Last year, with the Winter Olympics in Beijing fast approaching and the threat of covid-19 still looming, it was quickly becoming evident that the games would, sadly, be another major sporting event that fans were unable to attend in person.

In reaction to this, General Mills, one of the biggest and long-time standing supporters of the Canadia Winter Olympic team, was determined to find a way to provide the athletes with the much needed fan support they would be missing. The brand’s annual ‘Cheer’ campaign has been running for over a decade, with over 100,000 Cheer Cards having been sent to Team Canada athletes.

To help empower Team Canada and support Canadian athletes as they went for gold, General Mills turned to Blippar for a solution. For Blippar, the idea was clear, to make the Cheerios Cheer cards not only digital, but AR enabled.

The creative idea was to turn boxes of General Mills cereal into the gateway for the AR experience. All across Canada, boxes of Honey Nut, Multi-Grain and Cheerios cereal featured QR codes inviting fans to submit digital cheers to inspire and motivate Team Canada athletes.

The AR experiences were centred around 6 high-profile Team Canada Olympians, featuring interactive games, trivia and immersive moments with each of the athletes.

The objective was to allow as many fans as possible to connect with their favourite athletes by sharing AR messages of inspiration.

Blippar utilised the full strength of their in-house production studio across the 12-month project, from conceptualisation through to 3D asset production, UI design and delivering the technical build.

The AR experiences launched General Mill's "Cheer" Campaign in support of the 2022 Beijing Olympic Winter Games. The AR experiences allowed customers to engage with their content in an interactive way through QR codes on the front of pack. Users could learn more about General Mills' 2022 Sponsored Athletes, participate in 1 of 6 unique fully interactive trivia and games, or send a Cheer to athletes. The campaign was promoted on-pack and through a variety of media channels, including television and social media.

Going one step further, Cheerios also brought fans' cheers all the way to Beijing through a custom 'Cheer Booth' set up in the Canadian Lounge at the Beijing 2022 Olympic Village. The unique space was covered in words of encouragement from fans across the country. Within the booth, athletes were immersed in Cheer: seeing, hearing and experiencing the messages and videos from Canadian fans.

The AR campaign reached over 30k unique users, with an average dwell time across the experiences achieving 3 minutes 18 Seconds.