Easter eggs - the customer engagement tool that delivers sweet results!

It's the month of egg hunts and indulging in far too much chocolate, but did you know that in marketing, an Easter egg is something entirely different (although it does promise equally sweet returns)?

Creatively speaking, Easter eggs are inside jokes, hidden messages or secret features embedded within advertising touchpoints that consumers might, or might not, randomly stumble upon.

Easter eggs - so named because you have to hunt for them - are normally a digital feature, but in recent years have clandestinely made their way into other forms of advertising too, including brand logos and Super Bowl ads.

They're believed to have originated in 1982, when Atari programmer Warren Robinett hid his signature in a secret room within a game. The idea of trying to find this hidden element captured the imagination of gamers everywhere, who furiously began looking for it - many with success.

This speaks to the power of marketing Easter eggs: they keep those looking for them hooked, and surprise those who discover them with a little reward.

The world's biggest brands have climbed onto the Easter egg bandwagon, which of course tells us that there's something special there that's worth pursuing in our own marketing efforts.

The biggest reason why Easter eggs work is because they're memorable customer engagement tools that have the potential to quickly go viral. They also give your brand personality and your consumers a sense of reward, especially if they have to work hard to find your Easter eggs and are rewarded with an actual prize when they do.

You can use Easter eggs in pretty much all of your communications, but for maximum impact we suggest using them:

• In competitions: Use normal competition entry mechanics (on-pack, online etc.) but add extra competition entries or additional prizes for users finding your Easter eggs
• On your website: This would be more subtle, and left for web users to find on their own as they engage with your site (but you could drop a few breadcrumbs to help them!)
• As part of your gamification efforts: Although they're supposed to be hidden and randomly found, you can make users physically hunt for Easter eggs within a branded game, and reward them for their efforts.
• On your video ads: This is where Easter eggs have the potential to go viral, as users will watch a video continuously until they have found the egg - and if the outcome is humorous, quirky, clever or thought provoking, they'll share it with their friends.
• In your social media posts: Hide eggs in your social media visuals, and use Facebook and Instagram stories with their 24-hour disappearing deadline to heighten the excitement.
• With your chatbots: Siri and Alexa both use Easter eggs in their AI programming. Take your cue from them, and incorporate jokes or witty one-liners in your chatbot functionality.

We can help you decide on which Easter eggs to use in your marketing initiatives, and seamlessly embed them into your customer touchpoints, creating a little fun around your brand and heightening your engagement efforts.