Another cool augmented reality idea... from Doritos in Brazil

After the tremendous success we've been having with Doritos Sweet Chili and our augmented reality packaging, our digital agency CuboCC came up with another cool idea.  This time, they asked us if we wanted to put together the world's largest augmented reality event.  Why not?

Take a look at the video and see who appeared on top of the PepsiCo office building the other day?

More augmented reality applications

After our Doritos augmented reality case in Brazil, I received e-mails from friends with other real cool applications using the same technology.

James Maul, from Joinville, sent me the story of this new iPhone application from Acrossair - a service that helps people locate subway lines in New York and San Francisco...

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My friend Stuart Meyler told me about a Japanese company called Tonchidot that developed an amazing social augmented reality mobile location-based service called Sekai Camera. The application merges the virtual and real world by using a digital device as a viewfinder. Take a look at a video presented at TechCrunch...

More on Doritos' augmented reality

Cool site Contagiousmagazine.com featured a story today on our Doritos® Sweet Chili 

augmented reality story...

A snapshot of consumers the moment they are interacting with the new Doritos flavor

A few weeks ago, I posted the story of our Doritos Sweet Chili launch and how we are using augmented reality on-pack. One of the very cool things about this technology is that, as a marketer, you can go online and see hundreds of photos of consumers the moment they released their Doritos Lovers. It's a glimpse of that very moment they were impacted by the technology. You see their expressions and how they interact with the virtual character.

How many marketing initiatives we end up deploying and never get to see the consumer the moment he is being impacted?

Looking at all the pictures on doritos.com.br is fascinating and it shows how technology can play an awesome role in terms of experiential marketing.... with the advantage that, in this case, we can actually see how our consumers are having fun with our product.

Pretty cool stuff.

Spreading the Doritos Lovers story....

We can't get over the amazing buzz being generated by our new Doritos Sweet Chili launch and the use of augmented reality on pack (which we covered in a previous post). We're still filling the distribution pipeline and it has been great to see the amount of traffic to the website with people uploading pictures of them in a front of their webcams 'unleashing' the Doritos Lover.

To explain the concept and help spread the Doritos Lovers story, this film was produced....

Spicing up Doritos in Brazil

This weekend a fantastic spicy new Doritos flavor will be hitting stores all over Brazil:

Sweet Chili.

We're super excited with this new flavor for a number of reasons. First, because for many years we have been only selling the classic nacho cheese - our fastest-growing snack - and we took extra care to develop a second flavor that would deliver an awesome product experience to Doritos fans. We tested and re-tested dozens of flavors and sweet chili was the clear winner, a perfect combination of hot chili pepper with a gentle sweet secondary note.

Another reason for our excitement has to do with Doritos Sweet Chili's packaging. For this project we're working with one of Brazil's coolest creative shops, Cubo CC. We immediately fell in love with their graphic work using characters from the world of toy art, which are being called 'Doritos Lovers', over a pure silver background that will certainly stand out at the point of sale.

The great story is that these 'Doritos Lovers' come alive once consumers place the packaging in front of a web cam. The technology used is augmented reality. On the back of each package, there's a symbol on the upper right-hand corner that needs to be placed in front a web cam to release the Doritos Lovers. This is the first-time ever in Brazil that this technology is used on a the package of a consumer product.

Take a look at the video tutorial that shows how the release-your-doritos-lovers works....

The new online experience for both Doritos and the new flavor launch was also developed by Cubo CC and is, by far, the best online work in our portfolio. Click here to take a look.

Another interesting aspect of this initiative is that the entire process was co-developed and each step validated by a Millennial Online Collaboration Panel we have with 40 university students located in four different regions of the country. Through a social-network style application, we maintain a weekly interaction with these collaborators checking everything from brand activation concept ideas, choice of flavors, language that resonates with the target, to what is hot in the world of graphics. The result is a higher probability to make a strong emotional connection with Brazilian millennials (certainly the most difficult demographic to be relevant to).

To make all this happen we have, what I call, our Doritos marketing dream team: Roberto Angelino, Carla Araujo (who will now lead the kids snacking team), Alexandre Chiavegati and Carol Gormezano (who love everything digital). To add more spice to the team, we're bringing in Marta Oliveira, who has done a fantastic job with our other millennial brand Toddy. In R&D, we have Sergio Julio, who brings the product concepts to life. A true dream team.

Here in Brazil.... we're in love with Doritos!