Mars

Mars brand M&M’s wanted to bridge the awareness gap between two of the busiest consumption periods of the year, Halloween and Christmas. Proximity heard Google Street View was coming to Toronto, and the rest is digital history.

The “Find Red” campaign was a first-of-its-kind digital treasure hunt that began with a YouTube video that told the story of how Red (the red M&M’s character) got sucked into Google Street View. The video directed players to FindRed.ca to start their search for three M&M’s, and annotation clues were hidden in the clip. FindRed.ca allowed players to use Google Street View to search for the M&M’s, with the lure of winning a red Smart car.

Over four weeks, players got clues on the website, Twitter and Facebook. Bold and bright wild postings with QR codes were placed around Toronto to bring attention to the game while allowing people to unlock special clues. To firmly integrate the product into the game, UPC codes on M&M’s packaging were turned into clues using the StickyBits App.

Red even checked in with Foursquare around Toronto to help M&M’s followers get closer to the hidden locations.

Aside from the wild postings, there was no media buy whatsoever; the game spoke for itself while relying on a limited blogger outreach and PR plan. In under four weeks, FindRed.ca was getting blogged, tweeted and Facebooked. Even local celebrities shared their love of the game. National and international media coverage also praised the work.

Besides the buzz, the most impressive result was that the average time spent on the site was over 19 minutes, four times the industry average. And in just 30 days, M&M’s Find Red got 8.4 million PR impressions, over seven million QR code wild poster views and over 225,000 Twitter impressions, tallying over 21 million total impressions.