Brisksaber
- Brand
- Star Wars
- Year
- 2012
- Objective
- Engagement
- Industry
- Entertainment
- Mechanic
- Arcade & Action
- Platform
- App
- Agency
- Mekanism
Objective
Lipton Brisk (PepsiCo) needed to turn national buzz around Lucasfilm's 3D re-release of Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace into a reason for millennial gamers to actually buy the drink. Unlockable content in the app was gated behind codes hidden under specially marked bottle caps, tying every download to a purchase and channeling TV, print, and in-store media into engagement with the Brisk brand. The goal was to grow app installs, social buzz, and the Brisk Facebook community while lifting sales of Brisk iced tea.
Solution
Players download Brisksaber for free from UncaptheApp.com or the app stores, pick a side of the Force — light or dark — and choose a mode: one-minute Time Trial or three-life Survival. From there, a finger on the screen becomes a lightsaber: Star Wars characters and objects fly up from the bottom of the screen, and the player slashes them with swipes, chaining several in one stroke for a combo. Some targets, like R2-D2, are off-limits — hitting one costs a life in Survival or points in Time Trial — and boss fights against Darth Maul and Mace Windu raise the difficulty. A run ends when the clock runs out or the lives are spent, and the final score can be posted to a Facebook or Twitter leaderboard. New characters and lightsabers stay locked until the player enters codes printed under specially marked Brisk bottle caps, so the roster fills out gradually as more bottles are opened nationwide.
Results
More than 300,000 app installs; the app ranked No. 3 among top new free apps in the Arcade and Action categories on Android Marketplace and No. 13 in Apple's Gaming Arcade category. The campaign drove over 83,000 social media mentions and coincided with Brisk's Facebook page passing one million likes.
- 1
Players find a code under the cap of a specially marked Brisk bottle along with a call to visit UncaptheApp.com, where they download the free Brisksaber app for iOS or Android.
- 2
From the start screen, players tap Play, choose a side of the Force — light or dark, which sets the character roster and look — pick a mode (Time Trial: score as much as possible in one minute, or Survival: three lives), and select a lightsaber from those unlocked; the saber choice is cosmetic only.
- 3
The player's finger becomes a glowing lightsaber blade on screen; Star Wars characters and objects — battle droids, Jar Jar Binks, Jabba the Hutt, Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader — fly up from the bottom of the screen and are cut down with swipes, and slicing several in one stroke chains into a combo worth extra points.
- 4
Friendly characters such as R2-D2 fly in among the targets; hitting one costs a life in Survival or points in Time Trial, and in Survival a missed enemy also costs a life.
- 5
At certain points in a run, boss characters — Darth Maul and Mace Windu — appear as tougher encounters.
- 6
Rounds play out to official Star Wars music and sound effects, with Brisk branding appearing in the game's presentation.
- 7
After a round ends, players see their score and can post it to Facebook or Twitter, where it lands on a leaderboard for comparison with other players.
- 8
Players redeem codes from under the caps of specially marked liter bottles of Brisk to unlock additional characters and lightsabers, with new content also being unlocked collectively as codes are redeemed by players nationwide.
