Joy to the Lemons

Client

Hubert’s Lemonade

ROLE

Sr. Producer

tags

Prototyping
Product Design
Manufacturing
Experiential
Influencer Activation
Social Activation
Social + Pre-roll Video
HTML5 Banners
OOH

WE CREATED SOMETHING THE WORLD HAD NEVER EXPERIENCED BEFORE

Hubert’s Lemonade is a delicious product and a great Coca-Cola brand. Our team produced three sweet pre-roll videos and a zillion out-of-home placements that were seen all over. I translated the creative into digital banners which you can view on the banners page.

But what I am most proud of is the experiential/influencer/social campaign which, though it was never released to the world, is one of the highlights of my producing career:

I’m talking about Lickable Screen Protectors.

WATCH: LICKABLE SCREEN PROTECTORS FIRST TASTE TEST

BRINGING THE TASTE TEST INTO THE 21ST CENTURY

The activation was pure stunt: deliver tasters & tastemakers all over America Hubert’s-branded Lickable Screen Protectors in sealed packets.

After cleaning their screen with an enclosed alcohol wipe, the taster would affix the screen protector to their smartphone and scan a QR code on the packaging, unlocking all kinds of tongue-activated arcade games.

All you need to do is lick.

In one week of round-the-clock mad scientist experimentation we produced prototypes.

Though the concept is admittedly a little gross, when we took it to the folks at Coca-Cola they all pulled out their smartphones and filmed each other licking their screens, proving our point. This was going to be social media fire! We got the green light from the board that day and off we went…

A CRASH COURSE IN PRODUCT DESIGN & MANUFACTURING

This is where I had to get scrappy—lickable screen protectors do not exist. Everything from getting the flavor to match Hubert’s Lemonade to making sure they stick to the screen and not the packaging, and that the sanitary wipe could be included in the package, required months or prototyping, trial and error, taste tests, and collaboration with scientists of all types.

Ultimately, we went with breath strip manufacturers Acupac in Mahwah, New Jersey. It took many many calls and tons of encouragement and prodding to get them to see our vision but we produced a (surprisingly delicious) limited run of the product for the Coke spring sales gathering and client gave final sign off—until…

…The Coke legal team pulled the approval back back right before rollout. Seems that even though the protectors were to be stamped “single use only, discard after use” the lawyers felt there could be danger there.

In any case, we did what we set out to do—bring the taste test into modern times via smartphones. I still think this would have resulted in tons of hilarious hype & awareness of Hubert’s highly lickable lemonade. The world will never know…?

technology

Custom-manufactured Dissolvable Film, HTML5