• by Larissa Faw , August 4, 2016

Japanese snack-food marketer Pocky supported its long-running “Share Happiness” campaign with the Pocky Pop-Up Shop digital store that sold limited-edition merchandise with "happiness" purchases between July 25 and  July 29.  

The brand's agency Santy—appointed AOR last year--conceived the campaign's concept, built the pop-up shop microsite and produced all of the creative assets.  

As part of the effort, fans were invited to play social media games to receive prizes. Pocky and Santy partnered with emerging artists, including multi-media visual artist and designer Pete Ellison, to create prizes such as customized plush pillows, hats, cups and limited-edition graphic tees.  

"We wanted to create a sense of urgency and encourage our fans to get them while they were still in stock," says Katie Rubel, senior account manager, Santy. 

Some items were sold out within 10 minutes of the shop being restocked, the agency reports. Each day, the campaign added new or different prizes to the site and informed fans that the shop was back up. When items were sold out, users were given the opportunity to win the grand prize, which included one each of all of the items being sold. 

The project was supported on Pocky's social channels, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr. "Our goal was to reward Pocky fans with prizes and engage with potential new fans," says Rubel.  

This project exceeded expectations. During the campaign, Pocky saw more than 720 concurrent users on the site at the same time, higher than any other of its digital campaign to date. Engagement was high with an average session duration of 2:11.