McDonald's - Happy Meal AR

During the ‘first wave’ of Augmented Reality, McDonald’s were curious to see how this emerging technology could be applied to their food products and within their stores. 

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The Happy Meal AR proof of concept was created to demonstrate how the Happy Meal box itself could be used as an AR prop using image tracking and object recognition. 

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The proof of concept, developed in Unity3D as an iOS app, leveraged animated character assets from the current TV spot, placing them in a 3D scene around the Happy Meal box. Characters could be interacted with as well as the box itself for some fun and games. 

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This concept was extended to additional food items and packaging, such as the burger boxes. Image recognition identified products and augmented them with additional nutritional information. 

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The concept proved successful and inspired McDonald’s to incorporate AR as a key engagement aspect of many future Happy Meal boxes.