The walkers have taken the streets.
AMC and Mountain Dew have formed an undead alliance to celebrate Season 8 and the 100th episode of AMC’s The Walking Dead—with the release of an augmented reality app called, “The Walking Dead Encounter.”
The app resurrects popular walkers from past episodes and gives you the power to set them loose wherever you are. Put your goth glamor on display and share your photos and videos of the experience with friends and family (so they can lose sleep at night too).
The app was developed by Trigger, the same mixed reality agency responsible for AR experiences like “Spider-Man: Homecoming” and “Star Wars: Find the Force.”
This AR campaign isn’t intended to be a one-off experience.
The app starts you off with 2 walkers to create your scenes. To unlock new walkers (a total of 20 when all is said and done), keep an eye out for three interactive Mountain Dew spots that will air during the first half of Season 8. They’ll feature “DEW-ers” playing basketball, skateboarding and riding BMX—all while being chased down by walkers. During the spots, you use the app to scan your television to unlock the new walker.
Another way you can unlock more is by running out and picking up limited edition bottles and cases of Mountain Dew, Diet Mountain Dew, and Mountain Dew Pitch Black that feature images of the show’s most popular characters: Rick Grimes, Daryl Dixon and Michonne, and then scan the labels with the app.
Using augmented reality is a marketing strategy that evolves the idea of product placement, turning it into an interactive product capable of generating new forms of brand engagement.
“Hardware and software are evolving so fast that new capabilities are always just around the corner,” said President and Executive Creative Director of Trigger Jason Yim in a phone interview. “AR can already deliver information, unique experiences and even add functionality to products. In the future AR will be as ubiquitous as GPS—it will be a powerful ingredient in every successful recipe.”
With Halloween around the corner, it’s safe to assume we’re going to be seeing quite a few of these videos popping up across the Internet.
The Walking Dead Encounter app is available now on iOS and Android. For more information, follow @mountaindew and @WalkingDead_AMC on Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat, using hashtags #TWDEncounter #DoTheDEW.
