10 Highly effective Examples of Branded AR Campaigns

Study augmented actuality (AR) promoting from a few of the largest manufacturers on this planet, and get sensible recommendation on creating AR adverts with our easy information for manufacturers.

This text was initially printed by Arprio. Trying to study extra about immersive know-how? Arprio helps firms navigate the XR area, launch new merchandise, and develop their market share. Get in touch with Arprio now to study extra about how they may help.

Augmented actuality (AR) permits manufacturers to chop via the noise in ways in which conventional media merely can’t. With a predicted global AR user base of 1.73 billion by the tip of 2024, AR remains to be but to achieve its apex by way of utilization and potential promoting attain. On the similar time, main social platforms like Snapchat proceed to broaden their AR adverts providing with the recent launch of sponsored AR filters. Regardless of all this, some manufacturers are nonetheless selecting to miss AR promoting in favor of extra acquainted terrain.

To assist handle this, we’ve put collectively a fast information overlaying what AR promoting is, a few of the principal AR platforms that you need to be conscious of, current examples of nice AR campaigns, and a step-by-step method that can assist you plan your individual AR marketing campaign.

What’s Augmented Actuality Promoting?

Augmented actuality promoting entails creating advertising campaigns or experiences utilizing AR know-how, which improve the person’s view of the true world with digital content material together with graphics, textual content, or video. As we defined in The Difference Between VR, AR, MR and XR, the potential upside of AR by way of recall and engagement is large in comparison with conventional promoting codecs, and might be loved by mainly anybody with a working smartphone. In that respect, AR promoting is exclusive in comparison with different immersive applied sciences, because it doesn’t depend on shoppers proudly owning any further {hardware}. Moreover, with the discharge of paradigm-changing tech just like the Apple Vision Pro earlier this yr, AR promoting additionally provides new alternatives in extremely engaged and well-off shopper demographics who do have the means to put money into costly {hardware}.

10 Nice Examples of AR Promoting

AR promoting is available in all styles and sizes, with AR constructing on numerous conventional promoting codecs. Whereas mediums like Out Of House (OOH) are an apparent alternative for augmented actuality (because of the widespread adoption of QR codes throughout the pandemic), experiential and event-based advertising are additionally standard selections for manufacturers trying to make a press release utilizing AR. Equally, AR instruments that improve a person’s shopping for journey – like Ikea’s Place app – are one other nice solution to construct belief and add worth, with out being apparent makes an attempt at promoting. Listed below are just a few of our favourite AR campaigns from current years.

Pizza Hut – PAC-MAN AR (2021)

What was the quickest promoting recreation console on this planet? Based mostly on the variety of models bought, a pizza field. In 2021, Pizza Hut teamed up with artistic growth studio Tool and advert company GSD&M to reimagine the enduring 80s arcade recreation PAC-MAN in an unimaginable AR marketing campaign. By means of an superior mixture of nostalgia and trendy know-how, Pizza Hut cooked up among the best AR advert campaigns we’ve ever seen.

Utilizing WebAR platform eighth Wall (owned by Niantic), Pizza Hut and their companies gave prospects a particular pizza field that, when scanned with a smartphone digicam, introduced PAC-MAN to life in augmented actuality proper on prime of the field by way of the telephone’s internet browser. With its accompanying Superbowl Ad, the marketing campaign was a scorching success, racking up 741 million impressions, 10.6 million PAC-MAN pizza bins bought, mainstream TV information protection, plus numerous PR plugs in retailers like Hypebeast, designboom, and Food & Wine.

Dune: Half Two (2024)

A less complicated solution to promote with AR is thru filters and lenses, which contain utilizing a smartphone digicam to mix parts of digital content material into the considered space, or parts of a person’s face right into a digital scene. As a part of their advertising push for the discharge of the long-awaited Dune: Part Two film, Warner Bros created a Dune Lens for Snapchat that allowed customers to grow to be a sandworm-riding Fremen, the legendary desert warriors of Dune’s eponymous planet.

