Budweiser China's target audience are deemed "Experience Maximizers", aged 18 to 29. What differentiates them the most from China’s mass youth is that they are individualistic and love to leave an impression. They've taken selfies to the next level, adding layers of customization before sharing on their WeChat (the social platform that the Chinese youth turn to to share their true thoughts).

We leveraged this insight to land the brand platform, "Unleash Your True Self" onto consumers' screens nationwide.

We created a mobile consumer engagement called "Bud Selfie" that transformed people's selfies into 3D animations. Their faces were rendered in real-time, into a 3D animation that morphed and pulsated to the beat of the campaign's EDM anthem. As they watched their selfies transform, they could flip between five distinctively different EDM styles -- until they found the one that best reflected their true inner spirit.

"Bud Selfie" animations were developed with a custom-made WebGL framework and integrated into WeChat, circumventing the need to create an APP -- a first for China given the calibre of the technology.

Key technological achievements:

- Developed a 3D-head model from research on Chinese facial structures

- Selfies were projected in real-time onto these 3D-head models, specifically coded to animate and morph to the background music's rhythm

- More than 20,000 lines JS coding within short turnaround time

- Controlled animation loading time within 15 seconds

- Optimized journeys for both webGL-friendly and non-webGL devices

Timeline:

Development & production: July 7, 2015 - Launch: August 29, 2015

Placement:

- Owned: Bud.CN, WeChat & Weibo

- Paid: Camera-enabled APPs (MeiTu, MeiYan); Tencent Shake Shake media (users shook their phone in front of the screen during the campaign commercial and were taken to "Bud Selfie"), digital OOH at campaign events

Reach:

- Digital media buy: ~302,000,000 impressions through Meitu, Meiyan, and Tencent Shake Shake media

- Cumulative social impressions: ~4,620,000

Engagement:

- Over 2 million people created their own Bud Selfie in 4 weeks

- Over 50% increase in engagement rate compared to the previous 2015 Music Campaign consumer engagement

- People spent 2.5 minutes on average engaging with Budweiser