Asahi’s flagship beer brand, Asahi Super Dry (ASD), has teamed up with Snapchat to give Vancouver Whitecaps fans an immersive AR experience while cheering for their team.
Fan who watched the game from the sponsored Asahi Super Dry Landing at BC place on Sept. 30, had first access to the brand’s exclusive activation, which ASD will also run at the upcoming Oct. 4 game against St Louis City.
The life-size AR mirror allows them to play a game of keep-up using an augmented reality powered Snapchat lens. The goal of the game is for a player to bounce the MLS soccer ball (in AR) off their head and get the highest score in 10 seconds.
The Canadian director and general manager at Snap Inc, Matt McGowan, said that many Snapchat users are huge sports fans and love watching, playing and engaging in gamified experiences. “Asahi Super Dry is committed to connecting with soccer enthusiasts across Canada, which is what made them such a great partner for this activation,” he said.
Meanwhile, Japan’s most popular beer has been on a mission to integrate its brand and product into the global soccer landscape for some time. After becoming the official beer partner of City Football Group and its clubs, Manchester City, Melbourne City, Yokohama F. Marinos, and Sichuan Jiuniu, last August, ASD branched into Canadian soccer in February, when it became the official beer partner of Vancouver Whitecaps FC.
From May to August, ASD ran an AR advertising campaign in partnership with MLS, executed by Epitaph Group on Snapchat.
Though the AR mirror is the most recent creative produced by ASD and Snapchat, the activation arrives on the heels of Snap Inc’s closure announcement of its AR Enterprise Division, launched in March of this year. According to a memo written by CEO Evan Spiegel, It would take significant incremental investment to grow the enterprise offering for retailers, which Snap cannot continue to support at this time.
However, Snap’s head of communications, Tonya Johnson, said these types of immersive activations will continue and the Asahi and Snapchat partnership is ongoing. “We are continuing to heavily invest in the AR space, and will be reallocating some AR Enterprise (ARES) team members to support CameraKit and Sponsored AR advertising,” she said.
