Restrictions and safe-distancing measures made it impossible, if not irresponsible, for Magnum to have the same extravagant physical events they are known for when launching new flavors. This proved a challenge since Magnum’s latest and first-ever Asian-inspired ice cream flavor, Magnum Matcha, was making its debut in the Singapore market.

To celebrate this milestone, Magnum wanted to create an experience that drives consumer awareness and desire to try the new product, and foster brand love through audience engagement and content creation. They wanted to achieve the same (if not better) buzz and memorable moments of engagement usually seen in their launch parties, while remaining true to the brand.

With the target audience being inundated with virtual shows and interactive brand websites, we needed an experience that could cut through the online clutter and enable the audience to truly take pleasure in and get to sample the new ice-cream.

While the new Magnum Matcha ice cream – the perfect balance of Japan-inspired Matcha flavor, fused with Belgian chocolate – was certain to take consumers’ tastebuds on a pleasure-filled, East-West journey, the pandemic was keeping them physically at home and unhappy.

So, we created a way for Pleasure Seekers to travel without travelling and introduced Singapore’s newest and smallest destination – Magnum’s Mini Matcha World.

Drawing inspiration from the ‘east meets west’ nature of the new ice-cream, the Magnum Mini Matcha World was brought to life as a scaled installation with scenes reminiscent of Singaporeans’ favorite travel destination, Japan. Pleasure Seekers could explore and interact with this stunning new miniature world from different perspectives, whether immersed from the comfort of their own homes, or in person.

Magnum’s target audience of Singaporean Pleasure Seekers love food and travel above all else. It is no surprise then that food is among the biggest reasons for Japan’s popularity as one of Singaporeans’ top travel destinations.

Unfortunately, the pandemic struck, grounding Singaporeans for more than a year. Pleasure Seekers escaped into virtual worlds and explored what Singapore had to offer. However, fatigue over full virtual experiences quickly set in and people started running out of ideas for what they could do on this small island. There was a deep craving to explore somewhere new.

That led to our insight – Hailing from one of Asia’s smallest nations, exploring outside its borders is part of every Singaporeans’ DNA. So, when something like a global pandemic puts a hard stop on travel, it is human nature to crave it even more.

We built a real-life miniature world filled with scenes from Zen gardens to skyscrapers that consumers could escape to, all inspired by the newest flavor.

Consumers could visit the installation in person or be immersed in various 360-degree points of view of the world, through their smartphones. There were also quests to complete that would reward them with real life prizes.

Visitors would hunt for elusive mini ice-creams scattered throughout the virtual world and looked out for special scenes, sharing their most creative captions on social media.

We even commissioned three exclusive donut flavors that could be won and for further awareness, we partnered with Twitch and got a streamer to livestream her experience exploring the virtual world. Influencers and media were also sent a bespoke Japanese-inspired Magnum Matcha teaser kit that featured props for recipients to create their very own mini Matcha getaways.

Magnum’s Mini Matcha World achieved many firsts for Magnum – first virtual launch experience, first hybrid event, first time using Twitch as a platform, and the first time collaborating with an external brand.

For a small country of less than 6 million, the two-week experience captured over 2,500 contest entries on social media, achieved an audience reach of 25.4 million and garnered 429 pieces of media and social coverage valued at $1,984,736. It was quite an accomplishment as the brand’s first ever hybrid, consumer-focused event and Pleasure Seekers made it known through their many positive comments and messages.

The Twitch stream also pulled in a high of close to 17,000 viewers at its peak, making the stream one of the highest viewed that evening, putting it on Twitch’s front page.

Through this campaign, Magnum grew to achieve 20.5% market share in March 2021.