Snowball Effect
- Brand
- Coca-Cola
- Year
- 2011
- Objective
- Awareness
- Industry
- Food & Drink
- Mechanic
- Arcade & Action
- Platform
- App
- Agency
- Ted Perez And Associates
Objective
Coca-Cola needed to lift soda sales through the slow fall-winter season and get young adults (18-34) actively involved in its Arctic Home program with WWF, not just aware of it. Teaming with 7-Eleven, the push also had to drive extra visits to 6,400 US stores, grow the size and frequency of purchases, and turn a charitable message into something a shopper actually did at the register.
Solution
Players download the free Snowball Effect app, link Facebook, and pick a friend to hit with a virtual snowball — the throw doubles as a challenge that tells the friend about Arctic Home. Growing a bigger snowball, and climbing that week's leaderboard, means restocking ammo offline: checking in at a 7-Eleven or entering a code peeled off a Coca-Cola pack, a Slurpee cup, or a Big Gulp cup. Cups and in-store signage carry a QR code straight to the download, so a session can start right at the counter. The points a player racks up enter them into weekly iPad drawings and a shot at the grand prize, a trip to the Arctic, while codes entered on ArcticHome.com separately trigger a $1 donation that Coca-Cola matches.
Results
Snowball Effect lifted Coke sales at 7-Eleven by 20%. Over nine weeks the app logged more than 50,000 snowball fights reaching an estimated 6.5 million Facebook friends, with about 99% activation across 7-Eleven's retail locations — which Coca-Cola called its most successful partnership with the chain. The push also helped raise $700,000 for Arctic Home, backed by an estimated 6.8 million impressions from outdoor advertising.
- 1
The player encounters campaign signage and a QR code on Slurpee/Big Gulp cups, Coca-Cola packaging, and in-store displays at 7-Eleven, and downloads the free app by scanning the code, from the App Store, or from ArcticHome.com/7-Eleven; players without an iPhone are redirected to a campaign video instead.
- 2
On first launch the app requires signing in with Facebook, which is mandatory to play and supplies the player's list of friends as opponents.
- 3
The player also joins 7-Eleven's Slurpee Rewards program, which is required to redeem product codes and qualify for prizes.
- 4
The core loop is a snowball fight: the player picks a Facebook friend and throws a virtual snowball to challenge them, triggering a notification that also introduces the friend to the Arctic Home cause; in the resulting battle the player throws snowballs to score points, which grows their own snowball and better defends a polar bear's den within the game, and the player likewise receives, accepts, and plays return challenges from friends and other app users.
- 5
Players earn additional points by peeling a sticker off promotional Coca-Cola packaging or a Slurpee/Big Gulp cup and entering the code printed underneath into the app.
- 6
Players also earn points by checking in at any of the roughly 6,400 U.S. 7-Eleven stores.
- 7
All points feed a running leaderboard: the top eight scorers each week win an iPad, and at the promotion's close eight more iPads are awarded by random drawing while the single highest cumulative score wins a trip for two to the Arctic to see polar bears.
- 8
Separately, players can enter Coca-Cola product codes at ArcticHome.com, where each code triggers a $1 donation to WWF that Coca-Cola matches, up to $1 million, with code entry open through March 15, 2012.
