“Ask the Doggfather” hologram allows users to pose any question to the legendary hip-hop artist and actually get an answer
Following the wildly successful augmented reality (AR) wine label experience for the launch of Snoop Cali Red, AR studio Tactic announces its newest iteration “Ask the Doggfather,” once again starring entertainment icon Snoop Dogg. Created in collaboration with agency Cashmere and award-winning software company 8th Wall, the latest 19 Crimes experience gives users the chance to ditch their Magic 8-Balls and instead pose life’s burning questions to the Doggfather himself.
“Ask the Doggfather” marks an evolution of the “Living Wine Labels” AR series, releasing the first experience activated by a wine label using 8th Wall technology —a software that makes it possible to build interactive web-based augmented reality (WebAR) that works on any smartphone without an app. Users simply go to askthedoggfather.com on a mobile device and scan any bottle of Snoop Cali Red. From there, just ask a question and Snoop will appear in miniature holographic form to offer some wisdom with a touch of his signature swagger.
“Our app-based Snoop Cali Red AR experience performed beyond our wildest dreams, so this time we re-engaged with the 19 Crimes team with the ambition to hit an even wider audience,” says Tactic President Peter Oberdorfer. “At the same time, we were already blown away by what we were seeing from 8th Wall’s technology. In a way, this was the perfect use case — we knew that both 19 Crimes and Snoop Cali Red had huge augmented reality audiences from the native app, so what better venue to launch to an even wider audience? Alongside the team at Cashmere, we came up with an experience that emulates a Magic 8-Ball, allowing a hologram of Snoop Dogg to respond to a host of questions.”
To bring the experience to life, Snoop was captured on green screen, largely overcoming the restrictions and production constraints in California during the pandemic. On set, Snoop made sure that his dialog was authentic, at times improvising to help give the AR experience some extra flavor.
8th Wall proved to be invaluable in streamlining the process. As the only augmented reality development platform to support cylindrical- and conical-shaped image targets that can be activated in a mobile browser, the technology provided a frictionless experience to end users. That ease of use is key to attaining the widest reach possible with support for nearly 3 billion smartphones across both iOS and Android devices.
“We are delighted that Tactic is the first to use our Curved Image Target technology for a consumer-facing experience,” says Erik Murphy-Chutorian, Founder and CEO of 8th Wall. “With WebAR, users are now able to activate wine bottle AR experiences with just the tap of a link.”
As a clever mix of technology and creative, “Ask the Doggfather” has already proved to be a great addition to the Snoop Cali Red AR family. “The first Snoop Cali Red AR experience was one of the most lauded ones we’ve ever created and the result was the largest wine/spirits launch of 2020,” continues Oberdorfer. “It really proves the value of these experiences and their ability to drive engagement and awareness. As we continue to work with great partners to expand the possibilities, we expect there to be many new AR offerings from Treasury Wine Estates in the near future.”
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