“Powered by K.I.” is a campaign that goes against the trend. While the world of creativity is taken over by A.I., Lunchables Dunkables challenges the norm and bets on kids’ creativity. So, to show the world how A.I. is no match for K.I., we faced them off against each other. We gave A.I. and kids the exact same prompt: “Imagine our mozza sticks or pretzel twists as something fantastical.” We took actual kids’ ideas and used them as inspiration to design our whole campaign, creating billboards, digital ads, TV spots and more out of kids’ imagination. No A.I. whatsoever.

Lunchables is a brand that’s been feeding kids’ creativity for years. To launch its new product, Lunchables Dunkables, a snack designed for kids to dip and unleash their creativity to create unique combinations. We decided to challenge the tool that has been taking over the world of creativity in recent years, A.I., and pit it against the most powerful of all, Kid Imagination, with our product as the protagonist.

Artificial intelligence image generators (like Midjourney, Getty Images’ Generative AI and DALL·E) have become wildly popular in the last two years—in creative fields and also in mainstream culture.

And the word “imagine” is a common prompt that people type when using these A.I. platforms

(e.g., “Imagine a rock band playing on top of Mount Everest”).

When you ask ChatGPT (the A.I. chatbot) the question “Are kids more creative than A.I.?” it answers with this response: “Yes, kids are more creative than A.I.” (Note: ask it for a short answer).

Finally, Lunchables Dunkables is a brand-new product from Lunchables. It is a kids’ snack food consisting of one main ingredient (a mozza stick or pretzel twist or chicken nugget) that you dip into a complementary sauce (marinara and breadcrumbs, or peanut butter and chocolate chips, or ketchup and ranch).

In 2023, Lunchables set out to launch Dunkables, a new line of dippable snacks geared toward kids who are 6 to 9 years old. It was the brand’s first new product launch in several years, and the expectations were quite high. There was already an established competitor with a similar-sounding name (Dunkaroos), which didn’t make things easy.

We needed to break through with families, introducing our product in a way that stood out from the sea of competition. We knew we had to pivot slightly from our existing Lunchables campaign (centered on creative building) while still maintaining what was working: kids seeing Lunchables as a fun product and parents celebrating the creativity it unlocks.

Our primary goal would be to drive awareness and trial, breaking through in an established category and making Dunkables a snack that kids asked to try and parents wanted to buy—again and again.

We held focus groups to let kids try our new product and discovered that their imaginations ran wild with it. As they ate, they envisioned our pretzel twists as magic swords stuck in peanut butter, or our mozza sticks as submarines in a marinara sea. They didn’t just eat our snack; they imagined entire universes with it.

Our opportunity was to turn snack time into creative time, with our product as a catalyst for kids to “dip” into their imagination. We wanted Dunkables to center the power of kid imagination and use kids’ ideas to drive and inspire the campaign.

We started referring to kid imagination as “K.I.”—which immediately unlocked a clear enemy for the brand to push against. Therefore, we set out to prove that the most powerful creative tool on the planet isn’t A.I., but K.I.

A.I. can be a powerful tool to enhance the imagination, but people are worried that it could kill jobs, stifle originality and hold kids back.

We wanted to provide reassurance that A.I will never out-imagine kids in a way that kept Dunkables front and center. We tested this theory by asking ChatGPT, Are kids more creative than A.I.? The answer? “Yes, kids are more creative than A.I.”

Then we gave A.I. and kids the exact same prompt: “Imagine our food as something fantastical.” The kids drew pretzel ninjas fighting peanut-butter-spewing dragons, a mozzarella narwhal and more—while A.I. couldn’t “imagine” anything but food.

We turned the kids’ stories into our whole campaign, creating billboards, TV spots and a public art exhibit out of them. And kids were involved in the entire process from start to finish, to ensure every element was powered by K.I.

“Wow, AI doesn’t have a chance against kids’ imagination.”

—CBS

The campaign was a success, generating over 200 million media impressions, with 99% positive online sentiment.

Our primary goal was to drive awareness and trial, which we knew would be difficult considering that we were competing against more established snacks. Yet within four months, Lunchables Dunkables were flying off the shelf at a rate 40% higher than that of Dunkaroos, the well-known and similarly named competitor.

Parents were also returning to the store and buying the product again, with a repeat purchase rate that was 33% higher than that of other snacks in the category. It was clear they were connecting with Dunkables and understanding the value in fueling kid imagination.

Best of all, in just over five months, the brand has garnered over $1.6 million in gross sales, with consumers purchasing two units or more in 50% of trips.