The World Cup is almost upon us, and official sponsor McDonald's is launching a huge global effort that features new fry boxes that allow you to play and an augmented-reality app called McDonald's Gol!
Starting May 26, the chain will -- for the first time -- change its medium and large fry boxes globally for the promotion, offering 12 different World-Cup-themed designs featuring work from artists commissioned from around the world. The fry boxes will also serve as the entry point for an augmented-reality game on the app. "This is the first time in brand history we're changing the packaging design of one of our customers' most favorite menu items on a global scale, and what better reason than to share in the excitement of one of the most prestigious sporting events in the world," said Steve Easterbrook, senior exec VP-global chief brand officer of McDonald's, in a statement. "This is about bringing fun, innovative programming to our customers and celebrating our shared love of futbol. We're excited to be able to do that through an engaging, interactive mobile experience, and of course with our world-famous fries." Separately, the chain is also executing a series of menu promotions in various markets like Australia and Brazil, this year's host country. This article originally posted on ADAGE
Once they download the app, customers can begin playing the game by holding the screen of their mobile device up to the front of the box, according to the press release, and the device and app will recognize the artwork and prompt the game. As the device recognizes the artwork, a soccer pitch will appear in an augmented-reality scene on the screen. The Marketing Store led the initiative to redesign the fry boxes with a collection of different images for the World Cup and a spokeswoman for McDonald's said DDB came in to help conceptualize the idea of using the artwork to trigger an augmented reality mobile experience along with tech partners Qualcomm and Trigger. The game was created with Qualcomm's Vuforia mobile-vision platform, which has "technology breakthrough" features that allows users to build their own play spaces using everyday objects.
