Snickers brings AR Super Bowl experience to forthcoming Apple Vision Pro

Dive Brief:

Mars brand Snickers is bringing an augmented reality (AR) Super Bowl experience to the Apple Vision Pro, according to details shared with Marketing Dive. The activation was made in collaboration with The Mars Agency and technology content company Blippar.
Consumers who own an Apple Vision Pro on Feb. 11, the day of the Super Bowl, can access the experience to practice kicking field goals or visit “misfortune teller” T.J. Watt of the Pittsburgh Steelers. The effort is tied to Snickers’ long-running “Rookie Mistake” platform.
The experience is also available on mobile devices and invites users to share their rookie mistakes, or embarrassing moments, for the chance to win an at-home football viewing set-up. The effort signals how some brands are placing early bets on Apple’s buzzy new headset.

Dive Insight:

Apple’s Vision Pro mixed-reality headset hasn’t yet arrived, but brands are already strategizing ways to plug into the hype. The long-anticipated Vision Pro headset became available for pre-order earlier this month and is expected to arrive on Feb. 2. For Snickers, pairing excitement around the headset with Super Bowl fandom could help drum up engagement among those “hungry for immersive content to test drive on their new devices,” said Keith Curtin, chief revenue officer at Blippar, in a statement provided to Marketing Dive.

The “Rookie Mistake” AR experience on the Vision Pro will be available on Feb. 11, the day of the Super Bowl. The branded experience allows consumers to practice kicking a field goal or hear from “misfortune teller” Watt, who can be seen delivering an oracle-style message from a crystal ball.

Despite the $3,499 price tag for the Vision Pro headset, Apple reportedly had sold between 160,000 to 180,000 units days after pre-order became available, an early success that could entice other marketers to strategize branded experiences on the device. Still, virtual reality headsets have historically struggled to maintain traction, especially among younger consumers, with 29% of teens reporting that they had owned a VR device, though only 4% of headset owners used it daily, according to a 2023 Piper Sandler survey.

Regardless, Apple has a reputation for getting the formula right for connected devices. Its iOS platform, for instance, is known to attract higher engagement among consumers versus Android, despite the latter having a much larger global footprint. For marketers, that could make it easier to bet on the tech giant’s latest undertaking, which Apple chief executive Tim Cook said will be being responsible for introducing a “new era of spatial computing.” Aside from Apple, Meta has for years been betting on its own virtual reality headset, though it hasn’t seemed to stick — the company’s Reality Labs unit in the third quarter saw an operating loss of $3.7 billion.

Snickers’ AR experience has been available on mobile devices since last fall to consumers who scan a QR code or visit a designated microsite. Those who share their rookie mistake online will be entered to win a “home-gating” set-up, complete with a 75-inch TV, a sound bar, a $50 gift card to the official NFL shop, a coffee table with a built in fridge, speakers and LED lighting, a gaming console and a 24-pack of Snickers. Consumers can enter the sweepstakes through Feb. 11 and five winners in total will be chosen.

The brand’s latest collaboration with Blippar marks the second consecutive year the two, along with The Mars Agency, have run the NFL “Rookie Mistake” AR campaign. Last year, the activation featured Buffalo Bills player Stefon Diggs and was the winner of an Omni Shopper Award. Snickers launched its “Rookie Mistake” platform in 2021 as a way for the Mars brand to engage consumers throughout the football season.

Other marketers have similarly sought ways to tap into Super Bowl hype beyond the traditional commercial, with 30-seconds of in-game airtime for this year’s game reportedly costing brands a whopping $7 million. Earlier this month, sports-betting platform DraftKings and antacid brand Tums teamed up for a free-to-play game, titled Tums Prop Bites, that allows consumers to make free picks on the details around popular game-day foods for the chance to win a share of a $10,000 prize pool. Also this month, Tostitos announced it is bringing back its Tost by Tostitos pop-up restaurant with a Vegas-themed twist ahead of the big game.