Old Bay AR Scavenger Hunt

2020 was a hard year for restaurants and cultural institutions in Baltimore (and, well, everywhere else.) But our friends at McCormick are especially invested in their community, and with their new headquarters located in Hunt Valley—right on the edge of The Monumental City—they wanted to do their part to reinvigorate the dining community as Covid vaccination rates reached safe levels. We partnered with them to create an AR Scavenger hunt that challenged Baltimoreans to get out of their homes and back to their favorite spots in search of a culinary favorite: Old Bay-covered blue crabs. But these weren’t just any crabs, they were cute and playful costumed AR crabs inspired by some of Baltimore’s best—like the Maryland Zoo, American Museum of Industry, and Cindy Lou’s Fish House. By checking Twitter for clues, fans could guess where to go to find QR Codes that activated each special crab, then tap them three times with an Old Bay Mallet to collect them and enter a sweepstakes!

Although you didn’t need to travel to each Baltimore location to play—an alternative at-home version of the experience was available to anyone through www.oldbaycrabhunt.com —it was the only way to catch the limited-availability custom crabs, which helped make the AR activation all the more special. In fact, because Old Bay released a clue on Twitter twice a week, there were more than 10 crabs to collect (including an online superstar Mr. Trash Wheel crab) each with a custom appearance inspired by their location. Every time you caught a crab, we gave you the opportunity to share the custom crustacean on your social feeds to help accomplish McCormick’s goal of raising visibility for locations who could use the extra foot traffic. We’re especially proud of the fact that this entire experience was run through mobile web browsers (thanks to our friends at 8^th Wall) which meant jumping in to participate was easy, requiring no download or installation for crab-hungry Baltimoreans who simply wanted to get cracking.