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Taking Auntie Anne’s 30th Birthday to a Whole New Dimension

How a 3D social campaign racked up 1 million RSVPs to the pretzel party of the year.

Challenge

This year, Auntie Anne’s is celebrating 30 years of pretzel-loving life. To kick off the big 3-0, they wanted to pull off a stunt that would grab headlines and engage fans in one fell swoop. The stunt? Free pretzels nationwide on March 3rd. But first, 1 million fans had to RSVP to the party.

Solution

To reach the lofty goal of 1 million RSVPs, we created a thumb-stopping, animated campaign with three-dimensional birthday elements and strategic copy–we called it 30-D. Across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat, we invited fans to RSVP to the pretzel party of the year and help us celebrate Auntie Anne’s in a big way.

Why It's Useful

The final product was a natural evolution of the Auntie Anne’s brand colors and visual identity. The vibrant 3D animations and bold balloon lettering helped us connect with younger audiences and build buzz for the nationwide pretzel party. On top of visually stunning creative, a robust targeting strategy can be credited with the success of the campaign. Through our audience expansion efforts, we identified a substantial community of engaged fans who were excited to consume the next captivating piece of Auntie Anne’s content. We found that these fans were the most likely to tell their friends about Auntie Anne’s 30th birthday and then show up in-store on March 3rd for their free pretzel. And they did! On March 3rd, Auntie Anne’s showed a +10.5% increase in transactions, proving that the campaign boosted foot traffic to participating stores on top of building brand loyalty online.

Results

In total, the 30-D campaign generated 2.3 million impressions across all four platforms. Those impressions, in tandem with strong click-through rates (CTRs) and low cost per clicks (CPCs), helped us spread awareness and achieve our RSVP goal.

282 %

higher than projected

112 %

higher than projected

$ 0.50 - $0.8

projected CPC

$ 0.2

actual CPC
auntie annes present image

All in all, Auntie Anne’s 30th Birthday campaign, 30-D, was the fun, fresh hook that brought millions of fans to the party. The campaign results exceeded expectations in every category and came in under-budget to boot. That’s what happens when you pair mesmerizing creative with thoughtful strategy.

“
The goal for 30-D was to stand out in-feed and get fans as excited as we were about the big 3-0. With next-level animation, we were able to deliver on those goals and create a party in every post.
Bonnie Rohan,
Associate Creative Director ”

“
Our 30th birthday celebration is a big initiative for us. We had high expectations for our Million RSVP campaign, and T3’s strategic approach and compelling creative helped us exceed our lofty goals.
Chas Kurtz,
Public Relations Manager
”

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