Office Shenanigans: Hunting Down the Anti-Fun Commission
Two years ago, I scheduled a vacation to catch up with friends on the West Coast, only to find out Digitas Health scheduled its annual holiday party for the week I was gone.
I didn’t take the news well, and launched an in-office scavenger hunt. The goal: launch a narrative-driven scavenger hunt while I was out of office, that wouldn’t require any maintenance on my part while I was gone. And so, the Anti-Fun Commission was born.
An Introduction to the Anti-Fun Commission
The idea was fairly simple: if I wasn’t going to enjoy the office holiday party, why should anyone else get to enjoy themselves? So I created the Anti-Fun Commission, decrying the super enjoyable vices my coworkers would get to enjoy in my absence. Keywords hidden in propaganda posters at various locations around the office would unlock videos containing hints to the next location, unlocked through a series of automated email responders from the antifuncommission@gmail.com email address.
My main strategy for introducing people to the scavenger hunt was including the antifuncommission@gmail.com email address in my out-of-office message, for coworkers to investigate. However, I knew I needed to work the kinks out prior to my official vacation, so I sent out an email to a dozen or so coworkers, asking them to be beta-testers for the scavenger hunt, knowing their word of mouth would help the campaign spread. Either way, the experience started with the following email message:
******************IMPORTANT INTERNAL UPDATE*******************
Yes, I am missing this year’s holiday party. Yes, I am sad about it. To cope, I created an UNOFFICIAL, IN-OFFICE SCAVENGER HUNT. Four posters are hidden at key locations across the office (11th Floor Digitas Health Philly space only). Emailing the keyword from each poster to antifuncommission@gmail.com will unlock an embarrassing video of me, along with hints of where to find the next poster.
<<TO LEARN THE LOCATION OF THE FIRST POSTER: email antifuncommission@gmail.com>>
Fun Fact of the Day: Did you know that listerine wasn’t originally used to fight the dangers of halitosis? Prior to the company shifting into the mouthwash space, the product was used as a surgical antiseptic and floor cleaner.
Source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/marketing-campaign-invented-halitosis-180954082/
Part 1: Everything Starts with Human Resources
Since I learned my lesson from the office Bathroom Banner saga, I made sure I received pre-approval for the campaign from Human Resources, and even made their office the first station of the scavenger hunt. Sending out an email to antifuncommission@gmail.com (which still works, so you can follow along at home) triggered the following message:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thank you for reaching out to the Anti-Fun Commission — campaigning to take all the fun out of the Office Holiday Party since December 2016. Unfortunately, we’re having an adverse reaction to elevated levels of fun in the office in anticipation for the Digitas Heatlh holiday party, and can’t get back to you directly.
To make up for that, we’ve hidden four different posters highlighting the evils of fun across the office. Each poster has a different keyword…once you find each keyword, write us back — we may have something important to say.
To find the first poster, head on over to HR and see if you notice anything unusual…
Most disagreeably yours,
The Anti-Fun Commission
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Note: this is the first email of the Anti-Fun Commission Experience. If you have already discovered one of the posters, please write an email to this address that includes the featured keyword. While the full experience and the clues are targeted towards people following along in a linear fashion, it is not mandatory. If you see a keyword, feel free to use it.
This initial email was intentionally easy to solve, since it was introducing players to the game’s mechanics. Go to HR, find the poster, get the keyword.
Sending an email to the Anti-Fun Commission with “MOURNING” in either the subject line or body would send out the next email in the sequence, which included a link to the introductory video, with a clue to the next location.
In retrospect, this first challenge was too hard for this early in the experience — typically, you want to ramp up the difficulty level as puzzle hunts progress, and expecting coworkers to realize that “LABORATORY” is only one letter away from “LAVORATORY” was a steep ask. However, while I expected coworkers to treat this as a collaborative puzzle, most tackled the challenge solo, with only a few groups of two going along for the ride.
