For the last several years, people have been told that the internet and social media have reduced their attention spans to be “shorter than a goldfish’s.” That comparison might be a bit of an over-simplification of the science, but it does give Goldfish crackers a connection to put its customers’ concentration to test.

Created by agency partner Zulu Alpha Kilo with production arm Zulubot, a new Snapchat filter shows a Goldfish cracker slowly making its way out of a bottle of ketchup – fitting, given that it is promoting the brand’s new “Kravin’ Ketchup” flavour – and asks a user to keep their eyes focused on it for as long as they can.

Many filters on Snapchat and Instagram have features and animations triggered by certain actions, like opening your mouth or turning your head in a certain direction. But Zulu used Snap’s facial mesh technology for the first time in Canada, providing the filter with more detailed and sensitive facial detection.

In this case, the filter zooms in on a user’s eyes, and if it detects that they’ve looked away from the fish, they’ll have to try again. But that is easier said than done, as the filter purposefully tries to distract the user, using methods like imitations of phone notifications and alarms.

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If the user can stay focused for at least nine seconds – one commonly held mark for a goldfish’s attention span – they will receive a promo code to get a discount on their next Goldfish purchase.

This is the first campaign under the Goldfish brand’s “Flavour Blasted” platform for 2021. Zulu Alpha Kilo began working with the Campbell’s brand last year, launching a platform that drew a connection between the snack and supporting the different creative paths a child may pursue.

That platform has also included some tech-forward activations, which the brand is no stranger to. This year, as part of a shopper marketing push, Goldfish ran an AR scavenger hunt found by scanning packages or in-store displays. It did something similar in 2019, again working with Snapchat, to promote a range of its Flavour Blasted SKUs.

The “Focus Faceoff Lens” has been promoted within Snapchat’s carousel of lenses this week, with the gamified experience running for the rest of November and being promoted with social content. Spark Foundry is handling the media buy.