JIM BEAM® AR EXPERIENCES:
New duo of augmented reality experiences creates a customizable “virtual toast” and celebrates the legendary bourbon brand’s love of America’s Native Spirit
Following a string of recent augmented reality successes, innovation studio Tactic has now partnered with Jim Beam® for an all new AR app that hosts a pair of intriguing experiences -- one which allows users to stay connected via custom AR messages, and another which celebrates 200 years of American innovation, including the Beam family’s perfection of the world's No. 1 bourbon.
With “Message In A Bottle”, Jim Beam® offers a new way to help fans toast to special occasions with their friends while still adhering to social distancing standards. Users can download the Tactic-developed app, select a message to personalize, and send to friends or family to view on an actual bottle via augmented reality. Fun and easy to use, the experience gives socially starved bourbon drinkers the ability to celebrate any special moment, staying connected while waiting for the return of bars, restaurants and in-person celebrations.
“Message In A Bottle” also hopes to lift spirits during this uniquely challenging time. For every person who sends a message in a bottle, Jim Beam® will donate $5 to the Restaurant Workers’ Community Foundation Relief Fund (with a maximum donation of $50,000).
The second, more robust experience pairs historic news clips with animation, acting out some of the most inspiring moments in American history - all triggered through the custom app that delivers a series of engaging visuals when the mobile device’s AR camera is pointed at any 750ML bottle of Jim Beam®. Notable historical events burst from the bottle and are woven together with similarly proud moments in Jim Beam® evolution.
For this project, Tactic developed visual elements as an interactive timeline, allowing users to move through the more than 200-year history of Jim Beam® in either a linear manner or interactively, and also giving them the ability to re-watch and review elements via their simple interface.
For Tactic President Peter Oberdorfer, the creation of this AR experience gave the studio the opportunity to push their creative and technical limits. “There were challenges as to what iconography to use to help put the history of Jim Beam® within the larger context of the times and how to tell this story across a variety of methods,” he admits. “But by using projection-mapped editorial content across the label, as well as 3D CGI characters, we were able to combine the choreography of each into a singular AR experience.”
A perfect representation of America’s Native Spirit, Jim Beam® is the world’s best-selling bourbon, crafted by seven generations of family distillers that have stayed true to a family recipe passed down through generations since 1795. For Tactic, augmented reality proved to be the perfect storytelling tool for both helping people stay connected during the pandemic and sharing the legacy of the brand, embracing emerging platforms that inspire an emotional response.
“In our augmented reality work, we like to construct engaging interactivity and visual worlds that tell a story,” explains Oberdorfer. “Our AR stories are as much architectural worlds as they are cinematic experiences. We design experiences that trigger seamlessly from the brands and products we work with. They engage users immediately, with an intuitive approach that has both interactivity and visual fidelity.”
Download the Jim Beam® AR app, now available for both iOS and Android platforms.