Magnum Pleasure Hunt 2: bigger, bolder sequel

Last year, to launch the all new Magnum Temptation Hazelnut ice-cream, Swedish agencies Lowe Brindfors and B-Reel created an advergame, a branded game built to promote a product, called “Magnum Pleasure Hunt Across The Internet”. In the game, players are taken across 20 well known websites as they collect Bon Bons, the special ingredient of the Magnum Temptation Hazelnut ice-cream.

Since the game did exceedingly well, Magnum and team came up with round 2, enhanced with 3D graphics. This time players were taken on a run in New York, made to fly over Paris, and surf the waves in Rio De Janeiro, using a map and street-view style interface as the playground.

What changes from round 1 to round 2

The first game is a browser-bending sprint that treats the wider internet as a set of levels. The sequel shifts the same chase mechanic into city environments, with more depth, more spectacle, and clearer “set pieces” you can remember after one play.

In global FMCG brand launches, advergames like this work when they turn “a product promise” into a simple, replayable challenge people can explain in one sentence.

The real question is whether your sequel escalates the world without changing the one rule people already learned.

  • Round 1: web-hopping levels and Bon Bons as the core collectible.
  • Round 2: city-based runs plus a stronger 3D feel for movement, obstacles, and momentum.

Why it lands: it feels like discovery, not advertising

This is not a microsite you click once and forget. It is designed as a time-and-score loop. You play again to improve your route, your timing, and your collection count, and that repeat play is where the brand association gets built. It also matches Magnum’s “pleasure seeking” positioning with a mechanic that is literally a hunt. Because the loop rewards replay with visible improvement, the hunt association gets reinforced without asking the player to read a product pitch.

Extractable takeaway: When the brand promise is an action verb, make that verb the gameplay loop, and make replay the fastest way to feel the promise again.

The smart brand logic behind the Bon Bons

Bon Bons are a neat choice because they let the product story travel inside the gameplay. You are not only collecting points. You are collecting the “ingredient” that makes the new variant feel specific, even if you never read a product description.

I think it is a great follow up to the first version. Magnum Pleasure Hunt 2 could be experienced at www.pleasurehunt2.mymagnum.com.

Sequel campaign rules worth copying

  • Keep the core rule the same. Sequel energy comes from familiarity, then escalation.
  • Upgrade the world, not the instructions. New environments create novelty without re-teaching the game.
  • Build signature moments. New York, Paris, and Rio act like memorable chapters, not just backgrounds.
  • Make it easy to share a result. If the outcome is a score or time, people instantly understand what “good” looks like.

A few fast answers before you act

What is Magnum Pleasure Hunt?

It is a branded advergame where players chase and collect Magnum Bon Bons, originally by racing across well known websites as game levels.

What is different about Magnum Pleasure Hunt 2?

The sequel moves the action into city environments, adds a more cinematic 3D feel, and turns New York, Paris, and Rio into distinct stages of the chase.

Why does the “hunt” mechanic fit the Magnum brand?

Because it translates the idea of “pleasure seeking” into a simple action loop. Keep moving, keep collecting, keep chasing the next reward.

What makes an advergame replayable enough to matter?

Clear scoring, short rounds, and visible improvement. If players can beat their own time or score, they come back.

What is one practical takeaway for marketers?

If you plan a sequel, keep the rules familiar and escalate the world. That is how you get “new” without losing the audience you already earned.

The future of Augmented Reality

You point your phone at the world and it answers back. In Hidden Creative’s video, a mobile device scans what’s around you and returns live, on-the-spot information. The same AR layer lets you preview change before you commit to it, by virtually rearranging furniture or trying colours in a real space.

Utility AR: the phone becomes a real-time lens

The value is not “wow.” It is utility. The device behaves like a real-time lens you can use in the middle of a decision:

  • Scan surroundings and get contextual information immediately.
  • Overlay objects into physical space to plan renovations or layout changes.
  • Configure colours virtually before making real-world changes.

What the mechanic actually is

At its simplest, the camera feed becomes the interface. The device recognises elements in the scene, then anchors relevant information and virtual objects to the real world so you can act on what you see. When overlays reliably “stick” to reality, the experience stops feeling like a gimmick and starts behaving like a tool you can trust.

In consumer retail and home-improvement scenarios, AR becomes habitual only when it works predictably across devices and requires near-zero setup beyond opening the camera.

Why this kind of AR lands

People do not adopt AR because it is impressive. They adopt it when it reduces uncertainty in a moment that matters, like “Will this fit?”, “Will this look right?”, or “What is this thing in front of me?”. Campaign AR often optimises for novelty. Everyday AR has to optimise for reliability, speed, and repeatability.

Extractable takeaway: If AR does not reduce a real decision into a faster yes or no, it will stay a one-off experience, even if engagement looks great in the first week.

The real question is standardisation, not creativity

Augmented Reality is already active in brand campaigns around the world, mainly because it creates high engagement and talk value. Yet it still does not play an everyday role in most people’s lives because the experience is fragmented across ecosystems.

