Eight O’Clock Coffee, America’s original gourmet coffee, today announces the release of The Great Coffee Break: a digital escape room game that people can play for the chance to win a year of free groceries! The Great Coffee Break is the first Augmented Reality-triggered digital game designed by Escape the Room and can be launched by scanning any Eight O’Clock Coffee package with the Shazam app – or by going directly to GreatCoffeeBreak.com. Set in a fictitious animated roastery, players will solve coffee-themed puzzles to help bags of Eight O’Clock “escape the roastery.” The Great Coffee Break will run from June 17 through August 11, 2018, and eight people will win the grand prize: free groceries for a year.*
Since 1859, generations of Americans have been connecting over Eight O’Clock – enjoying rich, smooth coffee as they share conversations, celebrate special moments, and play games together. The Great Coffee Break will provide consumers with a new way to experience their love of coffee and gaming by leveraging the escape room trend that has grown exponentially in recent years.
Players of the Great Coffee Break will explore different virtual rooms within the roastery to find clues, solve puzzles, and complete the mission. Eight O’Clock Coffee’s game is designed to facilitate the satisfying feeling of discovery that players experience in physical escape rooms – which may be the reason that they have grown in the US from 22 in 2014 to about 2,300 today.
Michael Scalera, Senior Brand Manager at Eight O’Clock Coffee stated the following:
“With the Great Coffee Break, we are tapping into one of the hottest emerging trends in a way that is meaningful to coffee drinkers and relevant to today’s lifestyle. Our fans tell us all the time that enjoying Eight O’Clock Coffee is key to their day – and it’s certainly key to solving the Great Coffee Break. Plus, while people are ‘escaping the room’ they’ll have a chance to escape their grocery bill for a year.”
Victor Blake, Founder and CEO, Escape the Room stated the following:
“Eight O’Clock Coffee has long provided a meaningful way to bring people together, as does Escape the Room – so putting our brands together was a natural fit. Bringing both of these experiences to life virtually in a way that makes sense for a solo player was my primary inspiration for The Great Coffee Break game. I’m thrilled with how the game turned out, and I think people will really enjoy playing…hopefully with a cup of Eight O’Clock in their hand.”
Scalera adds:
“The Great Coffee Break is a game, not a true reflection of the process at our roasting facility in Landover, MD. We have to keep some secrets, after all.”
The Great Coffee Break promotion runs from June 17, 2018 through August 11, 2018 and was conceived and executed by The S3 Agency in Boonton, NJ. The game is being supported by in-store and digital advertising, social media, and public relations outreach.
To play the Great Coffee Break and for complete rules and details, go to www.GreatCoffeeBreak.com.
*Each Grand Prize of is a year of free groceries, defined as $8,000 awarded in the form of a check. No purchase is necessary to enter. Open to legal residents of the 50 United States or D.C., age 18 or older.
