We created a one-time app with a singular function: to make milk cartons sing. Developed with all of Quebec’s major dairy brands in a rare collaboration, it used augmented reality to display faces on cartons and give them a voice. Up to 5 cartons formed a choir that sang Christmas songs, in as many different scenarios as users could dream up. Given that over 150 different cartons could be detected, the simultaneous recognition of several cartons representing multiple brands and formats was a major technological challenge.

The first challenge to overcome was a political one: Convince the four big dairy processors, who traditionally engage in all-out combat, to call a Christmas season truce for the sake of a campaign that would star all of their brands together.

The second challenge was technological: Achieve augmented reality detection of nearly 200 different SKUs — brand, fat percentage, carton size, etc. — even the egg nog was detectable. They had to be digitized in a manner that would show them in the greatest variety of situations possible, taking into account issues like pack angle, lighting and more. There were only 5 months from the time of the initial idea to the launch of the app.

Distribution: App Store + Google Play Store

Cost: free

Promotion of the application through investments in traditional and digital media, including a TV spot mention, OOH featuring carton images detectable by the app, PR and social media initiatives.

Launch: November 27, 2017

Campaign length: 4 weeks

Since the initiative spans an entire product category and is not brand-specific, it had no sales targets. Our primary objective was to increase overall category love. The initiative saw tremendous engagement throughout Quebec:

• More than 66,000 downloads in just 4 weeks

• Coverage in several major provincial media outlets

• Significantly increased usage on Christmas Day, regardless of download day

• 1.3 million songs played

• A rating of 4.2 on both the App Store and Google Play

• 5.8 people reached by media coverage