Happiness Factory: Now Hiring
- Brand
- Coca-Cola
- Year
- 2008
- Objective
- Engagement
- Industry
- Food & Drink
- Mechanic
- Simulation & Strategy
- Platform
- Web
- Agency
- AKQA
Objective
Coca-Cola had a TV spot, Wieden+Kennedy's 'Happiness Factory,' that had clearly connected with audiences — but a 60-second ad had nowhere further to go. The brand wanted to keep people inside that world rather than just watching it, and needed a single online platform it could roll out across dozens of markets and languages. Framing the site as a hiring drive gave visitors a concrete reason to click through and a role to occupy inside the factory, instead of just browsing a promotional page.
Solution
A receptionist alien greets visitors at the door and, speaking the factory's own invented language with English subtitles, walks them through a board of job openings. Visitors browse the postings, meet the creature who holds each one — among them Chinoink, Kissy Puppy and Capper — and pick a job to take over. Choosing one leads into a short training bit, then a skill game built on what that character actually does: puckering up to kiss bottles into shape, flying bottles in by helicopter, or firing bottle caps from a catapult, with a score kept at the end of each round. Between rounds, an inflatable screen inside the factory plays the latest Happiness Factory TV commercial, tying the game back to the spot that started it all.
- 1
The game opens at coke.com/hf on the Happiness Factory, the fantastical machinery imagined to live inside a Coca-Cola vending machine, framed as a workplace that is currently hiring.
- 2
An alien receptionist greets the player and serves as guide throughout, speaking the factory's invented language with English subtitles, and leads the player through the site's sections, including a list of open jobs.
- 3
The player browses the open positions, meeting the creature characters who hold them (including Chinoink, Kissy Puppy and Capper), and picks one to take on that character's job.
- 4
Before playing, the player goes through a brief training session for the chosen job.
- 5
The core loop is a skill minigame matched to the chosen job: as Kissy Puppy the player kisses bottles as they pass on a line, at the catapult job launches bottle caps onto passing bottles, and at a third job delivers bottles across the factory by helicopter.
- 6
The session ends with a score reflecting performance in the job applied for.
- 7
Elsewhere on the site, an inflatable screen plays the latest Happiness Factory TV commercial for the player to watch.
