Ball wins gold, silver 'Top Retail Product' medals from Germany's Handelsjournal retail trade magazine for its Fizzy Beast augmented reality campaign, interactive cans for the MiXery beer mix brand, respectively

Lorena Madrigal

RATINGEN, Germany , February 27, 2012 (press release) – Ball Packaging Europe won a dual accolade in this year’s ‘Top Produkt Handel’ (‘Top Retail Product’) awards from Germany’s Handelsjournal retail trade magazine.

The ‘Fizzy Beast’ augmented reality campaign scored gold in the sales promotion category, while interactive cans for the MiXery beer mix brand secured Ball the silver medal in the multi-channel category. Ball will collect the award at the EuroCis trade fair in Düsseldorf on Tuesday, February 28, 2012.

Ball developed the interactive ‘Fizzy Beast ’ character, a 3D toon in a can, complete with photo app and Facebook viral for the launch of a new flavor of Perlquell, an own brand mineral water marketed by the German Edeka-Hessenring retail chain. The campaign combines drink cans in an innovative multipack format with the Junaio augmented reality app. Hidden in each Cool Cola-Orange multipack is a toon figure that can be brought to life by scanning the can with a smart phone. Once in the phone display, the lively toon poses for photos that can be posted and shared straight away on Facebook. Floor stickers, shelf wobblers and posters combined with the attractive multipack from the supplier Smurfit Kappa Baden Packaging to create attention for the interactive packaging campaign from Ball. Reaching target consumers through innovative new channels, the campaign generated a very positive response for the Perlquell brand.

Cans from Ball likewise served as an augmented reality (AR) vehicle for consumers of the MiXery beer mix brand from German brewery Karlsberg. The consumer can scan one of the prize-winning AR edition cans with a smart phone and a secret door is displayed in the Junaio augmented reality browser. The door leads consumers to the online ‘taste ’n’ play’ platform, a fan community.

Karlsberg has since taken the augmented reality idea a step further, with specially labeled MiXery AR cans now on the shelves offering even more. Scanning one of the cans with a smart phone and the Junaio app brings up Nathan Drake in the display—hero of Sony’s Uncharted video game. Users can take pictures of themselves with the virtual hero and share the snaps with friends on social networking platforms. The photos are shown in a MiXery frame highlighting the interactive campaign, which leverages the viral effect for recommendation marketing and brand loyalty.

This year’s ‘Top Produkt Handel’ awards saw a total of 27 suppliers, service providers and retail outfitters nominated in nine different categories. Votes came in from over 1,000 readers, more than ever before. Ball will collect the award at the EuroCis trade fair in Düsseldorf (4.30 pm on Tuesday, February 28 at the Multi-Channel Forum in Hall 9).

Handelsjournal is a monthly trade journal covering economic and political topics relevant to the retail sector. The journal is the voice of the German Retail Federation (HDE) and its members and experts. Describing itself as the business magazine for retail, Handelsjournal provides a platform for close dialogue among retailers of all sizes and sectors, suppliers, and service providers. The magazine has a circulation of some 50,000 and is published by LPV Media GmbH.

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Caption: Larissa Laternser, Business Manager Soft Drinks, und Frank Sasse, Sales Director Central Eastern Europe, present this year’s gold award winner: The “Fizzy Beast” can be released with the help of a smartphone and an AR-App.

Ball Packaging Europe
Ball Packaging Europe is one of the leading European beverage can manufacturers, employing 2,800 people at 12 sites in Germany, France, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Poland and Serbia. The company is a subsidiary of Ball Corporation, a supplier of high-quality metal packaging for beverage, food and household products customers, and of aerospace and other technologies and services, primarily for the U.S. government. Ball Corporation and its subsidiaries employ more than 14,500 people worldwide and reported 2011 sales of approx. 8.6 billion US dollars.

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