THE BARBECUE THAT BROUGHT AMERICANS TOGETHER.
Carnival Cruise's mantra is "bring everyone together."
But in 2017, with the country more divided than ever, it was proving tough to live up to.
In early June, the brand challenged us to come up with an idea that would encourage all 50 states to come together for the Fourth of July.
We started by asking "what's one thing everyone can agree on?" And we thought, no matter your persuasion, no matter where you live—you probably love getting together with family and friends for a barbecue on the Fourth of July.
Then we thought, well, not all Americans.
Not the troops who are risking their lives, far away from home. For them, there are no burgers and hotdogs with family and friends.
IDEA
So we wanted to bring Americans together to thank the troops, by throwing them an unforgettable barbecue.
EXECUTION
Our plan was to build a barbecue with Artificial Intelligence that could scan social media, looking for messages regular Americans had written to the troops, and then laser these words onto a burger.
Post a thank you message on any social platform using the hashtag #ThankYouBurger.
STEP ONE
STEP TWO
Our barbecue filters all messages, and then lasers preferred ones onto burger buns, which are then served on base.
Phase One
PROTOTYPING
AND TESTING
Still, there were a few questions yet to be answered:
Could we get enough messages to fuel the barbecue?
Could we get every state in the USA to participate?
Could this hairbrained barbecue even be built?
QUESTIONS
Early sketches of the barbecue
TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK
Teaming up with creative technologists, we began our journey of building a barbecue that could:
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scrape social media for tweets and posts
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laser these words into burger buns
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be dissembled to fit into a shipping container (modular)
PROTOTYPING
Before connecting any lasers to the barbecue, we had to find the correct "laser setting" that would produce a message on a burger bun that looked good enough to eat.
TESTING
Strength, speed, and distance were all variables tested. Then we tested out different buns: Kaiser, Potato, Ciabatta, and Brioche.
Image from a testing session in Colorado, June 15, 2017
SOCIAL VIDEO
With the Fourth of July just a few weeks away, we also had to start raising awareness.
We filmed our prototyping sessions and created a video that was posted to Carnival's social pages.
THE EVENT
Phase Two
AN OVERNIGHT SUCCESS
The engagement numbers were around 2000% above what we were expecting. It seemed there was a huge market for people wanting to share a burger with the troops.
...giving the team just 12 hours to unpack, put all the modules together, and fire up the grill.
OPERATION FOURTH OF JULY
Armed with over 16,000 messages from thankful Americans, our container touched down at eighteen hundred hours on July 3...
RESULTS
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142.5 million media impressions
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12.2 million original content views
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16,000+ messages sent to Carnival for the troops
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Carnival's most successful campaign of all time
RESULTS
And most importantly, messages came in from all 50 states, meaning Carnival made Fourth of July 2017 the day that all Americans came together for a barbecue.
