ABOUT

Concept:
In October 2022, PROPER Snacks designed the UK’s first ‘human-claw’ machine and brought it to the streets of London to target Gen Z and young millennials.

Over one week, the free ‘PROPER Dropper’ stopped Londoners in their tracks, offering a chance to be dunked into a pit of 16,000 snacks and win prizes from the season’s hottest drops. Whatever you grabbed, you won!

After a long line of bold moments and firsts in PROPER’s history, including being the first brand to wrap a London bus in popcorn wrapping and the first to launch a giant 33ft pink cement mixer tour around the UK, the brand wanted to reimagine sampling in an un-FMCG way, playfully disrupting the every day.

Known for its playful and creative energy – from exciting flavour combinations to championing creatives to design its packaging – the brand aimed to encourage Brits to try something new, following research that 70% of Brits were looking to seize new opportunities and 68% were open to trying something they’ve never tried before.

Execution:
Following a summer of nostalgic rebirths from Crocs to Juicy Couture, the in-house brand and creative team reimaged a childhood cult classic – the arcade game - into a 5-meter high structure. The literal pick-me-up machine was adorned with big, bold graphics and filled with thousands of snacks, injecting the same creativity and fun seen on its packs, back into the city.

Drawing inspiration from the world of gaming and arcades, Toby Triumph and PROPER developed a playful and dynamic visual identity that spoke directly to the brand's audience - gen-z snackers.

These included eye-catching graphics like ‘Snack on This’ and ‘Drop it Like it’s Hot’, which were transformed into banners, stickers, clothing, social media gifs and most significantly, were plastered all over the PROPER Dropper itself.

These visuals brought The PROPER Dropper to life for passers-by and injected PROPER’s fun and energy into the space, incorporated into signs, spin-the-wheel stands, mini claw machines, prize bags and a prize station.

PROPER curated limited-edition gold packs adorned with Toby’s stickers, hidden within the pile of snacks, offering players thousands of pounds worth of prizes from a range of brand partners in the fashion, music and beauty world. This included NICCE, FILA, ByRotation and SONOS. East London retailer, NICCE, also designed ambassador tracksuits in pastel colours, with Toby’s illustrations, reflecting PROPER’s bold personality.

Results:
The core objective of the brief was always to drive buzz. The campaign was a huge success; generating the largest reach in the brand’s history,

Over 200 influencers, including Ash Holmes and Moyo attended launch day, producing hilarious TikTok content that made this pop-up go viral.

In total, the PROPER Dropper content achieved over 15 million social views, 1.12 billion editorial reach and a 2,000% uplift in TikTok followers for the brand.

The activation helped generated buzz online and sample with new snackers, as well as drive overall awareness (+3% in Q4 2022). Additionally, there was a hike in purchase behaviour amongst the target audience of 18-24s (+3%) and 24-30s (+9%) source: Focal data research nov 2022 .

Overall, The PROPER Dropper contributed to the brand growing ahead of the category. By the end of the year, PROPER sales were up 36.4% YOY, vs BFY at 19.4% and CSN 6.4% (IRI, MAT to 25.12.22).