KLM’s Easter Egg at Christmas

First of all, what’s an Easter Egg?

Well, yes, it’s a big chocolate egg-shaped piece of confectionary and you normally get them at…well, funnily enough, Easter. But it’s also the term for a fun or interesting piece of content hidden away inside a game, film, software or any other tool or entertainment.

The term originates from Richard O’Brien’s 1975 movie “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” when the cast had an Easter Egg hunt on set. However most of the eggs went unfound. They can be seen throughout the film in various locations (such as under Frank-N-Furter’s throne).

What’s the point of an Easter Egg?

Well, there isn’t one really. Sometimes in games, they’re there as an added bonus or a seasonal bonus. Sometimes they’re just things hidden for fun. Either way, the goal is to make the user smile. They shouldn’t be in plain site and there should be an element of making the user jump through some hoops to find it, or hidden in a way that doesn’t seem really obvious.

Christmas Easter Eggs

This one was spotted by Krista Seiden on Twitter; airline KLM have altered the seat configuration tool on their website to include the little person icon with a Santa hat on. It’s actually quite hard to see and if you’re not observant, you might miss it.

Easter eggs don’t have to just be for Easter, or Xmas. You can hide an Easter Egg in your business at any time of the year and for any reason, but the the aim is to make people either receive some small reward or make them smile. The latter is something this hidden gem from KLM does.

An easy way to do this would be to have a hidden page on your website with some sort of free gift or voucher that can be redeemed in your business. Remember not to leave it there all the time or the excitement will wear off pretty quickly!

Photo by Tim Gouw on Unsplash