Tequila is often associated with specific holidays and occasions like Cinco de Mayo and Fourth of July. In an effort to shift the narrative around tequila, Patrón wanted a holiday experience that made tequila THE go to spirit to gift for the holiday season. Patrón also wanted a way to help customers connect despite holiday plans shifting across the country, while also maintaining their brand narrative. This led us to create a two-sided experience for both gifters and recipients that took the act of gifting alcohol from an easy to a thoughtful one.
With COVID’s continued presence in our lives, social distancing continued into the holiday season, a time that is usually filled with parties, family gatherings, and holiday festivities. During this time, we knew that people would be looking for ways to make new traditions, and to connect with their loved ones from afar. Alcohol is an easy gift to give, even when you can’t physically hand over the gift yourself, due to the rising ubiquity of alcohol delivery services. Additionally, in the wake of COVID, alcohol sales are spiking — particularly online. This made creating a holiday alcohol gifting experience for Patrón a necessity. We asked ourselves, how can we allow customers to personalize their gift? Augmented reality was an obvious answer for many reasons. Augmented reality allows for customization as well as a delivery mechanism that doesn’t rely on being in the same physical space as the recipient — helping maintain social distancing amid the pandemic. Augmented reality also provides a way for users to generate their own content while maintaining control over the Patrón brand. Using augmented reality means that there is no additional cost to the consumer as there would be with physical customization. Additionally, the novelty of the medium means that the recipient will be impressed with the thoughtfulness of the gift and the use of technology. To begin the virtual gift wrapping process, users can enter http://patrontequila.com/gift-wrap via their desktop or mobile device. From there, gifters of Patrón can create a custom virtual wrapping using photos, text, backgrounds, and stickers that will transform into a 360-degree augmented reality gift wrapping around their Patrón bottle. Once finalized, the user will receive a link that they can share with a recipient 21 years or older via text, email or social media. The gifter will also be directed to patrontequila.com where they will be able to purchase a bottle of Patrón to send to their recipient to wrap up their experience. Once the recipient receives their link, they will be able to see their custom gift wrapping come to life by holding their phone camera over their box of Patrón. If the recipient doesn't have a box handy they can tap to place the 3D object on any surface. When viewing their custom design, the recipient has the opportunity to record video or snap photos of their custom wrapper, showcasing the gift so they can share on social media or keep it as a memory. This experience isn’t relegated to the holiday season, and can be easily kept evergreen by replacing the customization assets within the gifter experience, transforming for other holidays like Cinco De Mayo, National Margarita Day, Father’s day and many more. Most augmented reality experiences currently available are gate-kept by the process of downloading an app onto a device. By using WebAR we have bypassed that hurdle for customers allowing for even easier sharing between the gifter and recipient.
With almost two minutes of interaction on average per user and each individual user generated augmented reality experience being viewed on average two times, Patrón succeeded in engaging it’s audience and creating deep brand interaction. This experience resulted in 53% of gifters clicking through to purchase Patrón before exiting the experience, almost 50x higher than the industry’s average CTR on online advertising. Additionally, gifters enjoyed customizing their bottles, averaging three upload events per user. On the recipient end, 47% of recipients downloaded captured content to their devices for later sharing.
