Modelo Campaign Celebrates Dia de Los Muertos By Combining Hand Painted Murals And AR

Modelo Dia de Los Muertos is a unique Out-Of-Home (OOH) advertising campaign conceived and produced by Groove Jones advertising studio, for one of Constellation Brands’ brews.

What makes it unique is that it combines the use of large murals – painted by hand and digitally enhanced – and augmented reality (AR) technology to make the murals come alive.

The basic artwork depicts a beautiful woman adorned in typical Dia de Los Muertos style. If you’re unfamiliar with Dia de Los Muertos, it’s a Mexican festival that takes place at the end of October/beginning of November each year and celebrates the lives of the deceased.

The imagery consists of illustrations of sugar skulls, marigolds, a ritual altar, candles, and the female holding a bottle of Modelo beer.

Four of these AR murals were set at four different locations throughout the United States: Washington D.C., Charleston, Miami, and Ft Lauderdale. The campaign ran for two months in total.

A Traditional 2D Image Transforms To A Virtual 3D Experience By Pointing A Smartphone At It

This point-of-sale campaign requires viewers to point their smartphone devices at the mural to activate the virtual reality experience.

The passersby and onlookers who do so can watch the stunning transition of a 2D image into a three-dimensional animation on their phone screens.

The smartphone triggers the static painting of a woman to change: the woman herself is dressed differently, her arm becomes skeletal, and appears to reach outside the mural frame and offer a bottle of beer to the viewer.

Even the woman’s surroundings change, with marigolds flying outside the frame, providing an optical illusion of spatial depth.

The AR transformation does not require any additional downloadables or apps. It all happens through the lens of the phone camera and the use of the Web AR Zappar Zap Works platform.

The platform enables the activation of AR through a mobile web browser.

In fact, this unique campaign does not even require a real-life mural – users can experience it at home by visiting the Modelo Mural website, entering their age, selecting “All other locations” in the menu, and hitting “Launch” before activating and pointing the phone camera at the mural on their computer screen.

Digital Components Animate The Modelo Mascot Into A Celebratory Vision With A Wonderful Attention To Detail

The team of designers, developers and AR specialists at Groove Jones designed both the painted, static mural and its digital component.

The foundation of the idea is the animated transition of the woman into a Dia de Los Muertos mirage.

Each stage/frame of the original pencil sketch was digitized to showcase the way in which the image would animate. The final design was then adapted to 10’x15’ for the outside murals and posters.

With the first stage – the creation of the traditional artwork – out of the way, the team worked on 3D resources that would give life to the 2D image. They created life-like 3D images of Modelo beer bottles that even reflected light.

As icing on the cake, the studio’s designers finalized the animation with candles burning, the background filling with flower petals and the front row of marigolds spilling out of the mural frame as woman’s skeleton arm decorated with sugar skulls lifted the bottle.

The Unique Print Design/AR Campaign Generated Excellent Sales And Media Impression Results

Amazing, out-of-the-box design never fails to attract the attention of the target audience.

This particular example, being of the OOH advertising kind, went even further: it was noted by the unsuspecting passersby, many of whom may not have paid attention otherwise.

Modelo’s AR Murals garnered significant media exposure for the unique combination of print design and digital technology. All of this resulted in brilliant KPIs and campaign results for the brand, such as:

• A 16.5% boost in sales in markets where the campaign was active
• Over 180,000 social media impressions
• 7.2 million earned media impressions
• A dwell time of 2 to 3 minutes

Modelo Dia de Los Muertos Unique Print Design/Digital Technology Crossover Won Numerous Accolades

Groove Jones’ digital print/AR ad campaign for Modelo beer was tremendously successful, picking up some industry awards along the way.

Some of the acclaims it won include Platinum award in Print Media/Advertising/Outdoor Ad/Interactive media and several other categories, Hermes Creative Awards, Muse Creative Awards, and Summit Creative Awards.

The colorful tradition of Mexico’s most widely recognized holiday has become very prominent in the Western culture in recent years.

The beer’s official website provides a little bit of backstory:

“Modelo Especial’s Mexican culture is a large part of who we are. Since the first bottle came off the assembly line in 1925, Modelo Especial has been a part of Mexican culture. It’s a fixture at major holidays, family celebrations, and friendly get-togethers from Sonora to Chiapas.”

This campaign points at the possible direction in which food and beverage brands may evolve their marketing strategies. The combination of traditional digital print, modern-day OOH environments, and tomorrow’s AR experiences promises content that users can share on social media with the possibility of going viral.

The creative use of cutting-edge technology and digital assets turned something as ordinary as a street mural into a first-rate attraction – and not just for beer lovers.