Sweet success with Haribo
The short story
Fiora worked with the Haribo team for a number of years, to create a variety of functionally integrated platforms supported by innovative campaigns that engaged and excited customers. While we produced a large number of games, campaigns and content, there are three that have stand out and exemplify Fiora’s purpose of Beautiful Growth — commercially successful, scalable and, above all, creative.
The results
We helped Haribo grow and connect with its audience through strategic planning, engaging social content and inspiring campaigns. With our keen understanding of the core audience, we shaped our work to ensure effective and long-lasting results — from sharable, news-worthy interactions and tangible offline content, to active consumer participation that encouraged grassroots engagement.
These invaluable campaigns helped to propel the Haribo brand into a popular confectionery brand, who truly listened and engaged with its fans.
The long story
The Great Egg Hunt
While Haribo is a well-known brand with a huge number of fans worldwide, it was still important to push boundaries and remain relevant in the saturated confectionery market. Through consumer insights and ethnographic research, we discovered an untapped opportunity during the Easter period. Usually overloaded with chocolate eggs and bunnies, we wanted to make a new alternative sweet tradition, with a Haribo version of the chocolate easter egg hunt — The HARIBO Eggstra Hunt.
Working with the Haribo team, we supported the launch of their new pack, Eggstras, with the hunt, weaving in a story of an escaped Haribo fried egg on the run. Both an online and offline hunt were set up.
The offline hunt involved a giant fried egg heading through 11 towns and cities across the UK, followed by a team of Eggstra Hunters. We designed and created a dedicated website, allowing audiences to track the runaway egg via a regularly updated map, and view clues for its next location. Once they had an idea where the egg was, they could head out and snap a photo, uploading it using the hashtag #HariboEggHunt, for a chance to win a daily prize.
The online hunt used the desktop version of the website, requiring users to search for the eggs hidden around the site, with a small animation playing once they succeeded. After five eggs were found, the users could complete their entry for the competition, with winners selected at random.
An overarching campaign
Fiora was involved in all aspects of the campaign, from ideation and concepts, to wireframing and social content. We storyboarded, filmed and edited a short teaser video to promote the hunt, created and strategically managed all social content, and ensured all aspects of the online competition ran smoothly.
The Queen’s Jubilee
To celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, Haribo released a limited-edition Starmix pack decorated with a bold union jack. With the launch of the new pack, we had an exciting opportunity to turn tradition on its head and envision a creative piece that had never been done before.
Working with food sculptor Paul Baker, we organised a very special portrait of the queen made from 13,000 pieces of Haribo. We filmed the process for Haribo’s YouTube channel, with the extravagant portrait garnering over 35,000 organic fans in just one weekend, and the film reaching position 3 in the Telegraph's top ten viral films of the week.
The Queen’s Jubilee
To celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, Haribo released a limited-edition Starmix pack decorated with a bold union jack. With the launch of the new pack, we had an exciting opportunity to turn tradition on its head and envision a creative piece that had never been done before.
Working with food sculptor Paul Baker, we organised a very special portrait of the queen made from 13,000 pieces of Haribo. We filmed the process for Haribo’s YouTube channel, with the extravagant portrait garnering over 35,000 organic fans in just one weekend, and the film reaching position 3 in the Telegraph's top ten viral films of the week.
While the piece was a triumph, we knew through our community management work how active and engaged Haribo fans were. We wanted to create something similar that fans could get involved in. To do this, we began planning a Starmix-only online portrait of the queen. We digitally mapped out the placement of 10,000 sweets, creating a greyscale plan that was uploaded to a specially designed microsite. Users could then zoom in and claim five sweets, all of which would become colourised when clicked on.
Once finished, the piece was displayed in the Haribo Museum, accompanied by a plaque with the names of everyone who took part. This grassroots method enabled Haribo fans to feel connected to the brand, while building traffic and engagement in a lasting and organic way.
The Supermix Challenge
When Haribo released a new version of their popular Starmix pack, Fiora was tasked with creating a website game that focused on the three different textures of the sweets — soft, squidgy and smooth.
We began by sketching out the design of a simple yet entertainingly challenging platform style game. The gameplay involved guiding the Haribo bear in his bright red car through a country route, collecting Starmix sweets and tackling various obstacles. To highlight the three textures, we decided to turn them into unique superpowers that would help the car float, jump and squeeze through the obstacles on the course.
The Supermix Challenge
When Haribo released a new version of their popular Starmix pack, Fiora was tasked with creating a website game that focused on the three different textures of the sweets — soft, squidgy and smooth.
We began by sketching out the design of a simple yet entertainingly challenging platform style game. The gameplay involved guiding the Haribo bear in his bright red car through a country route, collecting Starmix sweets and tackling various obstacles. To highlight the three textures, we decided to turn them into unique superpowers that would help the car float, jump and squeeze through the obstacles on the course.
We mapped out every aspect of the game design, from the look of the car and the background of the course to the animated stages of the sweet collection, ensuring it had a bright, colourful and happy vibe. Clear yet unobtrusive branding kept the game Haribo-focused without distracting from the gameplay.
The result was a smooth-running and addictive game with a simple learning curve — making it fun for both kids and adults.
With the success of the game, we were invited to build a dedicated games portal specially for the Haribo website series, enabling fans to enjoy the games whenever they wanted, and cementing Haribo as a fun, family-friendly brand.
Award Winning Results
We helped Haribo grow and connect with its audience base through engaging social content, strategic planning and inspiring campaigns. With our keen understanding of the core audience, we shaped our work to ensure effective and long-lasting results — from sharable, news-worthy interactions and tangible offline content to active consumer participation that encouraged grassroots engagement.
These invaluable campaigns helped to propel the Haribo brand into more than a popular confectionary brand, but a company that truly listened and engaged with its fans.