The lens and customized Cameo stickers ran alongside video adverts for the movie’s launch, with Snapchat customers capable of faucet the adverts and buy tickets from a microsite. The Dune AR marketing campaign was instance of a easy idea that would foster engagement and encourage user-generated content material utilizing AR, all whereas resulting in a rise in ticket gross sales via the lens’ microsite.

Purple Bull – World Collection Cliff Diving (2023)

Vitality drinks large Purple Bull are recognized for bigger than life stunts and excessive sports activities, however shoppers aren’t all the time capable of respect the size of their occasions with out attending in individual. AR company Rock Paper Reality stepped in to assist Purple Bull remedy this downside with an ingenious marketing campaign selling their World Series Cliff Diving. The marketing campaign, a WebAR experience built on the 8th Wall platform, allowed customers to expertise what a 70ft dive appears to be like like proper from their smartphone by merely scanning a QR code. Breathtaking stuff!

‍Coca-Cola Zero – #TakeATasteNow (2023)

On September 25, 2023, Coca-Cola unveiled an OOH campaign that allowed customers to alter the adverts’ 3D artistic in actual time utilizing their smartphones. The #TakeATasteNow marketing campaign, which ran throughout the UK for 3 weeks, let customers seize a digital bottle of Coca-Cola Zero earlier than getting a voucher to assert an actual bottle in any collaborating Tesco retailer. This marketing campaign is an instance of an ‘Interplay-Reward’ fashion of AR expertise that’s grow to be vastly standard in B2C advertising.

AR is an effective way to gamify your promoting. Because the Coca-Cola marketing campaign exhibits, you possibly can consider an AR advert as the beginning of a mini quest on your viewers, with the reward for engagement being some type of real-life low cost or free model of your product. If you wish to take this method additional, try some full-scale scavenger hunt fashion AR experiences like Adidas’ 2019 ComplexCon drop, which was a masterclass in constructing hype and engagement at an occasion utilizing AR.

Burger King – ‘Burn That Advert’ (2019)

Set a McDonald’s advert on hearth and get a free Whopper. That’s the essential idea for Burger King Brazil’s AR marketing campaign, and it labored brilliantly. The artistic company behind the 2019 marketing campaign, David Sao Paolo, sought to resolve two essential issues. First: that BK’s principal rival in Brazil, McDonald’s, spent 4 instances as a lot on paid media than they did, and second, that customers weren’t actually profiting from BK’s in-app purchases on the time. The answer? Create a solution to increase in-app purchases whereas concurrently piggybacking off the competitors’s adverts.

To attain this, the crew at David company painstakingly collected each McDonald’s advert, together with billboards, digital advert, tray papers, social media banners (even Google picture searches!) to create a dynamic database that would then be used as monitoring parts. When a person filmed any McDonald’s content material in actual life the BK AR expertise would launch, with flames burning away the McDonald’s advert to disclose a free Whopper coupon, main customers straight to the BK app. Genius!

High Gun: Maverick – AR Name Signal Generator (2022)

Designed to advertise the discharge of the enduring High Gun: Maverick (2022) film, this name signal generator by artistic studio Powster helped followers reply the immortal query for High Gun followers in every single place: #WhatsMyCallSign. Utilizing 8th Wall face-tracking, the filter positioned holographic helmets on customers and requested them a sequence of questions that resulted in a customized name signal. The expertise produced a shareable selfie with the person of their helmet, and customers might additionally take the quiz on a devoted web site.

Localized for over 40 territories, Powster additionally created tailor-made variations for varied model companions like Showcase, Vue Leisure, IMAX, Coke, and even Girl Gaga. The decision signal generator helped create enormous hype for the movie on social media, and it was even picked up in a US TV interview featuring Jon Hamm!

Pepsi Max – ‘Unbelievable’ Bus Shelter (2015)

Maybe one of the crucial viral promoting campaigns we’ve seen incorporate AR right into a constructed atmosphere is Pepsi Max’s iconic ‘Unbelievable’ bus shelter spot. The award-winning ad relied on cameras constructed right into a bus shelter with a dwell feed of the road behind to create the phantasm of asteroids falling, UFOs invading, and tentacles developing from the pavement to seize unfortunate passersby.

