General Mills partnered with Groove Jones to create multiple AR experiences for two of their top-selling brands – Cheerios and Nature Valley Granola Bars. The AR experiences launched the “Help Us Support the Bees and Trees” campaign for Earth Month. This program supports Cheerios and Nature Valley’s sustainability initiatives.

The campaign is running across the Cheerios brand, including Maple Cheerios, Honey Nut Cheerios, Apple Cinnamon Cheerios, and the Nature Valley brand. Below is a photo of the seven different packages involved in the campaign.

Grow Your Own Virtual Forest or Wildflower Garden

As part of the campaign, Nature Valley is supporting The Nature Conservancy by helping plant 100,000 trees, and Cheerios is partnering with the Xerces Society. In 2018, Cheerios helped plant 1.7 billion seeds of pollinator plants, and by 2021, It will have helped plant 3,300 acres of pollinator habitat.

Customers who scan the Cheerios or Nature Valley packaging unlock a spectacular AR experience that allows them to grow their own virtual forest or wildflower garden. The experience is fully interactive and includes trivia with interesting facts.

• Cheerios – Customers unlock a 3d world that breaks out of the packaging. After unlocking the grove, customers can tap to plant a variety of wildflowers that spring up from the ground. A bee then flies out and pollinates the flower, activating interesting facts and trivia about bees.

• Nature Valley Granola Bars unlock a 3D nature scene that customers can place anywhere. Once the plot of land has been placed, customers can start tapping to unlock a variety of trees along a flowing river. As the trees grow, they reveal tree trivia and facts.

The AR experience contains answers to the questions on the back of the boxes. Kids can learn how planting saplings and protecting pollinator habitats positively affect the environment.

Creating Educational and Entertaining AR

We worked with both the Cheerios and Nature Valley teams on how to make an educational awareness message fun. Part of this involved explaining how AR works and how the customer can engage with their content in a fun way. The production began with designing storyboards that help explain how the experience works.

We then worked with the teams to identify the look and feel of the experience. Since this will use augmented reality to tell the story, we needed to create 3D assets for everything that would appear in the world. Part of the look development process is sketching characters, elements, props, and the world we want the user to interact with.

Engaging with the Consumer

We knew that getting your audience to download a new app is often a big hurdle, so we decided on the strategy of using social Apps to activate with the audience. Facebook and Snapchat have a huge install base, so we focused on these social channels as our platforms.

To make the experience as easy as possible, we used QR Codes on the back of the packaging to drive customers to a vanity landing page. This is where they can decide whether to use Snapchat or Facebook. The links then sent the customer to the correct, corresponding filter on the social platform.

Each social platform has its own unique development platform. Facebook uses Spark AR, and Snapchat uses Snap Lens Studio. Groove Jones has developed numerous campaigns on both of these platforms, so we know what to look for.

The campaign is being promoted in the grocery store aisle, on-pack, and through social channels.

Cheerios

For more information, visit – https://www.cheerios.com

The Xerces Society

The Xerces Society is a non-profit environmental organization that focuses on the conservation of invertebrates essential to biological diversity and ecosystem health. For more information, visit – https://xerces.org/

Nature Valley

For more information, visit – https://www.naturevalley.com/

The Nature Conservancy

The Nature Conservancy is a charitable environmental organization headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, United States. Its mission is to “conserve the lands and waters on which all life depends.” For more information, visit – https://www.nature.org/en-us/