Our goal was clear: Find the right approach to confront the digital natives with impressively clear proof that, despite company traditions reaching back over more than 100 years, we still speak their language.We did that by flashing them with a real product based on of their biggest hypes and made just for them. Strategy meets hype!

In these times of data analytics, listening is easier than ever before. So that’s what we did – and isolated one of the biggest trends of the younger generation. Armed with this insight, we developed a magical and strictly limited product: the Unicorn. A colorful concoction of ‘white chocolate with a yoghurt and raspberry-cassis rainbow’ – and a large proportion of hype.

We designed the packaging, the name and the ingredients with glitz and cult potential, we developed a unique online and offline marketing and sales strategy, designed and realised content for all phases of the campaign and made sure that the most important influencers were along for the ride.

In the course of the campaign, we generated a verifiable hundreds of millions contacts. The web shop collapsed under the strain just five minutes after the launch. Millions of fans, other brands and online, TV and print media channels picked up and amplified the hype about the new chocolate – in Germany and around the globe. The two flagship stores where overwhelmed by the onrush and all 75,000 bars were sold out within a single day – and soon turned up on eBay at horrendous asking prices. A second launch with another 150,000 bars and a better server couldn’t withstand the new rush. To spread the joy even further, we donated the last examples to children’s aid organisations.

The "unicorn" was finally the biggest hype of the German Internet history and ensured that many brands still want to depend on the unicorn hype and produce their own unicorn products.