LUCKY CHARMS: CHASE FOR THE CHARMS

Nearly half of Lucky Charms consumption comes from adults, and TV wasn't reaching them. So we built the chase itself: an AR app launched on St. Patrick's Day with $10,000 in real gold as the grand prize.

After fifty years of watching kids chase Lucky. We let adults do it.

CAMPAIGN CASE STUDY

THE CHALLENGE

Nearly half of Lucky Charms consumption comes from adults, and TV had gotten mixed results reaching them. Another commercial wasn't going to work. Meanwhile CPG brands were still figuring out whether AR was a real tool or a gimmick, and most of the evidence pointed to gimmick.

WHERE I CAME IN

Won it against the whole roster. This came out of General Mills' Big Bold Experiment, a global call for work across their full agency roster. We beat everyone and got it funded, which made it Saatchi's first XR project. Turned the ad into the thing itself. For 50 years adults had watched animated kids chase Lucky for his charms. We built the chase, combining AR with first-person video so you could hold up your phone in whatever room you were standing in, find the charms, and capture them. Each one unlocked instant wins, a personal cereal dispenser, t-shirts, or the chance to be animated into a national TV spot. The grand prize was $10,000 in actual gold. Played it completely straight. We produced cinematic trailers for YouTube and Facebook as mock action movies about obsessive "chasers" who'd been tracking Lucky for years, performed without a wink. Led it across disciplines that hadn't worked together before. Designers, creative technologists, AR and VR vendors, and editors, with me client-facing throughout.

ROLE

Integrated Creative Director, Concept, Creative Direction, Art Direction, Design 
CLIENT: Lucky Charms (General Mills) 
AGENCY: Saatchi & Saatchi New York

IMPACT

  • Lucky Charms' first-ever app 

  • Cannes Lions shortlist 

  • FWA Mobile of the Day 

  • Facebook following grew 10,000+ in the campaign's first week 

  • Featured as a case study in Saatchi & Saatchi's O'Reilly-published book, Mobile Magic 

  • Coverage in The Washington Post, Marketing Dive, Digiday, and Augmented Reality News

THEATRICAL TRAILER