Cans offer augmented reality

Ball Packaging Europe has developed a unique promotional campaign for the Edeka Hessenring grocery chain.

The company’s augmented-reality technology allows teenage smart phone users to grab the images of cans and activate an animated character for use in images of friends.

The chain’s new Cool Cola-Orange flavour – part of the Edeka Perquell own-brand soft drink range – has hit the shelves in 33cl sleek cans from Ball.

The cans are being sold in an innovative triangular six-pack from Smurfit Kappa Baden Packaging and with the help of an animated 3D animal character. Appealing mainly to the 12-18 age group, the promotion invites youngsters to let out the toon in the can and pose with it in photos on a smartphone. Buying one of the six-packs, or at least one of the cans, is the only way to join the fun.

A sticker on the triangular multipack draws attention to the Sprudeltier (Fizzy Beast), a cartoon animal character inside. Inside the pack are instructions showing how to let out the 3D animated figure. All it takes is a smart phone with the Junaio AR app. Point the phone’s camera at the eyecatching design on the Cool Cola can – a zipper, the hallmark of the Edeka Perquell soft drink range – and the cartoon figure poses in every photo taken with the camera. Friends can pose together with the apparently life-size figure. There is also an option to post the photos on Facebook.

“The unusual multipack from Smurfit Kappa Baden Packaging and the beverage can are great for retail promotion campaigns. The toon promotion grabs the imagination and makes for a real sales boost with young consumers,” says Frank Sasse, European retail director at Ball Packaging Europe. “As a form of packaging, beverage cans offer a huge amount of scope for inventiveness in design, and that makes them an excellent medium for new communication techniques like augmented reality, which is the technology behind our 3D cartoon figure promotion. It is an ideal combination: The can is the packaging choice for young consumers – and now the can is being used with the new media favoured by those same young consumers to promote a new product.”

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