“In a world the place practically everybody has an AR-compatible gadget (ie smartphones) of their pockets always, manufacturers have a useful alternative to boost conventional OOH advert platforms, akin to billboards and bus stops, with a technological twist. Including to this chance is the truth that most individuals, on account of having lived via the Covid-19 pandemic, are actually intimately conversant in QR codes – one of the crucial frequent portals into AR experiences.” – Webb Wright, for The Drum

The expertise, designed by Grand Visual, was one of many first viral situations of AR promoting, garnering thousands and thousands of views and an enormous gross sales bump for Pepsi Max within the month the advert ran. In the end, the expertise highlights AR’s potential to radically improve conventional OOH media with only a sprint of creativeness and ingenuity. In any case, AR campaigns don’t should be wildly sophisticated to make a huge impact!

Ikea – Place App (2017)

‘Strive before you purchase’ is an apparent use case for AR that has been round for numerous years now, and it’s an effective way to facilitate your buyer journey. Launched in 2017, Ikea’s Place app solved the easy downside of realizing how furnishings would look in an area earlier than you go forward and purchase it. General, the answer helps maintain prospects engaged within the shopping for journey, reduces return prices and misplaced income, all whereas giving Ikea an edge over their rivals.

Netflix – Open Anime AR Portal (2022)

To capitalize on the rising surge of mainstream curiosity in anime within the wake of exhibits like Assault On Titan and One Piece, Netflix created an immersive anime experience and microsites utilizing eighth Wall’s picture monitoring capabilities. With the assistance of Powster and Hello Tello, Netflix’s Inventive Labs labored to create stunning immersive AR portals showcasing varied anime themes. The portals, which had been activated by QR codes on OOH and social adverts worldwide, additionally got here with beautiful microsites with their very own distinctive immersive adventures. Test them out at www.openanime.com

Circle Ok & Niantic – Pokémon Go Rewarded AR (2023)

Final yr, comfort chain Circle Ok partnered with Pokémon Go builders Niantic to roll out a sequence of in-app AR adverts. Using Niantic’s AR platform, eighth Wall, Circle Ok was one of many first manufacturers to pilot the brand new Rewarded AR ads inside Pokémon Go. As a part of the expertise, gamers of the sport had been introduced with an advert within the type of a floating balloon that took them to a large Circle Ok espresso cup that they may work together with, which lastly acquired them to go to a Circle Ok close by to seize a espresso.

‍According to Marketing Dive, the marketing campaign noticed a median engagement charge of 76% and a median completion charge of 95%, highlighting the stickiness of AR adverts in comparison with conventional codecs. In the end, campaigns like Circle Ok’s pave the best way for an explosion of comparable experiences in standard AR areas like Niantic’s flagship recreation, and problem manufacturers to give you new and inventive methods to captivate already engaged customers in these worlds.

How one can Create Branded AR Experiences in 2024

When you’re trying to capitalize on the ability of AR promoting, right here’s a step-by-step information that can assist you get began. Whether or not you’re working solo on a small marketing campaign and need to study the fundamentals, otherwise you need to develop an AR expertise as a part of a much bigger marketing campaign, the next steps are designed that can assist you assume extra strategically about utilizing AR in your subsequent advertising marketing campaign.

1. Choose your second (and your medium)

Choosing the right time and marketing campaign to make use of AR is essential. As we wrote in our newest put up, How to Launch an XR Product, a launch occasion is a good time to indicate off a brand new product or kick off a brand new marketing campaign utilizing AR. Experiential advertising might be vastly enhanced by AR due to its immersiveness, user-interaction, and social sharing parts.

Equally, sure mediums like packaging (Pizza Hut’s PAC-MAN bins), billboards, or different OOH experiences (like Pepsi’s bus cease) lend themselves to AR. Alternatively, purely digital adverts utilizing filters (like Dune: Half Two) or specially-designed AR experiences (like Purple Bull Cliff Diving) are additionally an incredible match for AR campaigns.

