Byte
- Brand
- Coca-Cola
- Year
- 2022
- Objective
- Awareness
- Industry
- Food & Drink
- Mechanic
- Arcade & Action
- Platform
- Web
- Agency
- Tool
- With
- VIRTUE WORLDWIDE
Objective
Coca-Cola built its Creations platform to reach Gen Z through culture-led limited editions rather than long-running media campaigns, and Byte was the drop aimed squarely at gaming culture within the brand's wider Real Magic push. The AR game had to give a limited-edition can a life beyond the shelf: turn a scan into a few minutes of play and make the abstract idea of a "pixel flavor" feel tangible. It also had to produce a shareable result — a score or clip people would actually post — so the drop kept circulating online after the can sold out.
Solution
Scanning the Byte can, or a QR code shared on social, opens an AR game right in the phone's browser — no app to install. The camera view fills with a spiral staircase of pixel tiles turning in mid-air, with the character BYTE waiting at the bottom. On-screen arrows are the only control: the player holds a direction to make BYTE hop tile to tile as the staircase rotates beneath him, grabbing power-up pixels along the way for an extra boost upward. Landing on the bright pink tile at the top launches BYTE into the metaverse to rejoin the Coca-Cola logo, ending the run. The finished playthrough comes back as a ready-made video to share, with the player's time posted to a public leaderboard.
- 1
The player finds the game on the product itself: a scannable label on the Coca-Cola Zero Sugar Byte pack, or a QR code seeded on social, opens the AR experience directly in the phone's browser, with no app to install.
- 2
An opening sequence sets up the premise: BYTE, a lone 8-bit pixel, was left behind when his fellow pixels were pulled through a portal into the metaverse, and the player's task is to reunite him with them.
- 3
The phone camera reveals the AR play space: a staircase of pixel tiles spiralling upward and rotating in front of the player, with the metaverse portal waiting at the top and BYTE starting on the bottom middle tile.
- 4
The core loop is a timing game: the player holds on-screen arrows to make BYTE jump tile to tile up the constantly rotating staircase, aiming each hop at the tile as it comes around, while grabbing power-up pixels along the way that boost him upward and speed the climb.
- 5
A run ends when BYTE lands on the bright pink tile at the top, which launches him into the metaverse to rejoin the Coca-Cola logo.
- 6
A closing sequence hands the player a pre-rendered video of their run, stamped with their finish time and score and ready to post.
- 7
The finish time also posts to a shared virtual leaderboard, which players can share on social media to turn individual runs into a public race.
- 8
A separate track exists in Fortnite: players enter the Pixel Point island through Fortnite Creative using island code 8565-0287-3178, arriving in a neon isometric world built around Coca-Cola references, including Coca-Cola Zero Sugar Byte.
- 9
Inside the island, players work through four sensory-themed multiplayer mini-games — The Castle, The Escape, The Race and The Tower — room-sized challenges that open only when players cooperate.
- 10
Between challenges, players hunt hidden treasures and solve collaborative puzzles staged inside giant glass bottles and Coke cans, progressing upward through the tower as they go.
