Is there a better feeling than catching an ice cream truck? Rhetorical question.

For the launch of Tim Hortons’ new ice cream, we recreated that excitement on social with a contest that rewards people for catching virtual ice cream trucks — sweet, right?

We opened with an announcement post, introducing the contest and the five new flavours while also prompting followers to turn their notifications.

Across five days, we posted Instagram stories of each new flavour with ice cream trucks inconspicuously zooming through the background. People were encouraged to screenshot the trucks and submit them for a chance to win free ice cream, but they had to be quick — the posts would only be up for 30 seconds.

The IG stories were designed to masquerade as regularly scheduled product ad content, each colour themed to feature one of the ice cream flavours. Playful animation and kinetic type set an energetic tone as the ice cream cartons burst on to frame.

Each day started with a reminder to turn on notifications and wrapped up with a story that shouted out all those who caught the trucks that day — oh, we threw in some curve ball posts to keep people on their toes as well.