19 Crimes is an Australian wine based on the strange but true story of Australia’s infamous origins. Our labels feature historical British convicts, each banished to Australia for committing one of the 19 Crimes.

As a young wine brand banished to an increasingly crowded wine aisle, we were challenged to overcome the cluttered retail landscape and capture the attention of new customers. We knew that to get our target audience to move from admiring the convicts on our bottle, to engaging with their story and physically holding our product, we’d need to be as disruptive and engaging as our brand. So we looked to the rogues on our labels for inspiration – and decided to let them tell their side of the story.

We created the 19 Crimes app, a storytelling experience that combines package interaction, marker-based AR technology and real-time game engines to seamlessly bring our bottles to life.

Debuted in July of 2017, our Augmented Reality experience was the first of its kind for the wine category, transforming our packaging into storytelling devices and revealing unique backstories for each bottle's convicts. Using our free, downloadable app, shoppers were able to scan a bottle of 19 Crimes with their smartphones, and watch as the convicts on our labels came to life to speak directly to the app user.

The 19 Crimes app launched with in-store tastings at key growth retailers, where brand ambassadors armed with smartphones spread the news of our magic, talking bottles. A national point of sale campaign engaged shoppers in-aisle, while multiple AR-activated SKUs encouraged collectability and repeat purchase among converts. Demo videos and teaser content optimized for Facebook and Instagram drove shares online and traffic in-store, helping the app go viral within a few weeks on the market.

The campaign was an overwhelming success; the 19 Crimes app became a phenomenon, going viral on social media, reaching trending status in the App Store and shattering our targets.

Results include:

- 101% YOY sales increase

- +98% in customer depletions (benchmark industry average of +3%)

- Implementation at point-of-sale by key national retailers, including Kroger, which purchased exclusivity to sampling events

- 45K shoppers engaged at 1,475 nationwide sampling events, with 58% conversion rate during sampling period — 3x higher than industry standards

- 1.2M+ app downloads with average app session duration of 3:39 minutes, average rating of 4.2, and trending status in the App Store

- 128M earned media impressions via PR coverage from mass media outlets (broadcast and digital) and 20M organically earned video views via Facebook alone

- Over 2k user-generated videos of the app uploaded to YouTube

- 412% increase in engagement on social media