Smith’s Chips is a beloved 90-year old potato chip/crisp brand in Australia. It once dominated the snack market in the 80s and 90s with help from its out-of-this-world mascot – the Gobbledok. He’s a 5-foot furry alien from the planet Dok obsessed with eating Smith’s “Chippies!”

But skip forward to today and the once pantry staple is now struggling to connect with a new generation of snack lovers, who were turning to other brands instead.

Our brief was to attract a younger generation of snack lovers to the Smith’s brand.

Return of the Gobbledok saw Smith’s Chips bring its 1980s mascot – the Gobbledok – out of retirement to turn it into an influencer worth following in the 21st century.

Instead of throwing lots of money at existing social media influencers to convince our target audience to buy Smith’s Chips, we squeezed the Gobbledok into a 9:16 frame on TikTok and taught it to become a snack influencer.

Just like any influencer trying to attract an audience, the Gobbledok began pushing its content to new heights – literally. On World Potato Chip Day, when the world news was talking about spy balloons, the Gobbledok launched one of his own, only this one was shaped like a potato.

This potato-shaped spy balloon was used to spy on people who were eating Smith’s Chips.

March 14th, 2023, was World Potato Chip Day and that’s a pretty important day for a potato-chip mascot obsessed with eating “Chippies”. So rather than jumping on a trend to tell everyone to eat Smith’s Chips, the Gobbledok jumped on one of the hottest and most current news stories at the time for inspiration: the discovery of spy balloons flying over North America.

Despite the events occurring overseas, the Gobbledok saw the opportunity to localise and leverage the story by launching a spy balloon of its own. One that allowed it to spy on everyone snacking on Smith’s Chips.

The Return of the Gobbledok began with the release of 17 different TikToks showing the Gobbledok jumping on trends, making friends, and trying new technology, all in the pursuit of his favourite snack obsession “Chippies”.

Then the Gobbledok saw an opportunity to take his obsession for Smith’s Chips to new heights. When the world was talking about spy balloons, the Gobbledok joined the conversation.

On World Chip Day, the Gobbledok lifted off into the sky above Australia riding a spy balloon shaped like a potato, looking down at the world and all those eating Smith’s Chips. This not only got our target audience buzzing, but also all those who nostalgically remembered watching the Gobbledok in ads for Smith’s Chips back in the 80s and 90s.

5 points brand love uplift

980,000 minutes watched

2 x view-through benchmark (21% video completion rate)

Best performing post: 947,463 impressions (Spy Potato launch)

Total impressions: 25,900,000 + total reach: 14,280,000