For brands tired of shoppers seeing their products as static offerings on store shelves, augmented reality has become a tempting marketing tool. Research suggests that these phone-based visual experiences can help drive sales, particularly for smaller brands with a more narrow audience in mind.
Packaging can prompt the interactions with as small of a design change as a QR code and an explanatory prompt.
“There’s a lot of innovation happening in this space,” said Evan Rose, founder and president of Rose Digital, a software development firm specializing in AR experiences.
Despite those changes, packaging materials and intentions still influence the types of engagements that AR encourages, or how big a role the packaging plays in the experience itself.
Making seamless more seamless
Augmented reality, which first migrated into the advertising space in the early 2000s, sits somewhere between real-life and virtual reality.
“Generally the way I describe AR is with an immersion spectrum,” Rose said. While virtual reality creates comprehensive environments that make the real world disappear, AR often interacts with someone’s surroundings or at least lets the digital and authentic be seen simultaneously.
The combination of “real” and “artificial” is a crucial part of the AR campaign launched by Seattle-based craft soda maker Jones Soda Co.
The beverage company prides itself on unique packaging. Since the early 2000s, photos on the front of each glass bottle have been submitted by customers, said Curt Thompson, the company’s director of brand marketing. The company’s Reel Labels program prompts shoppers to scan a QR code and focus their phone camera on the front of the drink. A short video — also one submitted by a customer — plays atop where the traditional static photo sits.
An earlier version of the Jones Soda AR experience required customers to scan a QR code and download an independent app that could host the video. Since then, technology has gotten better and more familiar to customers. Not only are QR sensors now embedded in smartphone cameras, but the pandemic pushed users to get familiar with the monochromatic squares.
“In my opinion, the only good thing to come out of the pandemic was the accelerated adoption of QR codes,” Thompson said. Customers now expect that a scanned code will tell them more information about the product, he added.
Software that displays AR experiences has also shifted from requiring separate apps to options that integrate into phone web browsers. Any interaction that avoids downloading another app just for the visuals is one that will likely attract more users, said Pete Oberdorfer, founder and president of Tactic, an immersive digital experience software studio.
Brand motivations
More obvious and seamless AR launch systems mean buyers might pull up the experiences while in-store shopping. What they see depends on the approach that a brand wants to take for encouraging sales. If the intent is to provide more context about the product itself, then a company could offer a visual dive into where ingredients come from or the brand’s history.
Tactic’s AR campaign for Jack Daniels, for example, let users watch as the black-and-white label appeared to flap open into a 3D pop-up book. Navigating between a cartoon version of Lynchburg, Tennessee, the 1904 World’s Fair and other crucial times and places in the distillery’s history showed off more about the brand than the label itself might explain.
AR campaigns might also help shoppers pick between flavors or varieties. Rose Digital designed a “virtual concierge” for Moët Hennessy, a division of luxury goods conglomerate LVMH, that walked users through questions about their dining or ambiance preferences. Based on answers that a shopper selected on their screen, a virtual brand representative gave a specific wine or liquor recommendation. These kinds of interactive experiences with an ambassador are particularly good for making shoppers feel spoken to, Rose said.
A brand might also turn to AR to boost shopper loyalty. If this is the goal, the experience — such as an interactive game — should come before asking for customer emails or offering coupons, Oberdorfer said. Otherwise, the experiential campaign becomes traditional marketing.
That approach is how Chobani opted to launch its first AR campaign in the fall of 2023. QR codes on multipacks of Halloween-themed yogurt cups prompted shoppers to pull up an AR “trick or treat.” Cartoon doors appeared to be hovering on flat spaces within whatever environment the user happened to be in. After the user “knocked,” the doors revealed themed cartoons or treats like digital coloring books, physical keychains and other merch.
“The decision to go with a browser-based solution was key, ensuring that anyone with a smartphone could easily access our AR experience directly from the packaging without the hassle of downloading an app,” said David Isaac, vice president of production at Chobani, via email.
Physical considerations and future potential
Two fundamental routes have emerged for brands to pursue AR with packaging: AR that requires users to keep their camera focused on the packaging for the visuals to work, or versions that operate in a different field of version that the camera sees.
An AR experience revolving around the packaging itself requires a real-world start. “We always tell the client: Give us actual prototypes or packaging of the real thing,” Oberdorfer said.
Labels, materials and other product design aspects determine how well a package hosts an AR experience. The camera only sees in black and white, so it needs enough contrast and distinct shapes to recognize the package and pull up the specific visuals software engineers tied to the package, Oberdorfer said.
Reflective surfaces or crinkly, pliable materials — think a metallic bag containing potato chips — might not give the camera the reliable details it needs. Visuals may not stay consistently aligned or might cut in and out, similar to experiencing a bad internet connection. Reliability can even change over the course of a few hours. A refrigerated beer can might have a frosty, interfering sheen that a room temperature aluminum package might not.
If these packaging attributes are too hard for a brand to meet, off-product visuals might be a better route. Another consideration is that if a product doesn’t have a large enough flat surface then an AR visual could look too small and unnatural.
Also, if the packaging isn’t meant to be an “unboxing experience,” there might be no need to prolong someone’s engagement with the wrapping. Some products, like electronics or sneakers, are packaged in a way that’s meant to build anticipation for the buyer. This use case could be a better fit to ask for a little more of the shopper’s time than, say, a simple prompt on packaging.
Looking ahead, Chobani and Jones Soda are interested in launching more AR campaigns. What the brands could offer might change as the technology continues to evolve. Rose pointed out that mediating technology could eventually grow to more regularly include glasses or headgear instead of just phones, if those products become more commonly used. And if companies are interested in AR but are slower to change, they can find their way in, too.
Some customers have had the same labels for 75 years, Oberdorfer said, so “we have to make these experiences work with those brands and with those products.”
