There comes a time in the life of an emerging company when it is presented with the opportunity to demonstrate it mettle in a big way, to show it can handle the big time.  That opportunity to deliver came for Selffee in December when it was asked to put its Edible Photo Booth to work for none other than Google as part of their “Treat Yourself” pop up activation, promoting the release of their Pixel 2 phone.  And deliver it did, in a big way.

photo courtesy of @romanshotthis

For ten days, Selffee pumped out photos onto Selfie Marshmallows like it had never done before, delivering approximately 9,000 smiles and warming New Yorkers’ bellies and spirits with some much needed hot cocoa in Midtown Manhattan, just up the road from Union Square Park.  The first day brought the first big snow of the upcoming New York winter, and the temperatures dropped dramatically. But Selffee was more than up to the challenge to keep everyone warm and content.

The Google team was excellent from the get go, putting us up in our very own food truck, where, with the help of a catering company who prepared the hot chocolate, the Selffee squad set to putting its Edible Photo Booth to work.  With three or four Selffee team members on site managing the Selfie Marshmallow printing, we set up two printers in the truck, had one team member manning the computer and processing the photos, one managing the printers and placing the marshmallows, and another one or two out in the cold taking photos and interacting with the Google guests, delivering its famous Selffee good cheer to folks as they waited for their personalized treats.

With only enough space for two printers, the Selffee squad had to work efficiently to make sure folks were not out in the cold for too long.  But within the first few hours into the ten day event, we had it down to a science. And good thing we did, because as the event continued from day to day, more and more people heard about the Edible Photo Booth through social media, word of mouth, or through plain good luck of doing some holiday shopping and being in the right place at the right time.

This was a great event for Selffee to get the opportunity to really deliver its custom treats to the people, and the response was electric.  Each day, more and more people arrived wanting to eat their faces on a gourmet, custom vanilla bean marshmallow plopped down into some piping-hot hot chocolate.  And as more and more people arrived, the more efficient the Selffee team became. The line regularly grew to 50 or 60 people, often starting to wrap around the corner of the Google pop up in the midtown Flatiron building.  But regardless, from the time they got their photos taken to the time they were eating--or sipping--their melting faces, guests rarely had to wait more than ten minutes.

The responses we got were lovely, to say the least.  It seemed people were not expecting the quality of their photos on a piece of food, as more and more people gave looks of amazement in seeing the high quality image produced using the new camera on the Pixel 2 phone combined with the the high quality printing capabilities of the Edible Photo Booth.  Screams of “oh my GOD” and other phrases we, at Selffee, do not feel it is appropriate to repeat here, rained down as we continued to pump out the Selfie Marshmallows.

One group of six ladies on a rendevouz holiday got a group shot and didn’t stop laughing hysterically for minutes in awe of the funny faces they made.  And one adorable young kid opened his mouth and eyes and as wide as could be, seemingly unable to contain his excitement at having his own face on a marshmallow.  Of course, with thousands of Edible Selfies printed, the number and descriptions of all of the stunned, ecstatic and humorous responses are too numerous to mention. Suffice it to say, there were a lot, and people were thoroughly digging eating their faces from day one to day ten.

And after getting their Edible Selfies in hot cocoa, guests were able to check out the rest of the Google activation, which was beyond impressive.  Curious customers were free to test out the camera functions in a multitude of ways, check out the impressive capabilities of the Google Home product and the Google Pixelbook, and change their reality by testing out Google’s virtual reality goggles that turned a mere phone into an other-worldly experience.  One photo station had a white ball pit with a simulated snow background that gave the guests an opportunity to get an awesome winter white photo to share on Instagram and Facebook. Another station used the impressive artistic vision of Jason Woodside, who created a colorful backdrop for photos of guests wearing silly, colorful costumes that were then turned into their very own personalized wrapping paper!  Of course we were not surprised, but it was obvious that the folks at Google knew how to create an unforgettable activation.

The “Treat Yourself” theme of the activation was spot on, and perfect for the holiday season.  We here at Selffee fully support people doing good things for themselves that will make them happy.  Treating oneself to a one-of-a-kind photo opportunity, whether on a delicious marshmallow or a roll of wrapping paper, turned out to be quite a unique and memorable way to do so.

With any event that Selffee does, its main purpose is to bring smiles to people’s faces and joy to their lives.  Teaming up with Google for the Pixel 2 promotional activation was a perfect place to do just that. Although New York tends to have a reputation of people keeping to themselves and not saying hello to people on the street, we were able to see quite another side, a side of happiness, community and holiday cheer.  Guests made new friends in line, marveling at each others’ Edible Selfies, and laughing together with all the familiarity of close friends.

Selffee is really all about bringing people together in love and enjoyment, with a little bit of silliness and good fun thrown in for good measure.  And we could not have had more fun in that food truck for the ten days of the Google activation. It was truly a pleasure and an honor to be part of such a special event.

And it was encouraging and affirming to see that Selffee could handle a massive, ten day event with ease and excitement for the biggest of clients.  Our team could not have been more stoked to dish out our Edible Selfies to some frigid New Yorkers in need of some warmth and holiday cheer. And we could not have been more pleased with the opportunity to work with a company as strong and innovative as Google.  We loved bringing people together, one marshmallow smile at a time.