Operation Scoop Snoop
View the case- Brand
- Baskin-Robbins
- Year
- 2019
- Objective
- Awareness
- Industry
- Food & Drink
- Mechanic
- Adventure & Quest
- Platform
- Other
Objective
Baskin-Robbins tied into Stranger Things Season 3 to turn show fandom into store visits and ice cream sales, recreating the Scoops Ahoy shop and launching USS Butterscotch as its July flavor. The ARG layer was built to keep fans engaged for the full ten-day launch window and to force even the online audience to physically walk into a store, since the first clue only existed on an in-store flavor strip.
Solution
It starts at midnight on cable TV, where a spot with Stranger Things actors Joe Keery and Maya Hawke announces USS Butterscotch and flashes a phone number. Calling it sends players into a Baskin-Robbins store, where Morse code printed on the flavor strip decodes into a second number and a password. That call hands over an SSH address, which players type into a terminal to drop into a text-only, ASCII-styled 1980s world, get recruited into 'Operation Scoop Snoop', and start chatting with a handler bot called SHPION7. From there a new mission arrives every day for ten days, with the final answer to the whole game submitted by fax. There's no app or browser game anywhere in the chain — just TV, a landline, a paper flavor strip, a command line and a fax machine.
Results
4 billion earned impressions, an 11% nationwide sales lift for Baskin-Robbins, more than 15,000 calls to the phone number that kicked off the game, and fans queuing up to eight hours for the Scoops Ahoy store experience.
- 1
A cable TV commercial airs at midnight, featuring Stranger Things cast members in Scoops Ahoy uniforms announcing a new ice cream flavor, and displaying a phone number.
- 2
The player calls the number and hears a recorded voicemail directing them to a physical Baskin-Robbins store.
- 3
At the store, the player finds a Morse code clue printed on the flavor's label and decodes it using an in-store decoder wheel to get a second phone number and password.
- 4
The player calls the second number, enters the password, and hears a briefing that dictates a command line address to connect to.
- 5
The player opens a terminal application and connects via SSH to a text-only, retro-styled interface, then registers as an agent to unlock missions.
- 6
A conversational chatbot handler briefs the player in plain language, assigning a new mission each day for ten days that ranges from real-world research tasks to parsing in-fiction documents for coordinates and solving arcade and cryptography mini-puzzles inside the terminal.
- 7
Every touchpoint stays period-accurate to 1985 — phone calls, terminal access, and fax — with no app, website, or social login involved, and players often collaborate on Reddit and Discord to crack the chain together.
- 8
The story twists when the player's own handler is revealed to be the story's antagonist, turning the final missions into a confrontation with them.
- 9
The player solves a final puzzle and faxes in the answer, and the game ends with a leaderboard where top finishers win prizes.
