a digital agency where
creativity and technology meet

Tassimo Kinect

Tassimo, a producer of one-cup serving consumer-based hot beverage systems, launched the new BrewBot system in 2011. With objectives of driving product awareness, trial and sales, Tassimo contracted Pierce Promotions to create a pop-up cafe experience in SOHO, NYC. Pierce again called on the SuperGroup to create an innovative experience that would engage users and interactively enhance the BrewBot event.

Excited to take on this experiential challenge, the SuperGroup created a highly-innovative gesture-based two-minute barista game whereby users were tasked with brewing a variety of BrewBot coffee blends for demanding guests at a house party. The end result was a zero-downtime game that Tassimo customers loved.

The BrewBot game worked seamlessly from promo launch to promo end. As a matter of fact, this complex game build reflected a stability usually associated with much lower-tech activations. And since actresses Eva Longoria and Elizabeth Mitchell (aka Juliette from Lost) were on hand at the cafe's opening ceremony, the Brewbot game enjoyed some great celebrity interaction, as well! See Examples

Trace Effects

The US Department of State (DOS) has many divisions that help them achieve their worldwide mission. One of these divisions is the ESL (English as a Second Language), whose program, "Access English," helps teach the English language to over half a million non-American students across the globe.

In order to better reach today's younger crowd, DOS partnered with The SuperGroup to develop a new game-based learning program called, "Trace Effects." DOS wanted to create something groundbreaking that would combine gaming and immersive language learning techniques to help the Access English program "change the game" with a long-term, first-to-market product.

Our vision was to create a multi-channel program utilizing web, mobile, desktop applications and print. Students would interact with the language learning through a 3D adventure game available online (or offline as an executable), single and multi-player language challenge games and exercises, and even graphic novels!

Trace Effects was piloted in the Summer of 2011 in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Brazil, Russia, Korea and South Africa. The feedback from the students was unanimous: "This is how we like to learn English. We want more Trace Effects!" See Examples

The 711 Club

7-Eleven® needed a clever way to promote a piping hot line of new specialty coffees. They teamed up with Ketchum and The Supergroup and ended up with the highest coupon redemption rate in the company's history. Promising the opportunity to wake up next to a 'Hot Brazilian,' The 711 Club let 'players' practice their cheesiest of pickup lines on streaming HD videos of the type of Brazilian beauties that are normally too self-absorbed to be approached in real life.

Each character had a different personality — from a self-loathing vampire to a Casanova patterned after Antonio Banderas. Visitors could expect a different response to each of their questions from each person, admiring their beauty all along. Part of the fun was seeing if these chance encounters would lead to a slap on the face or the threat of being blogged about.

Those who made it through — and site visitors stayed a minimum of 7 minutes — got a coupon for a free cup of 7 Eleven's Brazilian Bold. The caffeinated buzz generated by the 711 club won the site a Favorite Website Award as well as being named a Webby honoree. See Examples

Launch Project

The Arris Experience

Arris, a $1.4 billion a year global communications technology leader, had a problem with their conference presence. Their massive conference / convention display, termed "The Great Wall," was becoming way too expensive to operate and maintain. Arris had been using The Great Wall for years to showcase their portfolio of hardware offerings, and it required a 53-foot-wide event footprint and a sizable number of personnel to manage. Frustrated with the expense, Arris turned to The SuperGroup for help.

Working closely with the Arris team, TSG created a 3D game-like digital experience that allowed conference attendees to explore and interact with Arris's vast product and service offerings in a virtual environment. Potential customers were able to immerse themselves in the Arris world, interacting virtually with each product. As users found products that fit their needs, they could instantly input a request for more information about that exact product using an on-screen keyboard.

This visceral experience allowed sales people to interact more casually with the customer without needing to drag them from one end of the room to another, and saved the company over $180,000 per show in shipping, travel, signage, printing, and personnel. See Examples

WeatherWatch

For their 15th anniversary re-launch, weather.com wanted to show its most loyal advertisers all the cool things the new weather.com could do. But they didn't want to hand out the same old run of the mill corporate tchotchkes that typically fill any given ad buyer's desk.

In our initial brainstorming sessions, we began to consider how people from the "pre-weather.com era" would imagine people of the future (meaning now) getting the kind of personalized forecast available at weather.com today. Our conversations kept coming back to those beloved, awkward gadgets from Dick Tracy comic strips.

So to deliver on that feeling, we scooped up some awesome wristwatch radios from the 80s—complete with full size retractable antennas—and packaged them as if they were the next iPhone killer. A fake, full color user's manual touted all the unbelievable things the watch was supposed to be able to do. After reading through a few of watch's features the joke was revealed, along with the clever twist that all the fake features on the watch were the actual features of the new weather.com.

Each package included a promo code and a link to a mini-site where ad buyers could register for a chance to win a top of the line Tag Heuer watch. Over 40% of WeatherWatch recipients registered for the Tag Heuer giveaway. See Examples