In South Africa, blackouts cut power, internet and attention in an instant. For Stage Zero, that created a rare opportunity: reach people at the exact moment power outages made the need for solar tangible.
When the lights go out, people still reach for their phones. Not because anything works, but because the habit remains. That reflex became the opening. If Stage Zero could make one thing work offline, it could show up in a moment no other brand could reach.
Enter Blackout Runner: a lightweight retro endless runner built for outages. The game is silently cached while users are online, then remains playable when connection drops.During outages, timed SMSs bring players back to the game, where they dodge obstacles, collect power tokens and try to outrun a 1-bit South African blackout.
Making that work meant more than building gameplay. Every asset had to cache on first visit, then run without signal, APIs or fallbacks. The system also had to capture leads, trigger SMSs by blackout area, and sync leaderboard data when connection returned.
The result was part game, part media channel. It turned every outage into a branded experience, helping people survive blackouts while pointing to Stage Zero as the way to avoid them altogether.
We turned dead time into play time, hijacking a moment other brands couldn’t reach, and proved that when the grid switched off, Stage Zero didn’t.
Jägermeister was losing relevance with 18–24s as the brand’s “cool factor” eroded and competitors doubled down on lifestyle credibility. Our task: reignite affinity, restore boldness, and make
Jägermeister feel untouchable again. Not with another brand party, but by creating a ritual people had to talk about. One that drove engagement, earned media, and trigger the kind of FOMO that made people need to be there.
We reframed Haus of Kühl from a one-city event into a three-city immersive brand world, tripling our touchpoints, conversations, and cultural currency. Our approach blended mystery, spectacle, and scarcity to create FOMO-fueled anticipation and
drive RSVPs at scale.
In just 8 weeks, we reached 1.9 million South Africans, sold out all 3 events ahead of schedule, and drove 3X more engagement than the year before. Demand outpaced supply by 44%, creator participation jumped to 202%, and engagement beat category benchmarks by 470%. Haus of Kühl didn’t just reach people, it re-earned their loyalty.
