The overall creative idea can be explained in three words – deliver more happiness. What’s better than free food? Free Zappos swag. To give consumers something even better than a free cupcake, Zappos decided create a makeshift Zappos box, complete with one slot for discarded cupcakes and one slot for Zappos goodies, that would set up shop directly next to the Google photot truck. As soon as consumers were interested, they’d receive something better than just a cupcake.

In the summer of 2015, we saw Google tweet about taking over a food truck in Austin, Texas, so we packed our bags and caught the next flight out. Unfortunately, Google didn’t divulge where exactly in Austin they’d be serving their cupcakes until 12 hours before the event. So, we had to be nimble and assemble our mystery box in a van. As soon as we heard where their truck was going to be we unveiled our box and filmed the stunt. The video was initially shared through Zappos’ social channels, but news of the #PayWithACupcake stunt spread around the world almost immediately.

For a total budget of less than $20,000 U.S. we were able to travel to Austin, Texas, conduct this stunt, film it, edit it, and share it across Zappos’ social channels. Without paying for any additional media or PR support, news of the stunt spread around the world through organic coverage in publications like Forbes, CampaignUK, AdWeek, AdAge, and Creativity, and from there spread to mainstream media sources. We got over 29,000,000+ impressions, and on top of it all, a bunch of tasty cupcakes. Everyone involved was happier, even Google tweeted a friendly “you got us” message to Zappos.