Immersive marketing continues to be an opportune, yet still challenged, segment. Sitting at the intersection of brand marketing and spatial computing, it includes things like sponsored AR lenses that let consumers interact and engage with brands, or virtually try on products.

Driving immersive marketing are a few key elements. Lens creation software arms brands and developers with low-code tools to author AR experiences. Meanwhile, networks like Snapchat and TikTok likewise offer the ability to amplify lenses throughout their social graphs.

There’s also a real business case, which can be seen in the performance metrics around AR campaigns. And though the future of AR is headworn, we’re mostly talking about AR marketing on smartphones. That’s where the scale lies… and brand marketers are all about scale.

This is the topic of a recent report from our research arm, ARtillery Intelligence, including ecosystem analysis and case studies from real AR marketing campaigns. The report joins our excerpt series, continuing in this installment with a look at McDonald’s’ AR campaign.

AR Marketing Best Practices & Case Studies, Volume 5

VIP Treatment

Continuing our AR marketing case studies with a household name, McDonald’s has not one but three immersive campaigns that we’ll spotlight. We’ll examine them one at a time, continuing in this installment with the company’s social AR Lens to promote a new menu item.

Like the first McDonald’s campaign in this series, this one leaned into nostalgia. With the launch of the Grimace Shake in the Nordics, McDonald’s built a Snapchat Lens that let users celebrate the return of the beloved character. It played on his famous elusiveness with a VIP theme.

Specifically, the lens overlayed sunglasses that reflected the new shake, and red-carpet-like photo flashes. Users were then encouraged to share captured video for an additional viral boost. Similarly, the lens was joined by other promotional mechanisms such as Snap Ads and Story Ads.

And the results? Altogether, the campaign achieved a 25-percentage-point boost in ad recall, and a 13-point boost in product awareness. The lens also had a 14-second average dwell time – indicating sticky engagement – a 5 percent share rate, and 800,000 organic plays. 

McDonald’s Triples Down on AR Marketing, Part 2

Surface Area

So what can we learn from this campaign, and what are tactical takeaways? Like the previous McDonald’s campaigns that we examined in this series, this AR lens tapped into a combination of nostalgia, comic relief, and whimsy, which altogether boosted fun and virality.

This raises an important lesson in immersive marketing, which is to thematically align the UX interactions with the brand and its elements. In that light, lens campaigns should utilize everything they possibly can from the brand IP. Tap into the things that endear it to audiences.

In McDonald’s case, that includes its characters. And in the case of this particular case study, the company aligned the theme of the campaign with the persona of its central character: Grimace. It leaned into irony with a red-carpet-celebrity theme for a character that’s famously recluse.

Lastly, this campaign wasn’t expected to be propelled on its own. Given AR’s still-early stage, campaigns often need a push from supportive media. By combining this Lens with other Snapchat formats – paid and unpaid – it was primed to catch fire with greater surface area.

We’ll pause there and circle back in the next installment of this series with another campaign case study. Meanwhile, check out the full report.

Header image credit: Visual Karsa on Unsplash