Cadbury has taken interactive packaging and mobile marketing a step further by incorporating an augmented reality game – using the technology of new partner blippar, a just-launched smartphone app – on its chocolate bars. According to Wired, it’s the “world’s first official AR game triggered by, and played off product packaging.”
The free game is called “Qwak Smack”and is available to any smartphone user who downloads the blippar augmented reality app. It’s “quirky and childishly fun” according to Wired, and here’s how it works:
- with the app open, users must point their phone’s camera at the Cadbury packaging
- this launches a 30-second game during which quacking ducks appear to emerge from the chocolate bar onto an augmented overlay on the player’s smartphone
- to win prizes, players must tap as many of the ducks as possible and submit their score to be entered in a drawing
[iframe width=”640″ height=”390″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/Su1ogwejGVw” frameborder=”0″ /]
As part of the partnership between blippar and Cadbury, the augmented reality app’s launch has been accompanied by demonstrations of the blippar technology on ‘every street corner in Britain’ where Cadbury products are sold.
Sonia Carter, head of digital at Kraft Foods, said that “with one in three UK adults owning a smartphone, the potential market for initiatives like this is huge.” Wired speculates that blippar’s more advanced image-recognition technology will be the death of QR codes.
The blippar technology is the first image-recognition platform for smartphones targeted toward brand-consumer interactions. The CEO and co-founder of blippar, Ambarish Mitra, told Wired that augmented reality “will fundamentally change how consumers interact with their favourite real-world brands” and that this app will “bridge the gap from physical to digital and enable real-time interaction in mobile situations.”
Will the AR game be exciting enough to consistently engage users? Cadbury asks users to send feedback on Twitter, using #Cadburyblipp.
Let us know if you’ve tried “Qwak Smack” and can offer any comparison to other QR code-based games or advertising.