Before daily-life AR becomes normal, platform owners and developers need to standardise the experience across their ecosystems. Apple, Google, and Microsoft/Nokia each move in their own direction, and the result is fragmentation.

By “a standard AR experience,” I mean a consistent base layer for recognition, anchoring, lighting, scale, and interaction patterns so users do not have to relearn AR every time they switch apps or devices.

One master app vs. an app store full of one-offs

Right now the app stores are cluttered with many Augmented Reality apps, each doing a slice of the job. One cross-platform “master app,” or at least a consistent base layer, is a plausible starting point for making AR feel like an always-available capability instead of a novelty download.

The stance: AR becomes mainstream when it is treated like a standard capability layer, not a series of isolated one-off apps.

What to steal for your next AR decision

  • Design for repeat use. Pick a high-frequency decision moment, not a “shareable” moment.
  • Reduce setup friction. If the experience needs a special download for a single task, adoption will stall.
  • Make reliability visible. Use cues that show tracking and anchoring are stable so users trust what they see.
  • Define the base layer you depend on. Be explicit about which platform capabilities you require and what breaks without them.

A few fast answers before you act

What does the Hidden Creative video demonstrate?

It shows a phone scanning a real environment, returning contextual information in real time, and overlaying virtual objects into the scene for practical tasks like planning and previewing changes.

What is the core AR mechanic described here?

The camera feed becomes the interface. The device recognises the scene and anchors information or objects to it so the overlay stays aligned with the real world while you move.

Why does AR still feel like a campaign tool in most cases?

Because many AR experiences optimise for novelty and short-term engagement, not for reliability and repeat use. Fragmentation across platforms also prevents a consistent everyday habit.

What does “a standard AR experience” mean in practice?

It means consistent behaviour across devices and apps for recognition, anchoring, scale, lighting, and interaction patterns so users do not have to relearn AR each time.

What is meant by a “base layer” or “master app” for AR?

A shared foundation that reduces fragmentation. Instead of dozens of one-off AR apps, users get a consistent AR capability that multiple experiences can plug into.

What is the simplest next step if a brand team wants AR to drive real adoption?

Target one repeatable decision moment and design the experience to work quickly and predictably with minimal setup. If it does not reduce uncertainty, it will not become a habit.

JavaZone: Java 4-ever Trailer Romance

JavaZone is a conference in Scandinavia where developers meet, listen to talks, and plug into the wider community. The fun part is that the people behind it also know how to market it like a movie.

The trailer below is for an imaginary film called Java 4-ever. It is a full-on romance setup, but the forbidden love is not a person. It is a programming language.

A conference trailer that behaves like entertainment

The mechanic is simple. Instead of explaining “why you should attend”, JavaZone ships a piece of content you would watch even if you did not care about the conference. That content then does the job of awareness and persuasion on its own. That works because entertainment lowers resistance, so the conference earns attention before it asks for registration.

In developer communities, the fastest way to build affinity is to show you understand the culture. Then use that understanding to earn attention before you ask for registration.

Why it lands

The craft is not in the jokes alone. It is in how accurately it borrows the language of dramatic trailers. Serious music, tense reveals, disapproving family energy, and the familiar “I cannot hide who I really am” arc. The parody works because it treats tech tribalism, the identity-level loyalty people attach to tools and languages, as real emotion, which is exactly how it feels inside communities.

Extractable takeaway: If your audience is allergic to hype, do not “market” at them. Entertain them with something culture-true, and let the entertainment carry the message.

What the Java 4-ever format achieves

The real question is whether your event marketing feels native to the community you want to gather, or like promotion imported from outside it.

A trailer is short, rewatchable, and instantly shareable. That makes it a high-leverage asset for an event. One video can act as a brand statement, a community signal, and a distribution engine, all without needing a media budget narrative.

For technical events, culture-literate entertainment is stronger than benefit-led promotion when the goal is to earn voluntary attention.

What to steal for your own event

  • Write for the in-jokes, but keep the story universal. People should get it even if they are not in the tribe.
  • Use a familiar format. Trailers, sitcom cold-opens, and “documentary” cuts carry their own viewing habits.
  • Make the asset stand alone. If the content only works after someone knows your event, it will not travel.
  • Let craft be the credibility. In technical audiences, quality signals respect more than claims do.

A few fast answers before you act

What is this video actually doing for JavaZone?

It acts as cultural marketing. A shareable parody signals “this is your kind of community”, and that signal can be stronger than a feature list of talks.

Why choose a movie-trailer format?

Because audiences already know how to watch a trailer. The format compresses story, emotion, and memorability into a minute-scale asset.

What is the key creative insight?

Technical preferences often behave like identity. Treating that identity seriously, through parody, is what makes it feel accurate and funny.

How do you measure success for content like this?

Shares, rewatches, and discussion inside the community. Then correlate spikes in attention with registration momentum and speaker or sponsor interest.

Does this only work for developer audiences?

No. The transferable move is not the coding joke. It is wrapping your message in a format the audience already likes to watch and share.