Launching VR/AR to drive MINI brand love and purchase consideration during a time when the chip-shortage killed in-person test drives.
Background
In a time when the chip-shortage made test-driving a MINI nearly impossible, if not impossible - Meta, PO and MINI teamed up together to launch the first Auto experience in Horizon Worlds. The objective was to keep MINI brand love alive and well despite the inability to drive in real life but allowing people to drive in the Metaverse. We leveraged a creator team that had pioneered a racing dynamic that was bring the feeling of racing MINIs to life in VR in ways that had people playing head to head to achieve top of the leader board.
Ready. Set. Go.
With a crafted AR experience, we welcomed people without Quest headsets into the world of MINIverse.
To ensure that our experience was built for everyone (not just the privileged few with Meta Quest headsets), we learned how to utilize the whole spectrum of experiences across the Meta family of apps to tell a VR story. We also put special attention towards building for accessibility and inclusion in VR not only for the final consumer experience, but also for the content capture for ad shoots as well.
PR and Industry Press
The ads for Horizon Worlds had a unique set of brand lift questions, attempting to identify association with Wendy’s + Innovation. We pioneered two new metaverse measurement approaches with Marsci to gauge impact (Buzz Lift and Horizon Lift). While the results are not able to be shared, the results were strong enough that Wendy’s committed to building 7 new worlds in Horizons. If you have a headset, dive into the Wendyverse!
“An exhilarating, gravity-defying track.”
“MINI has certainly proved it’s future-oriented!”
“We were all thrilled about the concept of taking what I think is the most fun car to drive into the metaverse. It was not about just replicating what you could experience in the real world. It was about really adding to that.” - Sebastian Beuchel, Head of MINI Global Brand
Credits:
Meta Creative Shop
Antonio Marcato: Meta Creative Director and Lead
Glenn Davis: Meta Vertical Lead NA Autos
Karen Maurice-O’Leary: Meta Product Lead
Derek Scott: Meta AR Creative Lead
Thomas Bourret: Meta AR Specialist
Tom Gilmartin: Meta Creative Director and Group Lead
Creative Agency
Pereira O’Dell
Creators:
Horizon Worlds/High Quality Objects: Jordan Marcotte
Horizon Worlds/Race Scripting: John Burnap
Horizon Worlds/Wearables: Malcolm Langille
AR: Sparsh Chaudhary