Escape The Afterlife Train
View the case- Brand
- Fanta
- Year
- 2024
- Objective
- Product Launch
- Industry
- Food & Drink
- Mechanic
- Puzzle
- Platform
- App
- Agency
- UNIT9 For Ogilvy/Fanta
Objective
Fanta wanted to become Gen Z's Halloween drink the way Coca-Cola owns Christmas, and needed a hook big enough to launch Fanta Zero Afterlife and the wider Beetlejuice Beetlejuice-themed range. Riding the film's UK cinema release, the brand needed a reason for shoppers to scan the limited-edition cans and pull them into the Coca-Cola app during a Halloween season worth hundreds of millions to its bottler.
Solution
You scan a QR code from a Fanta can, an outdoor ad, a cinema screen or social post and land inside the Coca-Cola app on a 360° platform at a ghostly subway station, where you board the Afterlife Train. Swiping around each of its three carriages — the Deetz attic, a waiting room, a graveyard — you spot glowing hotspots woven into the looping video scene; tapping one plays a short clip and drops you into that carriage's puzzle, from tracing a drawing to hunting for hidden objects. Solving it earns gems and Beetle coins, which carry over into the Coca-Cola app to be redeemed for prizes. Finish all three carriages and you unlock the session's reward: an AR filter that transforms your face into Beetlejuice himself.
Results
7.9B campaign impressions, +54% sales of the Halloween limited-edition range, 4.2B PR reach, and 1.2B earned reach.
- 1
Players find a QR code on a limited-edition Fanta can, outdoor ad, cinema placement, or social post and scan it to launch the game, either inside the Coca-Cola app or on the standalone microsite fanta-beetlejuice.com.
- 2
The game opens on a 360-degree afterlife subway station; players pan the view by dragging a finger across the screen or turning the phone.
- 3
Players tap a Fanta vending machine in the station to receive a train ticket.
- 4
The ticket boards players onto the Afterlife Train, a sequence of three 3D carriages themed on scenes from the film (the Deetz attic, a waiting room, a graveyard); each carriage blocks passage to the next until its puzzle is solved.
- 5
Inside each carriage, players scan the panorama for interactive hotspots; tapping one plays a video that blends seamlessly into the scene and changes the surrounding environment.
- 6
Each carriage hides one minigame — drawing a door on screen by hand, hunting for hidden Fanta cans, and a third, undocumented challenge in the graveyard carriage — and clearing it lets the player escape into the next carriage while awarding Beetle coins based on performance (accuracy or speed).
- 7
The three carriages form three difficulty levels, each with a sub-level; players choose how hard a level to tackle, and higher difficulty pays out more Beetle coins.
- 8
Players spend the Beetle coins they've earned on prizes inside the Coca-Cola app.
- 9
Escaping the final carriage unlocks a closing reward: an AR filter that turns the player's own camera feed into Beetlejuice.
