2020 Winner
2020 Winners
IGA
Tattoos
After ten years of partnership with the Fondation Charles-Bruneau, which finances research to cure children with cancer, IGA grocers wanted to make a record donation.
Therefore, the goal was to reinvent the process of solicitating donations at checkout in order to raise as much money as possible.
Insights and Strategy
Studies show that people are more inclined to give to a cause if they get something in return.
So our strategy was simple: impart strong perceived value to an object that requires very low production costs.
Execution
The tattoos were the first to be animated using augmented reality on Facebook’s Spark AR platform. This technology, which was still in beta at the time, allows the tattoos to come to life right on a child’s arm by simply using the Facebook app on a smartphone. This approach allowed us to impart strong perceived value to temporary tattoos and raise as much money as possible for the cause, not to mention that Spark AR is free to use and there is no additional downloading required for the user.
This approach handles a very sensitive subject (children with cancer) in an optimistic and fun way. Four tattoos variants featuring food were created to encourage sick children and bring everyone a smile.
Results and Impact
In three weeks, 225,000 tattoos were sold, raising $450,000 for the foundation, which is an increase of almost 30% in donations at checkout compared to the previous year ($350,000).
In addition, the initiative and their spokesperson made the rounds in Quebec media, which gave the campaign a lot of visibility and increased IGA’s social engagement.
Technology and Tools:
Those were the very first tattoos to be animated using Facebook’s Spark AR platform, which was still in beta at the time.
We used Instagram’s very active tattoo community in an unexpected way to generate buzz and attract the media’s attention.
To simplify the user experience, we set up a very simple microsite to activate the right Facebook filter for each tattoo with a single click.
User Experience:
The main challenges with augmented reality are the development costs and finding a way to get people to download the tool that enables the experience.
With Spark AR, not only is the experience accessible right from the Facebook app that’s already downloaded on most smartphones, but it’s also free to use, which is just perfect when the goal is to raise money for a charity.
Another challenge was creating a seamless experience. That’s why we developed a 3D animation style that wasn’t very complex, to ensure that the experience could be downloaded quickly, the animation was smooth, and the sound was synced to the picture.
Lastly, we seamlessly integrated trackers to the tattoo designs so we could make sure that they worked once applied despite any distortions, and that the animations were the right size for the child’s arm.
Supporting Channels:
To launch the campaign, we decided to focus on a teaser starring Pierre Bruneau, a famous news anchor in Quebec. He is also the founder of the Fondation Charles-Bruneau, which was established after his son passed away 30 years ago. Everyone in Quebec knows Pierre Bruneau as a serious and well-respected man. So when we sent him to a tattoo parlour and the tattoo artist posted a photo of him on Instagram, the media went crazy. After we revealed that it was part of a fundraising campaign for his foundation, Mr. Bruneau did the rounds on talk shows and radio shows to demonstrate with childlike enthusiasm how the tattoos come to life thanks to augmented reality.