Easter eggs in products that people talk about

Small hidden jokes and rewards that give users a reason to share your product.

Impact
Low
Effort
Low
Filed under
Awareness, Referral
Updated

An easter egg in a product is a hidden joke, message, animation or game that people find by following a secret trigger or by stumbling on it. As easter egg marketing, it is a cheap way to give users something to show a friend. It does not bring in traffic on a schedule: an egg works only if it is fun enough that someone mentions it, so treat it as a small bet on word of mouth and keep the build short.

How to do it

  1. Pick a trigger that fits your product. Common ones are a typed word, a key combination, clicking the logo several times, or a custom 404 page. Make it discoverable enough that someone will find it and hidden enough that it feels like a find.
  2. Make the payoff short and visual. A two-second animation or a one-line joke beats a mini-game that takes a week to build. If someone screenshots it, the screenshot should make sense without context.
  3. Tie it to your product's personality or to a moment of success, such as finishing a task. A random egg is a novelty. One that matches how you talk everywhere else reads as part of the brand.
  4. Add an off switch and respect motion settings. In CSS, the prefers-reduced-motion media feature tells you when someone has asked their device to minimize non-essential motion. MDN notes that scaling or panning large objects can trigger people with vestibular motion disorders.
  5. Keep it away from forms, checkout and anything a user must finish. An egg that blocks a payment is a bug.
  6. Seed it once, quietly. Mention it in a changelog, a help page or a social post if you want people to look for it. You can count shares and visits to the trigger, but do not assume any lift in signups.

Examples

  • Asana celebrations. In a 2015 post, Asana described a "unicorn hack" that gives "a flying surprise across your screen" when you finish tasks, plus a "Tab+B because, cats" shortcut. Both were switched on in the Hacks tab of My Profile Settings. In March 2016 Asana launched a narwhal, phoenix and yeti to join the unicorn, and said you enable celebrations in the Display tab. In a 2023 community thread, an Asana solutions partner (not an employee) said the "Extra Delight" setting is tied to cats and dogs on a keyboard shortcut. We could not confirm that Tab+B itself still works.
  • Google "do a barrel roll." In November 2011, typing that phrase into Google Search made the results page spin 360 degrees. A Google spokesperson told TPM the query was "created by a Google software engineer with the primary goal of entertaining users" while showing off CSS3, and would "remain in place for a while." we did not check whether it still works today. See the TPM report.

When it backfires

  • App store review. Apple's App Review Guideline 2.3.1(a) says: "Don't include any hidden, dormant, or undocumented features in your app." It also says new features must be described in the Notes for Review. If your app ships an egg, describe it there, or reviewers can reject the build.
  • Some users find them unprofessional. One user on the Asana community forum called the animations "silly, unprofessional, and downright childish." The partner who replied agreed the playfulness is "not right for every team's work culture." Make the egg opt-in or easy to turn off, especially in a work tool.
  • Motion and accessibility. Animation can cause problems for people sensitive to motion. Honor reduced-motion settings.
  • Maintenance. A hidden feature is code that has to keep working. Eggs that break after a redesign look worse than none.

Questions people ask

What are digital easter eggs? Hidden features or jokes inside software or sites, reached through a trigger like a typed phrase, a key combination or a particular click sequence.

Do easter eggs help marketing? They can give people something to share, but we found no published numbers showing a reliable lift, so treat the effect as unproven for your product.

Can I put an easter egg in an iOS app? Yes, with care. Apple's guideline 2.3.1(a) bars hidden or undocumented features, so describe the egg in the Notes for Review field.

Sources

Want word-of-mouth like this on autopilot?

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