Live work: Creating the best worst experience to launch Cadbury Twirl Mint
We've all been there. That airline website with pre-selected fast boarding, that newsletter pop-up with a "I'm happy to miss out" button, and that subscription service that checks if you're sure you want to cancel...five times. These dark UX patterns are sadly all too familiar. So you can imagine our horror when we needed to create a deliberately bad experience!
We've been working for Cadbury for a few years alongside VCCP and Girl&Bear, helping them to launch a whole range of limited edition chocolate bars - from a safe-cracking game for Wispa Gold, to an online live stream pre-sale for Twirl Orange.
Our latest addition to this family of engaging launches is a purposefully dark UX extravaganza to launch the limited edition Twirl Mint.
Why would we actively want to create a bad user experience? Well The thing is, these bars were so exclusive, we didn't want everyone to get their hands on them. Not only that, apparently when Cadbury produces mint chocolate in the factory in Bournville, it stinks out the entire place. So creating a discouraging experience was a win for everyone.
Only the dedicated few who would be prepared to stick it through the endless pop-ups, slow loading text and frivolous form fields would be able to get their hands on one. It's fair to say that we let our inner dark UX demons run free on this one, testing the patience and sweet tooth of the audience to the max.
Well we tried anyway, sadly we didn't manage to stop thousands of people from grabbing a free bar - but we gave it our best shot at creating the best worst user experience we could.
Let's talk
Got a creative business challenge that’s looking for a breakthrough idea? Or, perhaps you’re interested in joining our collective of digital pioneers? Maybe you just want to know a little more about what we do. In any case, we’d love to hear from you.
