Club Mahindra and the first (?) Augmented Reality ad in a newspaper!

It was a Sunday morning and Daniel came running to me with the newspaper. And it seemed he wanted to colour something on it.

Turned out, there was a full page Club Mahindra ad. And the theme was a Christmas-y one. One was supposed to colour the Santa, download an app, scan the coloured image using the app and watch Santa come alive. Basically, the first augmented reality ad in a Indian daily newspaper! (I guess?)


The print ad is below. And the app can be found here!
Android Play Store : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.clubmahindra.mahindraholidays
Apple App Store : https://apps.apple.com/in/app/club-mahindra/id1146810334

And I set about in right earnest, egged on by a super-excited 3 year old. Though my expectations were super low, I must say I was surprised how well the AR experience was executed. After I finished the colouring part of things, I moved on to the tech part. I downloaded the app, begrudgingly gave Club Mahindra my contact details (and resigned myself to the spam calls) and clicked the 'Meet Santa' button.



And after some acrobatics with the phone, the app flashed red and blue,and then Santa came alive in all his Christmas glory! And I was pleasantly surprised with the results. Daniel on the other hand was delirious when Santa started dancing to Jingle Bells with a reindeer in tow! And the best part was that everything was just how we had coloured it.

An engaging ad brought to you by the amalgamation of old media and new tech!
Pretty cool I must say!

The process  :)