PART 2: The Bathroom Banners Throwback
The previous year’s bathroom banners escapades were still fresh in many coworkers’ minds, so quite a few coworkers found the Anti-Fun Commission scavenger hunt through the second station. This isn’t completely out of the ordinary for puzzle trails and scavenger hunts, as people rarely follow the linear paths designed for them.
As before, emailing “REPAST” to the antifuncommission@gmail.com would trigger the next email in sequence, unlocking the second video.
This triggered the third and most challenging challenge of the Hunt, requiring coworkers to either tap into some outside knowledge, or pay close attention to that auto-response message that started things off in the first place.
PART 3: Trivial Pursuit
The second video asked coworkers to go back to the bathroom and seek out the floor cleaner…
Some coworkers might have remembered the fact that listerine was originally used as floor cleaner…however, since that fact wasn’t what I’d consider general knowledge, I included it as a “Fun Fact” in the original email that launched the experience.
The “Pop Stars” wall was a recent addition to Digitas Health, allowing coworkers to recognize exemplary achievement from their peers. Look closely, and they might see a familiar splash of color.
That’s right, a “Pop Star” sticker recognizing their problem solver skills, revealing the location of the third poster!
Since the video unlocked by this poster was arguably the most embarrassing one for me, I made it the hardest to find. Casually walking by the office staircase, you’d never notice the poster hanging around the corner…
…unless you knew to look there.
The third video unlocked, and only one left to go!
PART 4: End of the Line
The final poster relied on my weakest puzzle, asking coworkers to identify one of our conference rooms that could describe a school for dance by putting its name in the phrase “The _____ for _____ Dance” — heading over to Centre Square unveiled the final poster, and its corresponding video.
Tracking Everything Will Get You Everywhere
Because I ran this scavenger hunt through email auto-responders, I was able to track individual progress through the hunt, in real time. So let’s talk user-flows and numbers.
Over the course of the week, 23 teams gave my in-office scavenger hunt a go, with six teams making it all the way to the end and eight giving up after finding their first email.
Most people started with the Welcome email (either because I sent out links to them as beta-testers or because they saw my out-of-office message), although 7 people got started by discovering either the first or second posters. Almost all of the people who stumbled across the posters continued on in some fashion.
The videos also got traction outside of the experience itself, with 107 views against the introductory video, 51 against the second video, and 21 apiece for the third and fourth videos. These dropoff rates were somewhat expected, so I designed the introductory video to provide snapshots of the full experience, to hint at the broader story.
…and yes, I recognized the dedicated few who made it through the full experience by sending them Holiday Hunt Completion cards for Valentine’s Day early the next year.
Scavenging Up a Few Lessons Learned
Was taking the time to create a location-specific puzzle trail driven by video messages worth it? Probably not, but creating the experience amused me enough that actual participation rates were icing on the cake. I did learn a few things, though.
- Always Remember to Beta-Test
I created the office scavenger hunt to run without any upkeep on my part…but I made sure I was in office and on hand for support when the scavenger hunt launched to my “beta-testers” because things rarely work as expected, despite the best of intentions. During the beta-tester round of deployment, I learned that replies to GMail auto-responses generate bounceback messages, and was able to flag the issue for future participants, noting that “some users have experienced issues where replying to emails interferes with the rules used to manage the system. If you send in a keyword and don’t get a reply, try sending it again as a new email.” - The Order Designed is Not the Order Experienced
My in-office scavenger hunt was intentionally designed to tell people how to get in on the fun, even if they stumbled across a poster out of its intended context. Considering two of the seven people who finished the experience started playing after stumbling across posters, this was a necessary design choice. Never underestimate the value of people who stumble upon your experience: over the weekend, I came across a station from a Philadelphia-based scavenger hunt by happenstance…but I won’t be able to buy a ticket to participate since it didn’t include any branding to tell me who made it.
Last time on Office Shenanigans: Michael posts fake ads in the office restrooms
