Objectives: To promote the newly launched KFC WOW Menu and emphasize its price point.
Campaign: KFC India WOW@25 Digital Campaign answered an oft-asked question: What KFC treats can you get with the money in your wallet? They used Augmented Reality on smartphones and on the web for the campaign. On scanning any currency note with the app or microsite, KFC WOW Menu delights, based on the money, appeared on the note itself. Users also played an entertaining quiz to win awesome prizes.
Results:
The app acquired 35,000 downloads while the site received 1.5 lac hits.
Fone Arena, The FWA, Daily App Review and Mid-Day spotlighted the campaign.
The app even stood No. 1 on the iTunes store’s What’s Hot section.
Mobile advertising made substantial progresses in 2013 with new ad formats being introduced and mobile’s role emerging as an important part of a multichannel strategy. While researching, I came across several interesting campaigns that leveraged media bridging, augmented reality, mcommerce, social, mobile, display ads integration, geo location enablement etc. Here is my pick of top 10 mobile based campaigns which I feel used mobile as a platform in an innovative manner by leveraging these new age platforms, features and functionalities.
Coca-Cola – Ahh Effect Campaign
The Amazing Spiderman Web Shootout
Frito Lay’s Cheetahpult
Adidas Philippines mobile game campaign to promote Boost shoes
Nike’s #MIPISTA campaign
Track My Macca’s – McDonald’s
Laplication – Regional Council of Lapland
Campbell Soup Co. – Personalized ads to consumers based on past purchasing behavior
Pinkberry leveraged mobile advertising to drive in-store product launch trial
Kimberly-Clark’s Pull-Ups relies on augmented reality to encourage potty training
Case Study 1: Coca-Cola – Ahh Effect Campaign
The “Ahh Effect” campaign includes a set of 61 microsites that feature quick games and content, and is part of a multi-year marketing effort from Coca-Cola. Since the content is snackable and easy to engage with, mobile is one of the key ways that Coca-Cola is promoting the initiative and points to a greater need from CPG brands to develop mobile-specific content.
Each site features “a teen-worthy moment of randomness, creativity and delight that’s best experienced from teens’ favorite gadgets – their mobile devices.” Just in the past month, 20 more AHH.com URLs have gone live. Some 4 million consumers have visited the 40 websites affiliated with the effort, staying for an average of 2-plus minutes each. About half the traffic has been organic, meaning the target — in this case, a teen — has shared the media with a friend.
Case Study 2: The Amazing Spiderman Web Shootout
Supporting the release of Sony’s new Spiderman movie, Spinnaker knew the target demographic had a high propensity for gaming so created an interactive in-banner game that functions in the YouTube masthead and can be connected with a user’s smartphone. After the Spiderman TV spot plays in the banner, a unique QR code appears which the visitor can scan with their smartphone. The user is then able to sync their mobile device to their screen and engage with the ‘Shoot ‘em up’ web-slinging game.
Case Study 3: Frito Lay’s Cheetahpult
After a 30 second video ad sets up the scenario, a call to action encourages the user to play the interactive game with a choice between mouse and mobile control. If users use their smartphone as the remote, a call-to-action prompts them to type a mobile Web site into their browser. Once the mobile site loads, the handset becomes a remote control for the game. Consumers then have to aim their mobile device at their desktop screen and aim Cheetos into the game character’s mouth by swiping their finger vertically across the screen.
Case Study 4: Adidas Philippines mobile game campaign to promote its new Boost shoes
Adidas launched a rich media campaign that let consumers play a mobile game that stimulates the different types of terrain and conditions that the shoe can hold up in. Consumers could place their fingers on the screen to run in a pair of the shoes. The ads were meant to show the different terrains and conditions that the shoe line could endure. Using the device’s built-in location, consumers could compare their scores against others that were nearby by plotting the scores on a map. Additionally, consumers could share their score over social media or replay the game again.
Performance:
Average user time engagement with the ad: More than 60 seconds.
Click through rate (CTR): 1.27%
Daily click-through-rate: 2.02%
Average click-through-rate on iOS devices: 0.97%
Average click-through-rate on Android version: 1.64%
Total impressions generated: 1,220,346 impressions (672,054 coming from iOS devices and 548,292 coming from Android devices)
Total clicks: 15,478 clicks
Case Study 5: Nike’s #MIPISTA campaign
The #mipista campaign, launched by Nike Football Spain, enables street football players to request a pop-up pitch with their smartphones in six different neighbourhoods across the Spanish capital. After the order has been made, a team of specialists drives to the location with a laser system and a crane. The laser beams create an augmented football pitch where users can play a five-against-five match.
Case Study 6: Track My Macca’s – McDonald’s
TrackMyMacca’s taps into the McDonald’s supply chain, allowing users to track the actual ingredients that make up their meals. GPS detects the restaurant location while image recognition identifies the food about to be eaten. This information, coupled with date and time, allows the iPhone app to pull all the necessary supply data in real time. The detailed breakdown is then presented to the user through augmented reality as 3D animations.
Case Study 7: Laplication – Regional Council of Lapland
To encourage tourism to Lapland (the north of Finland), this app allowed users to transform their current location into the Land of the Midnight Sun. Once a potential tourist has the iPhone/iPad app installed, augmented reality alters surroundings into breathtaking 3D panoramas of Lappish natural phenomena, the Midnight Sun, and the Northern Lights. This well-developed AR experience takes aspiration to a whole new level by putting the Lapland experience quite literally at the user’s fingertips.
