Dentsu's Phantom Snack serves the crunch of chips with zero calories

Dentsu creative director Ko Izumi noticed his late-night snacking was not about hunger but about filling the emptiness in his mouth. He sat on the concept for about 20 years until an internal development opportunity let him actually build it.

Phantom Snack works by watching the jaw with facial image recognition and feeding back synchronized crunch sounds and vibrations through bone-conduction earphones; visuals and an aroma diffuser complete the illusion. The team moved from rule-based code to machine learning and trained it on diverse faces so it works across ethnicities.

At SXSW 2023, more than 1,000 visitors tried it and the booth kept lines. Chewing is linked to concentration, stress relief and cognitive function, so the team sees uses from calorie-free indulgence to liquid-diet meals and VR fitness. The project was shortlisted in Early Stage Technology at the 2025 Innovation Spikes.

Satisfy the crunch craving without the calories

It reframes snacking as a sensory need, opening a category where the product is the sensation, not the food.

It uses ordinary hardware — a webcam and bone-conduction earphones — instead of new food chemistry.

The demo-first approach at SXSW turned a research prototype into a talked-about experience.

Chewing research gives it health claims beyond weight control.

Ask what the behavior is really for: when the body craves texture, the fix can replace the food instead of fighting the craving.

Dentsu Lab continues to show Phantom Snack, including at the 2025 Inclusion Conference of the Bund in Shanghai, positioning it in future-health tech; developers also point to uses like adding texture to liquid diets and controlling fitness games with jaw motion.