Gingerbread house comes to life!

My Mom always said that I was not allowed to play with my food, but this past weekend she made an exception when we visited Taste of Home’s Gingerbread Boulevard installation in New York City’s Madison Square Park. The outside of the gingerbread house looked exactly like you would imagine, built with ginger bricks, a frosting covered roof, peppermint sticks and gum drops, but the inside was anything but “typical”. When we entered the house we experienced multiple interactive elements that included being able to decorate a Christmas tree, make a gingerbread man dance and have a marshmallow snowman appear and disappear with a wave of our hands. Through a partnership with Folgers Coffee, customers near and far were able to have their digital photos appear over “America’s Holiday Mantel” using #holidayheritage. In addition to being streamed inside of the house, the customer-submitted photos were featured on the “Folgers Family Feed” ad units that ran on Taste of Home Magizne's digital channels. Organizers were expecting 350,000 visitors and 10 million impressions via social media during the two-week installation (I waited for over an hour, so it was definitely popular). The experience was fun and helped bring the Taste of Home brand to life, one I was not previously familiar with. Where I felt that they missed the mark, was the partnership with Folgers Coffee. While there was some Folgers Coffee branding on-site and the obvious social media impressions, those of us who waited for over an hour were left out in the cold…literally. I, as many others mentioned in line, would have loved a hot cup of coffee. Maybe next year!