Thinkingbox’s redesigned and developed Happy Egg website not only promotes the launch of its “Always Choose Happy” campaign, but sets it apart from its competitors. The website won FWA, CSS, Awwwards, W3, and more.

Coming off a year of strong growth driven by the acquisition of Salt Lake City-based digital and live-action agency Welikesmall in December 2019, and New York digital management company Aarra a month later, Thinkingbox roared into 2020 with its engines in high gear.

The onset of COVID 19 did not slow things down. Instead, a lockdown-driven hunger for digital content fuelled further expansion, and the acquisition of Vancouver-based social media agency AntiSocial Solutions in March 2020. AntiSocial is currently set up as a sister company to Thinkingbox.

The Thinkingbox team supported Riot Games in launching its 2021 Season Start campaign for League of Legends, working hand-in-hand with the Riot team to design the assets that brought the campaign to life.

Having begun 2020 with 50 employees, Thinkingbox saw that number double to just over a hundred by the end of the year. With global internet ad spend doubling since 2015 and the consumption of online content doubling since the start of the pandemic, the company has cultivated the right skill set to meet the brands’ new needs.

To stay ahead of the shifting dynamics of media consumption, Thinkingbox has been rethinking its brand and honing its offer. After ten years in business, CEO Amir Sahba says, “We no longer think of ourselves as just an interactive and experiential production company but as a global creative collective shaping the future of brands through craft and curiosity.”

To revamp its messaging and explore new ways of connecting with its users, Intuit QuickBooks partnered with Thinkingbox to create a series of walk-through videos that focused on the brand’s purpose of uplifting entrepreneurs

With repositioning comes a restructuring of its offer. Sahba explains that the capabilities gained via the acquisitions enabled Thinkingbox to inhabit a new space between production company and agency. “To reflect that, we’ve distilled our offer into four key services: digital, experiential, content, and social. What differentiates us from most digital-first agencies and digital production companies is that we are equally proficient in all four disciplines.”

Thinkingbox teamed up with Adobe to design and build an app that customizes an in-depth report based on interactions, absorption speed and personal preferences.

And the work reflects the new toolkit. On the digital front, longtime gaming client Riot Games worked with Thinkingbox to launch the 2019, 2020 and now 2021 season of its multiplayer League of Legends series. League, which owns the biggest eSports platform in the world, with tournaments broadcast by ESPN, and attracting over 40 million viewers, is a massive franchise.

To get players excited in the six days leading up to launch, Thinkingbox created a suite of five Champion portraits (playercontrolled characters gamers purchase in order to compete) along with a motion graphics package, a new design, and digital experience for the game’s digital hub, as well as a corresponding microsite and a full set of brand assets.

Dance The Slurp, an original recording produced by 7-Eleven, is a catchy retro tune from the late 60s. Thinkingbox and AntiSocial remixed the track to create a #DanceTheSlurp social media dance challenge that generated buzz across Canada

For experiential, Pinterest asked Thinkingbox to bring its recently launched Trends tool to life at CES 2020. The solution consisted of an interactive wall with shelves holding objects representing different themes (home, travel, health+wellness, food, beauty, and style), all linked to an iPad with a custom user interface that allowed visitors to demo the Trends tool, while a giant 4K screen displayed animated insights related to each category.

In terms of content, new client Intuit engaged Thinkingbox to develop and execute a series of digital ‘walkthrough’ videos by creating a narrative that used two actual small businesses – Orchid Dynasty in Utah and Marietta Sheet Metal in Georgia – to demonstrate the day-to-day benefits of Intuit’s QuickBooks software.

Earls, a thriving brand with 65 locations across North America, engaged Thinkingbox to redesign its website. Each Earl’s menu is location specific, so the challenge entailed designing a platform to encompass all the seasonal and ever-changing menu variations.

And finally, on the social media front, to celebrate the 50^thanniversary of 7 Eleven’s signature ‘Slurpee’ beverage, Thinkingboxenlisted Canadian choreographer Carlo to create a dance called‘The Slurp’ and asked the top 15 dance studios in Canada to submitinterpretations of the steps. Geolocated search words were used to detect content posted with the hashtag #DanceTheSlurp in specific communities, while hip hop influencers were sent links to videos of the dance choreo, the song, the ‘why’ behind the campaign, and all the links, hashtags and handles to help promote it.

Pinterest engaged Thinkingbox to help bring its recently launched Trends tool to life at the 2020 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). When guests selected one of the six trends (Home, Travel, Health & Wellness, Food, Beauty, and Style), the object would light up on the wall, showcasing the trend in person for the guest.

Thinkingbox’s M.O aligns with the Canadian cliché ‘skate to where the puck is going’, unencumbered by legacy firms’ investment in a model built for where advertising needs have been. And the strategy is working for them. The past year has seen important wins, including expanding current relationships with Intuit and Adobe, and adding new relationships with online mattress vendor Purple and machine intelligence provider Primer.

Building on its expanding credentials in the marketplace, Thinkingbox hosts a thought leadership platform called ‘Talk Nerdy to Me’, a kind of masterclass in industry trends and learnings, which tellingly, is also seeing audience growth with every session.

CONTACT:
Jessie Corney
Director, New Business
jessie@thinkingbox.com