Vodafone successfully enticed tech-savvy 25-55s to run around London uncovering AR prizes for the iPhone 11 launch in September 2019. Vodafone wanted to create even more hype for the launch of the Samsung S20 in March 2020, and this time beyond London to reach a wider audience. The aim: catch the attention of a tech-savvy audience to get Vodafone, with their Unlimited Plans, and the new Samsung S20 on their radar. This required driving awareness, consideration and engagement with the brand. With over 12,000 prizes to be collected over 4 weeks in Glasgow, Leeds, Birmingham, Manchester, and London, we launched the AR scavenger hunt on 13th March. But then on March 23rd, lockdown happened, Instead of pausing activity, as many did, we pivoted and changed the nature of the AR scavenger hunt to get the nation to play from the safety of their living rooms.

Turning UK living rooms into an augmented-reality (AR) scavenger hunt in lockdown for Vodafone’s launch of the Samsung S20.

In 2020, Vodafone's Find Unlimited was back, but not as everyone knew it. This year we were scaling beyond just London, but more importantly we had to deal with a pretty significant challenge that threatened to derail the entire campaign - COVID-19 and the first national lockdown. Whether in lockdown or not, we had faith in the idea and remained committed to engaging the UK in a fun virtual hunt. The goal remained the same: to capture the UK’s attention and ensure that the Vodafone brand was front of mind for the launch of the new Samsung S20.

34% of mobile service searches happen around device launches. Vodafone needed a way to cut-through the noise and standout in a low-interest category. Our strategic approach aimed to deliver a new level of engagement between the UK public and their mobile networks, by getting people to play and interact with the network. The 2019 AR scavenger hunt was highly successful and so the brief for 2020 was straightforward - scale it up for the new Samsung S20. But then COVID-19 struck and the nation went into lockdown. Looking into the impact of lockdown, and the increased importance of digital experiences in keeping people entertained, we decided that this was exactly the kind of experience the UK needed. However, we could no longer have people roaming the streets. The core of our strategy remained the same, we just needed to quickly pivot towards a safer and more responsible mechanic.

The original execution was a nation-wide virtual scavenger hunt utilising Geolocation AR Technology (think Pokemon Go) to help users to ‘Find Unlimited’ for the release of the Samsung S20. We gave players a chance to discover drop-zones in a map on their phone (via mobile-web, so no app had to be downloaded) and head to the location to pick up blockchain-secured Vodafone prizes in AR.

The key pivot was changing the geolocation parameters of the game: instead of going out and finding Vatoms in the city streets, users could now drop a pin in their current location and begin finding Vatoms around them at home. New smaller prizes were included to ensure greater user engagement and repeat visits whilst in lockdown. And our social media influencers pivoted from dropping city-based prize clues, to drumming up excitement around playing the game at home, with instructions and what time pins were released.

For the 4 weeks the game was live, we saw 166,000 registered users across the nation running around their homes playing over 506,000 times, collecting 12,000 prizes. We successfully got on the audience's radar, with Vodafone’s spontaneous brand awareness increasing by 16%, but more importantly, consideration of Vodafone increasing by 9%. With an average dwell time of 3 minutes and 11 seconds, total engagement equalled 365 days in a 4 week period. And most importantly, Vodafone increased its share of Samsung sales from 15% to 20% in a market that was down 25%.