Ahead of our 2019 Effective Mobile Marketing Awards, staged in partnership with our headline partner Dynata, and our partners DAX and TabMo, well be previewing the nominees in each category,giving you a glimpse at the high quality of entries weve seen this year. In today’s preview, we take a look at the campaigns up for our Most Effective Augmented Reality Campaign Award.

McDonald’s and Creata – Dinosaurs AR Charity Book
When a kid gets a Happy Meal at McDonald’s he or she also gets a toy. But since 2016 in fact, kids, and their parents, have been able to choose between a toy and a book. Moreover, every time a child chooses a book rather than a toy, McDonald’s donates 10 euro cents to the Ronald McDonald House Charity which supports families with seriously ill or injured children. In Germany alone, the initiative has raised several hundred thousand Euros for the charity.

Last year, McDonald’s decided to add to the reading experience using augmented reality. It produced a one-off book called ‘Dinosaurs’, complete with AR content. Dedicated pages in the book, marked with an AR icon, could be brought to life through the power of AR via a dedicated app. To make it easy to get the app, a QR code within the book linked the user directly to the relevant app store.

The results of the campaign were submitted for the judges’ eyes only, but were very impressive.

7-Eleven and Zappar – Always-on AR
In 2018, 7-Eleven embarked on a new digital strategy to enhance how it rewards customer loyalty with its customers via the 7Rewards app. The retailer saw an opportunity for augmented reality to form an integral part of the strategy within the app, delivering high-quality experiences by maximizing its diverse range of brand partnerships with the aim of increasing store visits and sales.

For the AR element, 7-Eleven turned to Zappar’s lightweight SDK and custom-branded zapcodes to deliver fun and rewarding AR experiences, including mini-games, shareable face filters and celebrity photo opportunities, which also earned users valuable 7Rewards points. In essence, AR acted as the glue between 7Eleven’s existing in-store rewards program and the digital ecosystem of the 7Rewards app – combining immersive AR experiences with tangible, on-going rewards.

The 7-Eleven Always-on AR campaign (while still on-going), had its first-year rollout between April 2018 to June 2019. The campaign’s execution was emblematic of 7-Eleven and Zappar’s commitment to continuing to set AR best practices, delivering a calendar of engaging AR content as part of an ‘always-on’ experience. Via campaigns for the likes of Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, Doritos, Redbull, Reese’s, BODYARMOR and the Deadpool 2 franchise, the past year’s activity has had a manifold effect in increasing app downloads for the 7Rewards app. The inspired combination of in-store activity and in-app experiences has also helped deliver engagement, store visits, social sharing and sales for the brand and their partners.

Over a 12-month period, Zappar delivered more than 30 unique AR experiences, all geared towards supporting 7-Eleven’s camera strategy and rewarding customer loyalty. The retailer partnered with Dallas Cowboys, enabling customers to take a selfie with Cowboys quarterback star, Dak Prescott via the app and share it on social for additional points.

For the release of Deadpool 2, it created 12 immersive experiences which were unlocked periodically in-store across a nine-week period, ranging from highly shareable face filters to compelling mini-games. These generated considerable excitement, with over 3.5m scans taking place.

And in a collaboration with Pepsi around the Super Bowl, Zappar helped 7-Eleven to create a face filter that enabled users to take a photo or video of themselves wearing a specially-created kit in the Pepsi brand colors. Through AR, the user was turned into a 3D character and could perform a touchdown-inspired celebration to camera (along with pumping music!).

In total, 7-Eleven saw more than 10m engagements in just 12 months. The AR experiences within the app have delivered 40 incremental trips per store, and the retailer has seen a 16 per cent sales uplift for beverage brands.

The Alchemist Group, William Grant and Sons and xDesign – The Alchemist Conjurer AR Cocktails
The aim of this campaign was to drive The Alchemist bar and restaurant guest experience – and sales of cocktails – by combining augmented reality, immersive experiences and animation to bring to life six cocktails, using the AR app to tell the story behind each one.
To unlock the stories, users had to open the app and focus their phone on an Alchemist coasters. The six cocktails included The Seaside Sour, inspired by nostalgic family trips to the seaside and The Peach IPA, designed to emulate that “first beer” experience.

Any guest who used the app to experience all six stories could unlock a secret seventh and obtain ‘The Alchemist’ status. Users could also share their experiences on social media, direct from the app.

The app was launched on the 5 March in The Alchemist St. Martins Lane in London and subsequently rolled out across the remaining 15 venues in the UK. At the time of submitting the entry, the app had been downloaded 4,950 time, with 4,100 cocktail sales attributed to the app.

The Effective Mobile Marketing Awards Ceremony takes place in London on 14 November. To book your place at this celebration of the best in mobile marketing, click here.