The Impossible Hoop Challenge
- Brand
- Cadbury
- Year
- 2010
- Objective
- Engagement
- Industry
- Food & Drink
- Mechanic
- Puzzle
- Platform
- Web
- Agency
- + Rehabstudio
- With
- Fallon London
Objective
Cadbury had bought official 'treat provider' status for London 2012 and wanted to turn that sponsorship into mass, active participation rather than passive logo exposure — getting the UK public to pick a side, Spots or Stripes, and actually play. The game gave people a quick reason to visit the Spots v Stripes hub and take part on the spot, without a pack code or a second player, then push their result out to Facebook and Twitter so the team rivalry spread beyond the site.
Solution
The player opens on a catapult loaded with a ball at one end of a long horizontal scene — a street, a park or a beach — and has to launch it the full length of the level. Along the way sit a deliberately nonsensical cast of obstacles: Grenadier Guards in bearskins, a swordfish, a giant duck, and more. Before firing, the player can pick up and drag these objects around the scene, effectively building their own trajectory, and built-in randomness means the same layout never plays out quite the same way twice. Each attempt is recorded as a replay the player can watch back and post straight to Facebook or Twitter.
- 1
Players open the Impossible Hoop Challenge from the challenges section of Cadbury's Spots v Stripes campaign hub, spotsvstripes.com.
- 2
The game opens on a street setting built as one long horizontal stage rather than a single screen, with the player's catapult positioned at the near end.
- 3
Players aim and launch a ball from the catapult; once released, it flies under gravity-like physics rather than along a fixed path, so the shot plays out on its own.
- 4
The stage is scattered with a deliberately absurd cast of obstacles — Grenadier Guards in bearskin uniform, a swordfish, an oversized duck — which the player can also grab and reposition, arranging them into a path the ball can travel rather than simply shooting past them.
- 5
Randomised physics mean an identical-looking setup won't resolve the same way twice, so a failed shot can be retried and a successful one isn't simply repeatable.
- 6
The aim, per the game's title and the campaign's parallel real-world 'Hoop and Glory' challenge, is to land the ball through a hoop at the end of the run.
- 7
After each attempt an action replay plays the shot back for the player to rewatch, then post to Facebook or tweet under their Spots or Stripes allegiance.
- 8
Clearing the street stage carries the player on through two more settings, a park and a beach, each stocked with its own run of obstacles.
