Domino’s Is Bringing Its Pizzas Into Augmented Reality With a National Snapchat Campaign – Info Advertisement

Domino’s is turning its pizza boxes—and the pizzas that go inside them—into an augmented reality campaign.

This weekend, the pizza chain will begin running a national ad campaign that lets Snapchat users play with the platform’s new “shoppable AR” lens.

The feature, which will be available on Saturday, lets users tap a button within Snapchat to quickly order a pizza without leaving the app. The visuals are two-fold: When a person uses the feature on their face, they’ll be wearing a pair of sunglasses, which reflect a pizza in their lenses. However, when the camera flips over, they’ll be able to see a floating Domino’s pizza box that opens to reveal—surprise surprise—a pizza.

The campaign was created in partnership with the agency Kabaq, which visited a Domino’s location to shoot images of a pizza before turning the photos into an AR feature. (Earlier this month, Kabaq also created a similar AR food campaign for Snapchat with The Economist, which featured several images showcasing possible foods of the future.)

The use of AR lenses continues to be an area of growth for Snapchat—and for the brands that buy them.

According to Snap, 70 million people play with the AR lenses every day, with each person spending on average about three minutes with the feature. Those minutes end up amounting to about 250 million AR-enabled posts every day—ranging from branded buys to Snapchat’s own 3D Bitmojis to more classic features such as the dancing hot dog and puppy ears.

National lenses bought directly through Snapchat’s sales team—such as the one Domino’s will run—aren’t cheap. For special events or larger launches, Snapchat shows all users the feature directly within the camera as the first AR feature available.

Marketers pay a flat fee of about $500,000 to reach between 15 and 20 million people that according to Snap ends up creating between 40 million and 60 million impressions. (With that kind of price point, an AR ad ranges from $12 to $15 for 1,000 impressions.)

AR lenses are also available on a self-serve basis. For example, advertisers can pay between $10 and $14 for 1,000 AR lens plays with no minimum ad buy. Another option is a Snap ad that requires users to swipe up to unlock an AR feature. Those are even cheaper, ranging between $3 and $5 per 1,000 impressions.

According to Nielsen Catalina, the campaigns seem to work. The measurement company—which recently expanded its partnership with Snap for increased ad-targeting—measured 22 CPG brand campaigns and found an average sales life of 10 percent. Nielsen’s in-app polling also found that lenses increased ad awareness by 19 points while also increasing brand lift by 7 points.

“AR offers us a new way to bring consumers even closer to our product,” Meenakshi Nagarajan, director of digital marketing at Domino’s, said in a statement about the campaign. “We’re looking forward to continuing to test how AR on Snapchat is effective – not only for engagement, but for driving ROI.”