What makes the holidays truly magical are the stories and characters surrounding them (e.g. Santa Claus, Frosty the Snowman). These stories have become traditions for many families; highly anticipated year after year.

But whereas holidays like Christmas have stories aplenty, one major holiday has a surprising lack of heartwarming tales. Easter.

And the most popular Easter character of all, the Easter Bunny, lacks a defining personality and story.

Our goal was to have the Lindt Gold Bunny fill that role. To that end, we wrote a story.

The Lindt Gold Bunny presents: The Bell That Rang in Easter.

A fully interactive, animated, and beautifully drawn children’s Easter storybook for mobile devices, that brands the Lindt Gold Bunny—with his special bell—the icon that Easter sorely needs.

With a TAP, TILT and SWIPE, a new Easter classic was born.

To create a genuine tale that would resonate with families, we enlisted award-winning Canadian children’s book author Ashley Spires, and illustrator Kim Smith. It tells the story of a friendship between a girl named Emma and a bunny named Theo and mirrors the tale of the Gold Bunny’s creation.

After receiving the illustrations, our in-house development team began to adapt it into a digital space, crafting the animations, interactions, game elements, sound design, and 3D effects. The result was not simply a storybook, but a truly engaging and interactive mobile experience. One that made the Lindt Gold Bunny (with its bell) the one true icon of Easter.

Interactions include:

Shake the screen to ring a golden bell

Help the Maître Chocolatier craft a Lindt Gold Bunny.

The Bell that Rang in Easter quickly rose to the top of the charts, becoming the #1 downloaded kids app and top-ranked story app in the Canadian App Store, and the top trending kids app on GooglePlay. It was even performing better than the original Easter Story—The Holy Bible app.

Leading up to Easter, over 36.5 million impressions were achieved (+33% vs. Target) including social media impressions and coverage on news stations.

And the best part, readers loved it, giving it an average rating of 4 stars on GooglePlay and 5 stars on the App Store. The storybook was read an average of 2.2 times per user, with the average session lasting 9 minutes.

Overall, The Bell That Rang in Easter has helped Lindt reinforce and build the emotional connection between consumers and the Lindt Gold Bunny brand to ensure that it remains the ultimate Easter icon.