There they were on the wine store floor, one endcap with a gin endorsed by Snoop Dog and another with 19 Crimes, a fast growing Australian brand. If you drink it it seems, Snoop is there for you. I mentioned it to the younger couple in front of me and got an answer I didn’t expect.
“We love 19 Crimes,” they said referring to the wine. You download the app, swipe the front of the bottle and Snoop comes into a AR experience and starts answering your questions! It’s even better than the wine for a party!
Now AR experiences are not new, and they have come with various fits and starts. The craze early on of Pokémon characters being found around the world on new smart phones was followed by the New Zealand All Blacks doing a virtual Haka, to continued experiments with fan seating for NBA games, unique camera angles that bring fans almost on to the field, and on and on. Some in the business world still believe that the best use of VR, when streaming becomes even more real time, could be in areas like insurance and surgery, vs. sports, but it VR does fly, there will be a consumer push into the games and the personalities even more than there is now, given the ties between fandom an FOMO and the ever growing need for unique engagement, content and revenue streams.
But back to Snoop. The original collaboration between Snoop and 19 Crimes, Snoop Cali Red, was the No. 1 selling wine innovation of 2020. After the launch of the partnership, Snoop Cali Red showcased a new AR experience, “Ask the Doggfather,” that allowed drinkers the opportunity to “talk” to Snoop Dogg directly. Consumers go to askthedoggfather.com on a mobile device and then scan the bottle’s label. Once a question is posed, Snoop appears in a miniature holographic form to offer words of wisdom with a touch of signature swagger.
The presentation for 19 Crimes is fun, you can watch it on You Tube as well, and if you hit the right questions that are in the app that Snoop has handled, it makes for a great added content play. The platform is also expanding with new wines being launched, so Snoop can talk even more about the legends behind the brand, his tastes and even his suggestions, right there in your living room as you share a glass or two or three. There is also talk of random times when the app may present Snoop live, answering questions online for fans as they open a bottle and hit play.
The idea got me thinking about the applications that can expand in and around sports. Yes it would be nice to have Steph Curry drop in off of a bottle scan for say, Mountain Dew, and answer questions that have been set up. But how about going one step further. What if part of the “surprise and delight” was a hologram after NBA All-Star of three point winner Curry talking you through his experience and answering questions with the accompanying video? Or it could be for Slam Dunk or Home Run Derby in MLB with another consumer brand, and maybe, there could be an NFT tied to the presentation that could be a value add with purchase of a memorable moment?
Now the ability to turn around an AR experience to capitalize on a moment in time like that is still costly and time consuming. The Snoop AR took months to develop so that the user experience is strong, even with its limitations on predictable questions at this stage. But what 19 Crimes has done is find unique storytelling to cut through clutter in a very crowded space that even the best wines and spirits with the biggest endorsers can struggle to do. After all, the couple in front of me bought for the experience more than the taste! The ability for consumer brands to use that digital space to capture data, measure response, and yes, sell product is a really intriguing one which is probably on the development side of many brands, and as we see 5G and the user experience for AR improve it could, and should be led by sports and the moments that those games are tied to.