There are additionally some necessary distinctions to make when deciding in your medium, notably whether or not or not you need to do web-based AR (WebAR) experiences, and the extent of coding you plan to do. Listed below are just a few key mediums to concentrate on:

‍WebAR

A serious alternative when creating an AR marketing campaign is whether or not you need to create a devoted AR app on your model, or present a browser-based expertise as a substitute. Creating an AR app, and even incorporating AR performance into an current branded app is usually a great way to offer a extra curated branding expertise, however this may create undue friction for customers who don’t need to obtain a brand new app.

A extra easy solution to attain prospects is thru WebAR, which lets you present your AR experiences straight from an online browser. Usually considered via a smartphone, any person can scan a QR code and get straight into the motion. An ideal instance is the distinctive advertising method of wine firm 19 Crimes, who’ve created a fascinating storytelling expertise with all their wine bottles. All it’s a must to do is scan certainly one of their labels via their living wines AR experience web site utilizing your smartphone’s digicam, and watch the characters on the bottle come to life.

eighth Wall

Niantic’s 8th Wall platform is a significant growth platform for WebAR & WebVR. They provide a complete resolution for creating, publishing and distributing WebAR and WebVR content material via their Cloud Editor, AR Engine, and Constructed-in Internet hosting choices. Additionally they have a ton of examples of recent WebAR campaigns on their web site for those who’re searching for inspiration!

No-code AR creation instruments

One other necessary factor to bear in mind when creating any AR expertise is your familiarity with coding. When you’re trying to construct one thing extra advanced, and don’t have the assets in-house, outsourcing your work to a artistic studio who specialize in AR property is likely to be your finest wager (notably if you wish to publish one thing utilizing eighth Wall’s growth suite, which is geared extra in the direction of builders).

Nonetheless, there are a variety of no-code platforms on the market that you may utilise for AR as properly, like Zappar, Blippar and Geenee, who all supply varied totally different templated AR experiences and property that may be simply modified to swimsuit numerous enterprise circumstances and advertising objectives.

2. Resolve in your AR advertising objectives

Selecting your objectives is an ordinary a part of each advertising marketing campaign, and it’s no totally different with AR. What would you like folks to do after partaking along with your advert? Would you like folks to purchase your product? Go to your web site to study extra? Share pictures and movies along with your branded filter? Resolve on the place your AR marketing campaign falls by way of your marketing funnel, and use this to tell how (and the place) you construct it.‍

3. Plan your buyer journey

Whether or not you’re doing event-based advertising, some type of packaging QR expertise, and even only a artistic AR billboard idea, it’s helpful to map issues out prematurely. How would you like your AR expertise to perform when random members of the general public get their fingers on it?

Much like wireframing in UX design, it will possibly assist to sketch out the way you need the method to look from a person’s first contact level, proper via to a transparent name to motion on the finish.

What would you like the person to do after they’ve interacted along with your AR expertise? Is there an connected microsite they need to go to? Is your expertise location-specific, via options like Snapchat’s Geofilters or Google’s Cloud Anchors?

By answering these questions prematurely, you’ll keep away from any hiccups once you really launch. AR is designed to be enjoyable, new, and fascinating. The very last thing you need to occur is for an incredible idea to go to waste due to poor planning and pointless friction.

4. Give you a powerful artistic idea

Each good promoting marketing campaign is constructed on one core concept, typically pushed by some type of highly effective emotional hook. Pizza Hut’s PAC-MAN is probably among the best examples of a stable artistic idea that’s properly executed particularly as a result of it depends on AR. The marketing campaign makes use of AR to play off the nostalgia of the previous, again when Pizza Huts had been nonetheless eating places with actual PAC-MAN machines in them. With a stable artistic idea performing as a bedrock, the distinctive medium of AR can actually come to life. Take into consideration how AR can specific your concept higher than conventional mediums alone.

