shelf presence against rivals like Tic Tac, Ice Breakers and Excel, and sales were slipping despite a media budget well below the competition's. Sponsoring The Amazing Race Canada put Mentos in front of the show's core 18-34 viewership, but the brand needed the tie-in to do more than run during ad breaks — it needed an online extension that kept 18-25-year-olds coming back between episodes and turned broadcast reach into measurable sales and recall.
Solution
Players sign in with Facebook Connect and pick one of five real-world stops — Paris, Japan, Australia's Great Barrier Reef, Buenos Aires or Vancouver — which drops them into a 360-degree Google Street View panorama dressed up with Mentos packaging. From there they pan and scroll the scene hunting for hidden packs of gum, about 20 per location, with hints, bonus "fresh passes" and hidden easter eggs to help along the way. Spotting a pack pops a trivia question about the destination's culture or geography; answering correctly banks the find. Only three packs can be claimed per day, so players return on consecutive days to clear each location, building up entries toward one of three real "amazing journey" trips worth $25,000 in total.
Results
The site drew 412,168 visits and 141,794 unique participants, averaging 5 minutes 4 seconds per visit; 65% of visitors returned to the microsite, and 1,792 players completed the game outright. In the month after the show finished airing, sales rose 31% for Mentos gum, 23% for Mentos NowMints and 8% for Mentos rolls. Among viewers, 54% recalled the Mentos challenge (93% of them liked it, 47% aware it was a sponsorship), and aided recall of Mentos as sponsor reached 31%. The prior year's wave of the same contest drew 492,991 visits, 169,758 unique participants and 415,919 completed games, with Facebook engagement up 476%.
- 1
Players arrive at amazingcontest.ca after seeing it on TV, on a banner ad, or via a promo code printed on Mentos gum rolls and multipacks; a full-screen, branded landing page invites them to begin the "amazing journey."
- 2
To play, they log in with Facebook Connect, which links their account to the game and carries their progress and finds forward from one visit to the next.
- 3
Players choose one of five real-world destinations — Paris, Japan, the Great Barrier Reef, Buenos Aires, or Vancouver — and the choice sets both the panorama they explore and the topic of the questions they'll face.
- 4
The chosen destination opens as a 360-degree Google Street View panorama that players rotate and examine in any direction, running full-screen in the browser on desktop and on iOS/Android with no install required.
- 5
The core task is spotting packs of Mentos gum hidden in the scenery — roughly 20 per location — found only by turning the panorama and studying its details; each found pack triggers a culture or geography question about the place, and only a correct answer adds it to the player's collection.
- 6
Players unsure of an answer can click on Mentos for a hint, delivered alongside the questions in a joking tone; the hunt also turns up bonus "fresh passes" and other hidden extras along the way.
- 7
Each day players can add at most three packs to their collection, a cap that ends the daily session and turns the contest into a recurring ritual — 65% of visitors returned for another attempt on a later day.
- 8
The payoff is entry into a prize draw for three grand prizes: a real "amazing journey" trip to a destination of the winner's choosing, together worth $25,000.
- 9
Today the game is unplayable: visiting the site redirects to a stub page announcing the contest is closed and inviting visitors to check back for a future one.
