After having seen our AR work for the Living Wine Labels app (featuring 19 Crimes and The Walking Dead), the Jack Daniel’s digital team approached The agency about creating an app which would turn the iconic Old No.7 bottle into a storytelling device for the brand’s 150 years of history, including the legends of its founder, Mr. Jack himself.

The agency gladly accepted the challenge and worked to deliver over 10 minutes of interactive mobile AR content, segmented and driven by the user, all unfolding around the world’s best selling whiskey.

Our team at Tactic wanted to push the boundaries of marker-based AR to create a visual mechanic that was seamless and tactile in both look and user interaction. We landed on a pop-up storybook aesthetic which could tie together the central ideas: a tour of the iconic Jack Daniel’s distillery grounds where 300,000 faithful visit each year, a step-by-step of the distilling process for Old No.7, and a recounting of the legends of Mr. Jack, including his untimely death.

This is the first ever mobile app for Jack Daniel’s, and it’s focused entirely on the AR experience. The Tactic crew collaborated with the Jack Daniel’s digital team over the course of six (6) months, working to choose the initial stories featured within the app. The app itself is an AR platform which can be updated with new content and stories, all unfolding from the ‘pop-up’ book motif.

With the success of our Living Wine Labels app (over 3.7M downloads), we understood there was an opportunity for real-time storytelling in AR, especially by combining marker-based AR with consumer packaged goods. This approach gives brands a chance to speak directly to users, which proved to be a revelation for industries like wine and spirits, where buyers and retailers controlled the shelf space and messaging.

We knew that by collaborating with an iconic brand like Jack Daniel’s, and combining those insights with high quality real-time visuals, the Old No.7 bottle could become a puzzle box with infinite opportunity to surprise and engage users. The Jack Daniel’s faithful did not disappoint, and the app has had over 10,000 downloads in the first three (3) days since release.

This is the first ever mobile app for Jack Daniel’s, and it’s focused entirely on the AR experience. The crew collaborated with the Jack Daniel’s digital team over the course of six (6) months, working to choose the initial stories featured within the app. The app itself is an AR platform which can be updated with new content and stories, all unfolding from the ‘pop-up’ book motif.

Once the concept was decided, the agency team worked with artist specializing in woodcut and etching to capture an aesthetic that was both illustrative and alluded to the brands long history.

Our team of Unity engineers and animators built out scenes which could initiate from the app on any size of Jack Daniel’s Old No.7 (i.e., 50ml or 1.5L) anywhere in the world. The real-time lighting, shaders, and VFX help to make the illusion more than just a novelty, and the bottle seems to unfold in the user’s hand.

Each download and interaction let’s the Jack Daniel’s team know that they are interacting with a user who is engaging with the physical product every time.

This app just launched as of April 15th, so the sales and analytic data are limited as of this moment, but the first few days have shown a tremendous interest and user curiosity. The app had over 10,000 downloads in the first three (3) days alone (iOS and Android).

Jack Daniel’s is committed to a long term approach in AR and continuing to treat this emerging medium as a direct channel to customers and the brand faithful.