A sip of summer, served through AR.
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A sip of summer, served through AR. |
CLIENT:
Malfy Gin / Pernod-Ricard.
Creative Direction, Concept & Design, UX/UI Oversight, 3D Design, Client Relations.
ROLE:
Outdoor AR advertising experience across high-footfall UK locations and social media.
CONTEXT:
PlATFORM:
Mobile WebAR + Geolocation-based campaign.
Pernod Ricard wanted to make a splash with their new Malfy Gin brand in the UK. Our brief was simple: bring the charm of the Amalfi Coast to British streets in a way that felt fresh, vibrant, and unmistakably summer.
As the Creative Lead, I led the concept development and 3D/UX design direction for the AR experience. We created location-activated encounters in retail and on social, turning everyday spaces into escapist brand moments - playful, shareable, and true to the Malfy brand.
GOALS
4. Support brand uplift
Align creative with KPIs like dwell time, repeat engagement, and experiential impact.
1. Drive Real-World Engagement
Create surprise-and-delight AR moments by turning everyday settings into immersive brand touchpoints.
2. Capture the Amalfi Coast spirit
Translate the sensory richness of the Italian Riviera into interactive digital form.
3. REINFORCE BRAND IDENTITY
Use playful sensory digital design to promote brand awareness and an emotional bond.
Creative Approach
We leaned into the sensory nature of the Malfy brand - citrus, colour, summer - to craft a tactile AR immersive moment tailored to a summer Stylista’s lifestyle. Playful, non-verbal UI guided users from scan to full experience, while the use of subtle motion, video content, and texture created a premium feel.
The experience launched via QR codes found on 300,000 limited edition Malfy bottles, OOH media, and PoS displays across London. Using GPS triggers, scenes are adapted to the viewer’s real-world surroundings.
Project Toolkit:
The Audience
First was to define and understand who we are crafting for, what they are like, and what their likes are.
Enter ‘The Stylista’.
Stylish, confident, and effortlessly chic, embracing a lifestyle that blends fashion, food, drink, travel, art, and music. The Stylista enjoys the finer things in life, appreciates quality, and knows how to savor moments of joy and relaxation.
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The Stylista possesses a natural sense of style and grace, effortlessly combining fashion and functionality. -
They value high-quality ingredients, craftsmanship, and experiences, whether it's a perfectly crafted cocktail or a beautifully designed space.
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Drawn to the vibrant colors, flavors, and relaxed pace of life that define the Italian lifestyle, particularly the Amalfi Coast.
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They embrace moments of conviviality, enjoying shared experiences with friends and loved ones, often around food and drinks.
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The Stylista is inspired by travel and new experiences, constantly seeking inspiration and beauty in their surroundings.
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They appreciate brands that align with their values, such as Malfy Gin, which embodies Italian craftsmanship and a passion for quality.
DECISIONS. DECISIONS.
EXPLORING POTENTIAL
Before concepting began, we aligned stakeholders on a shared creative direction rooted in “The Stylist” persona. Moodboards helped visualise tone, ambition, and the balance between realism and fantasy and we experimented with a number of activation stles from Web activated animated murals to mixed reality premiere event remote tours.
Eventually, this led to a user-driven journey where Stylista’s could explore a slice of their Amalfi Coast in a 360 degree experiential payoff of sight and sound. From framing choices to content gating and tone of voice, we crafted each step to reflect that aspirational aesthetic.
FROM MIND TO DIGITAL MATTER.
DEFINING A JOURNEY
The Immagina Malfy Moment - A Slice of La Dolce Vita. Would allow users to virtually tailor a immersive mobile experience based on their choices made through a augmented reality multiple choice mechanic.
Building out this concept meant we needed clarity. A full user journey. We needed storyboards. A big part of the challenge here is the effective communication of ideas; an interactive experience is not the same as a TVC or social media advert, so traditional storyboarding or animatics don’t fully express a user journey in the way many media and marketing agencies expect. This needed to be a series of documents and visuals that fluently expressed the stages of the experience, the user choices and interactions and the ultimate payoff.
PERFECT WEATHER TO COOK.
Now the build can begin. We started by translating brand elements. citrus fruits, ocean hues, Italian architecture. into AR-ready 3D components.
I built modular assets in Blender, optimizing for real-time performance with a focus on mobile WebAR limitations: low polycounts, optimised textures for VRAM load, minimal shader load, and strategic texture atlasing.
Alongside the 3D visuals, I led the UI/UX design, tailoring it for quick onboarding and intuitive spatial interaction. We tested both 2D and 3D UI tap zones, and visual guidance to ensure users could interact confidently in bright outdoor settings. We didn’t just want people staring at their phone on sunny days; we wanted them staring through it.
BUILDING THE VISION
A Second experieNtial Apéritif
HEIGHTED SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT
As part of the wider campaign, i lead development of a second auxiliary AR Malfy Moment focused on social shareability. A playful fruit-and-flower headpiece filter invited users to engage and share their own ‘slice of summer’.
This experience was optimised for Instagram and Facebook, with fast-loading design and a beautification mode built into the experience. Later it was decided to rebuild the filter in Snap Lens Studio as well.
Reaching the FINISH line. 🎉
A TIME TO REFLECT
The campaign launched across multiple retail locations and was supported by social rollout, with high user engagement during activation windows.
Feedback from client stakeholders pointed to strong customer delight, positive brand association, and successful integration into Malfy’s broader launch campaign.
Internally, this project became a benchmark for location-based AR activations, combining playful design with on-brand elegance.
The background image is a panorama of one of the photo-composites used as one of the twelve variations of final experience payoff for the user, as seen in the video at the top of this page.
Outcomes
📈
High engagement with strong dwell time.
🌍
Picked up by Pernod-Ricard global teams and scaled to 5 more regions.
🗣
Translated into 2 languages for local deployment.
🏆
Runner-up at 2023 Campaign Experience Awards.
Marie-Eve Poget | Global Marketing Manager, Pernod-Ricard
