The One Show

The One Show is the world's most prestigious award show in advertising and design. For over 50 years, the Gold Pencil has been regarded as one of the top prizes in the creative industry. The One Show has a rich legacy of honoring some of the most groundbreaking ideas, created by some of the most remarkable minds in creativity.

2022 One Show - Branded Entertainment

WebAR Pac-Man Box

Agency GSD&M / Austin + Tool of North America / Santa Monica

Client Pizza Hut

Category

Games / Gaming

Annual ID

OS22_BE074M

About the Work

For years, Pizza Hut was beloved for its dine-in experience including red cups, checkered tablecloths and games of Pac-Man with pizza. But as those dine-in restaurants have mostly disappeared, so too has the Hut’s standing in the category. Our challenge was to recapture that magic and reboot it for a new generation.

Our idea was to deliver the Pizza Hut experience home for millions of customers by creating an interactive augmented reality version of the classic Pac-Man game on our pizza box. With just a pizza box and your phone, the webAR experience did just that. No app. No quarters required.

Scanning the QR code opens the experience through a mobile browser. To start play, an instructional GIF directs customers to point their phone at the maze on the box, which serves as an AR marker. Suddenly, the maze animates from the box as Pac-Man, Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Clyde all come to life. The game was designed with three levels of increasing difficulty for casual and hardcore gamers with a global leaderboard that allowed customers to input their initials.

With 11,260 hours played, 741 million media impressions and 10.6 million Pac-Man boxes sold, this “newstalgia” activation successfully rekindled customers’ love for Pizza Hut while establishing new connections with younger generations. Technically, this Pizza Hut box even became the top-selling game console in the world for the month of March, outselling the Nintendo Switch, Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X …. combined.

2022 Awards

Total Points: 3

Merit

Credits

Agency

GSD&M / Austin

Production Company

Tool of North America / Santa Monica

Chief Creative Officer

Jay Russell

Creative Director

Brandon Curl
Dale Austin

Executive Creative Director

Tom Hamling

Account Supervisor

Lacey Bobo

Associate Creative Director

Ak Sanford

Content Producer

Justin Wilmott

Project Manager

Brittany Du Pont

Senior Digital Producer

Ryan Micklos

Senior Producer

Kaili Kubpart

Strategy Director

David Matathia

Videographer

Kelsey Sante
Jacob Toarmina

3D Design

Steven Caruso

Account Manager

Morgan Spencer

Front End Developer

Mike Bodge

Lead Developer

Juan Ramon

Managing Director/Executive Producer

Nancy Hacohen
Adam Baskin

President/Executive Producer

Dustin Callif

Senior Business Affairs Manager

Desiree Townsend

Team Integrations Lead

David Forbert

UI Design

Isabel Sousa

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