Pub chain Wetherspoon is joining forces with Bacardi to target students out on the town for a weekly “big night out” with a chance to grab food and drink offers via a mobile phone app.
The campaign, devised by Ogilvy Action, promotes the “Unlock Your Night @Wetherspoons” app. The augmented reality app, available on both iPhone and Android, allows consumers to discover or “unlock” offers hidden on point of sale material within 280 participating Wetherspoon pubs.
POS will also be placed on university campuses to drive student awareness of the activity and encourage downloading of the app.
Accessed through a QR code, the iPhone store or Android Market, the app harnesses the latest Aurasma augmented reality technology to deliver realtime offers.
The offers are represented by different brightly coloured geometric shapes on stickers and bar mats within bars, encouraging customers to find out more about the promotion. The point of sale material carries messages such as “look closer”, “be curious”, and “question everything”, aimed at attracting the interest of an audience of early adopters.
The app will also allow consumers to tag videos and pictures of their Wetherspoon “Big Night Out” to objects within the bar which can then be accessed by their Facebook friendship groups on subsequent visits to the pub. Content can also be directly tagged and updated to Twitter and Facebook through the app.
To drive awareness of the campaign Ogilvy Action has teamed up with student website Studentbeans.com and Campus Media, delivering a highly targeted communication plan incorporating eCRM, online advertising, campus POS and the use of student ambassadors.
Wetherspoon chief executive John Hutson said: “Our pubs are extremely popular with students and we are confident that they will embrace the promotion. It is a fun and innovative way for our pubs to interact with students and for students to benefit when they visit their local Wetherspoon.”