Case Study 8: Campbell Soup Co. – Personalized ads to consumers based on past purchasing behavior
Campbell’s Pace brand used a new mobile advertising platform – BuyerVision – with Catalina Marketing to examine how brand advertising translates into in-store sales. The platform, which was developed with help from Nielsen and 4Info, includes 70 million households whose mobile devices have been identified, anonymized and tied to recent purchasing data. Connecting this information to a mobile device is accomplished using 4Info’s proprietary technology and algorithms that identify mobile devices across a variety of platforms and apps, anonymizing the information and tying this to profiles built over time based on location and ad requests. Ads from brand marketers such as Campbell’s are appearing in apps or on the mobile Web and are being delivered through mobile aggregators, networks as well as some specific premium inventory.
Case Study 9: Pinkberry leveraged mobile advertising to drive in-store product launch trial
Frozen yogurt chain Pinkberry launched a location-based ad campaign that served up mobile coupons to lure nearby consumers into stores in April. The ads ran within the Pandora iPhone app with creative that showed consumers how many miles away they were from a Pinkberry location.
When clicked on, a landing page presented an offer for $1 off of a greek yogurt product. The landing page also included directions and a click-to-call option. The coupon was redeemable by showing a screen grab of the ad at the point-of-sale. Consumers are more inclined to interact with the banner ad since it ties together an offer with a specific location.
Case Study 10: Kimberly-Clark’s Pull-Ups relies on augmented reality to encourage potty training
It leveraged augmented reality in a unique way this year with an app that helps moms potty train children. When consumers scan markers inside packages, Disney characters such as Mickey and Rapunzel come to life. In addition to using the app to scan boxes, kids can earn virtual rewards as they progress through the levels of potty training. Pull-Ups cited moms as one of the strongest mobile users, and the new marketing effort is a smart way for the brand to not only help moms, but also involve kids in the potty training experience.
An interesting use of the augmented reality that Converse launched in 2010. The Converse app allows you to “try on” their shoes and order them from the app or show the picture to family and friends.
Making virtual shoe shopping an augmented reality with Converse’s The Sampler App., for iPhones. Shoppers point their phone at their feet to ‘try on’ shoes. They can take a photo and post to Facebook for friendly fashion advice, and buy directly through the app. too.
Global advertising and marketing industry is gung-ho about the possibilities of Augmented Reality (AR). Augmented Reality applications, which use location and imaging functions on advanced handsets to provide mobile services will get more popular more devices are capable of using AR, and more applications become available.
According to Juniper’s Mobile Augmented Reality Report, “initially most AR application revenue will come from location-based search, although AR-enabled games will be first to create serious revenues, followed by mobile enterprise solutions from 2012 onwards. Juniper Research is predicting that the market for Augmented Reality (AR) services will reach $732 million by 2014. AR applications will likely focus on AR apps for location-based search, games, lifestyle and healthcare, education and reference; multimedia and entertainment; social networking, and enterprise, with revenues generated by initial fees like paid for downloads, incremental fees including subscriptions and advertising. At present most mobile devices do not have all the necessary features for AR, such as camera, GPS, digital compass, tilt sensors and broadband connectivity, but with the launch of more and more handsets that include such functions, AR is expected to become more common.
In the recent times, we have seen numerous examples of some of the best campaign innovations from renowned brands. Experts opine that it will change the entire definition of digital media advertising and marketing. Most of the support and opinion is for leveraging Mobile and Web as the obvious platform. But as Seth Solomons, Chief Strategy Officer, Digitas says,
“Digital media is not only Web and Mobile but all technology gadgets that can be used for interaction and communication”.
I recently visited a shopping mall in Gurgaon, near New Delhi and I was amazed to see the use of digital signages, billboards and LCD screens all over the place. No doubt, these digital interactive kiosks and screens are innovatively leveraging the buzzwords of today’s marketing game mantra – “Be interactive and engage your customers”. And suddenly a popular quotation from my company’s President & Co-Founder Kanika Mathur flashed in my mind
“80% of purchase decisions are due to the influence at the point of sale”
In tune with what Seth said, I strongly feel that scope and horizon of augmented reality can be leveraged beyond the obvious platforms and can be easily extended to these retail outlets i.e. Point of Sale. An interesting and innovative campaign based on Augmented Reality can make a huge impact and easily influence the purchase decision of the consumer within no time.
I did some research and found that companies have already started experimenting with AR at their retail points. Some of the most interesting examples I could source are:
Cisco Augmented Reality @ retail fitting rooms
Hugo Boss
Animated Lego Digital Box
Hand from Above, a joint co-commission between FACT and Liverpool City Council for BBC Big Screen
Zugara’s online shopping
Companies like YDreams have created several interesting marketing and advertising examples based on AR.
So, what all can be used at the Retail POS
Basically any screen that can be connected with a computer and a webcam.
Existing multimedia screens like kiosks, billboards, LCD screens, digital signages, storefront displays etc
Digital marketing materials such as brochures, cards, leaflets etc
I’m hoping in the next few months, we will definitely see Augmented Reality enabled digital screens not only of big sizes but also handheld devices.
And, how advertising & marketing agencies can leverage AR at Retail POS
I would be eagerly waiting to see innovative campaigns from hardcore below the line (BTL) marketing and advertising agencies that would leverage Augmented Reality in their communication with the consumers at retail point of sale…
