Street Runner & AR Dance App
- Brand
- Americana
- Year
- 2022
- Objective
- Product Launch
- Industry
- Food & Drink
- Mechanic
- Arcade & Action
- Platform
- AR & VR
- Agency
- VISION ADVERTISING
Objective
Americana needed a way to launch a new snack brand into Egypt's crowded chips-and-puffs market without competing on flavor alone, so it built the difference into the pack itself. The pitch was that Avatar would be the country's first "digital snack": every purchase carried a code that fed directly into a companion game, turning repeat buys into the only way to unlock new characters, dance moves and gear for a teen audience.
Solution
You scan the QR code printed on a pack of Avatar and the app opens on your phone; inside the wrapper is a one-time code you type in to unlock a character, dance move, power-up or outfit. From the home screen you pick one of two ways to play: an endless runner down a Cairo street where you dash between traffic scooping up Avatar packs and dropping them off at a kiosk before the clock runs out, or AR mode, where you point the camera at yourself and your customized avatar appears dancing alongside you in real time, ready to record and share. A later update adds Game Center and Facebook so you can save your avatar's look and compare it with friends.
Results
The Android build passed 50,000+ installs on Google Play, and the iOS version held a 4.14-out-of-5 average across 7 ratings on the Egyptian App Store. Americana's LinkedIn post announcing the brand drew 168 reactions and 4 comments.
- 1
The entry point is the snack bag itself: a shopper buys a pack of Avatar chips, scans the QR code printed on it, and downloads the free Avatar Snacks app.
- 2
The player creates a character called an Avi and customizes its look with clothing and appearance options; some items are locked and only unlock via codes found inside snack packs.
- 3
The core loop is an endless-runner-style dash down a Cairo street: the Avi auto-runs forward, collecting scattered Avatar packs as the level currency while dodging obstacles like potholes, cones, cars, and tuk-tuks.
- 4
Hitting an obstacle knocks loose some of the packs already collected. A run ends at a kiosk at the street's end, where the player turns in their haul against a level quota — meeting it advances the challenge, falling short ends the run.
- 5
Outside the runner, the player opens a physical snack pack for a unique code and redeems it in-app for rewards: new Avis, power-ups, dances, and outfit pieces.
- 6
A separate AR mode lets the player point the phone camera at their surroundings to see their customized Avi dancing in the real environment, choosing from unlocked dances or ones opened via pack codes, and staging a filmed 'dance-off' duel.
- 7
The player can swap the music track on a recorded dance clip before sending it to friends or posting it directly to social media.
- 8
Linking Game Center and Facebook lets the player compete against friends.
