How Augmented Reality Saved Ruffles’ Sales
We all have heard of AR, otherwise known as Augmented Reality, but do we know what they are used for, or how it works? What about its effectiveness? All these questions will be answered by looking into the Ruffles campaign where the potato chips company decided to use AR in order to turn their declining sales into a profit.
Background:
When Brazil went into recession Ruffles’ sales had dramatically declined as consumers were purchasing cheaper alternative brands. Despite the short- term campaigns Ruffles launched, its overall sales continued to decline, thus it was time for the brand to reposition itself and reconnect with its target audience and combat its negative profits.
Augmented Reality in use:
Along with its #WEAREALLNTHESAMEBAG campaign, the chips brand knew that something more was needed to engage with its audience.
This led to the rise of their AmiGO game!
AmiGo was an augmented reality mobile phone-only game where friends were transformed into characters. Users activated the camera and their friends could see what the phone’s camera saw, whilst the user saw what the game showed them. With AR, the friends saw Ruffles’ chips around the user and would send voice notes guiding them to get the chips. As only the friends could see the chips the user had to follow their friends’ directions. The more chips the user grabbed, the more points everyone got and the winner was announced on Ruffles’ social media pages.
Results:
The mobile phone AR game resulted in a 43% increase in sales and over 26,000 downloads in the app in 2 months of the campaign, and there was a 6-minute user engagement rate per day. Therefore, it can be concluded that Ruffles’ AR campaign did help them achieve their marketing objective.
Opinion:
What I found intriguing about the use of AR in this brand was how Ruffles incorporated not only AR but their friends, and a reward system all in one game. Instead of making the game for one person, the brand took into account how teenagers love to spend time with their friends and this game allows them to do that whilst still at home in their own environment. Moreover, using AR in a game setting makes it more interesting and engaging for the audience and takes advantage of the real-world setting.
However, I believe this trend will fade over time as many brands are incorporating AR into their campaigns; for example, Snickers has released an AR game on Instagram using characters as well. The average American is exposed to 4,000 to 10,000 ads each day and at some point, we consumers start to disengage with these ads, hence brands are implementing creative strategies to make their buys remember or re-engage with their campaigns. And with augmented reality being a bigger and bigger subject in digital marketing I believe every brand will be trying to get ahead of the game or be a part of it and implement AR wherever they can.
Whilst it is said that the AR industry is projected to be worth over $18 billion in 2023, this trend could last while AR is still popular but once a new technology or a different type of extended reality has been invented this trend will eventually fade away. That being said, Ruffles’ AR campaign might have helped their profits in the short-run but I don’t believe this is a campaign that will stay in the long run, at least not when technology is constantly evolving.
