unleashing havoc in the middle of nowhere
brand launch + stunt

Gen Z was born into the chaotic information age. With every answer at their fingertips, they crave the unexpected and unexplained. So to launch PepsiCo Foods Canada’s first new snack brand in 10 years, we leaned all the way in, harnessing the hype of otherworldly phenomena to usher in a new era of snacking.

we uno reversed the super bowl ad.

We teased Havoc’s launch during the biggest snack day of the year, where we took the most precious airtime in advertising and tossed the keys to online creators, cutting through celebrity noise and driving traffic to the real Gen Z platform: TikTok.

we chose a glitch in the calendar as our launch date.

and then we dropped a monolith in the middle of nowhere. literally.

Nowhere Island, to be specific: a small, remote landmass near the US-Canadian border, where we dropped a 15-foot monolith and waited for Leap Day to arrive.

with zero explanation, we streamed the whole thing live.

Letting hype build via social and OOH at Toronto’s Yonge-Dundas Square (aka Canada’s Times Square), we gave zero explanation and let the mystery take hold of the consumer narrative.

on february 29 the monolith opened, revealing pepsico foods canada’s first new snack brand in 10 years.

what started nowhere quickly was everywhere.

From national news outlets to local papers, our monolith launch stunt earned 251,557,999 total earned media impressions, plus 422 total earned editorial hits. Meanwhile, the Gen Z-focused strategy paid off, earning Havoc a TikTok engagement rate 4,812x higher than benchmark average, leading Havoc to become the #1 most followed PepsiCo Canada brand on TikTok.