5. Study key platforms for AR promoting

When you’re contemplating utilizing AR in your subsequent advertising marketing campaign, there are just a few key platforms you need to be conversant in. Selecting the platforms you employ might be an necessary a part of your advertising technique and potential media purchase. Beneath are a few of the principal platforms for you to concentrate on.

Utilizing TikTok for AR Promoting

TikTok is likely one of the largest social media platforms, with extremely engaged customers and a demographic that skews towards a youthful Gen-Z viewers. Usually, the platform has been recognized for its user-generated content material, typically comprised of brief, energetic movies taking part in off present cultural tropes and developments. Manufacturers of all styles and sizes can profit from the app’s promoting capabilities, which have just lately expanded to incorporate higher AR promoting options, particularly.

In March of final yr TikTok introduced the discharge of Branded Effects as a part of their Impact Home creation platform, letting manufacturers create customized results like stickers, filters, and lenses for his or her advertising campaigns. Branded Results supply a variety of customizable filters that allow customers work together with a model in numerous methods, from attempting on make-up colours and types, to unlocking animations or overlaying distinctive stickers associated to your model.

Utilizing Snapchat for AR promoting

Snapchat is one other core platform for manufacturers trying to promote utilizing AR, and the format for content material on Snapchat often follows an identical system to TikTok: brief, impactful movies designed to seize consideration. In a current put up, Snap announced Sponsored AR Filters for brands, which lets manufacturers create customized AR filters for his or her advertising campaigns. Utilizing Snapchat’s Lens Web Builder, advertisers and types can put collectively customized branded content material with zero outdoors manufacturing prices in lower than 10 minutes.

Utilizing Instagram for AR promoting

In 2022 Instagram introduced an expanded AR offering for brands with the introduction of AR promoting capabilities on Instagram and Fb, powered by Meta Spark. From an AR advert on Instagram or Fb, audiences can faucet a call-to-action button and enter the advert’s digicam. From there, they’ll work together with the AR expertise, use their smartphone digicam to take a photograph or video, which they’ll then share to Instagram Tales. Customers may also be proven a URL within the advert that may result in any touchdown level, like a microsite or your major web site.

To create an AR advert on Instagram, you’ll first must design it in Meta Spark Studio. Meta has a variety of assets accessible for creators and types who’re simply getting began with AR experiences (try the Meta Spark Learn guides to study extra). As with most different platforms, you’ll need to get your AR effect approved earlier than you possibly can see it, which is all managed via the Meta Spark Hub.‍

6. Construct your AR advertising expertise

Final however not least, when you’ve selected the correct time to make use of AR, deliberate your marketing campaign objectives, picked a platform and medium, and found out how your expertise will work for customers, it’s time to construct. Once more, take note the next:

• Are you creating WebAR experiences or creating an app?
• Are you utilizing no-code options or will your AR challenge require builders?
• Are you constructing in-house or outsourcing?

As we’ve talked about, social media platforms standard with AR filters all have their very own DIY studios in a single type or one other, and every has their very own approvals course of for branded content material. Nonetheless, for those who are planning to give you a bigger scale AR expertise, you’ll must pair with a artistic associate who can concentrate on designing AR property and campaigns.

No matter technique you determine on, Arprio may help you streamline your AR promoting efforts. Get in touch with us at this time in order that we are able to higher perceive your objectives.

Get Began with AR Promoting

AR promoting provides a singular method for manufacturers to make an impression. It’s a medium with comparatively few boundaries to entry that lends itself properly to the most well-liked platforms at present on the market. On prime of this, AR greater than lives as much as its namesake in its capacity to reinforce conventional advertising codecs – from out of house experiences, to packaging and launch occasions. As AR experiences grow to be extra ubiquitous, manufacturers that actually grasp the medium now could have the house benefit sooner or later. In the end, for manufacturers who dwell outdoors the field, AR provides a method on your advertising to do the identical.

Trying to study extra about immersive know-how? Arprio helps manufacturers navigate the XR panorama. When you’re at present planning a brand new AR marketing campaign or want to study extra, get in touch with Arprio at this time.