Zappar and Blume Honey Water partner to launch AR tasting experience
Image credit: Zappar
Zappar, the world’s leading augmented reality platform and creative studio for mobile and web apps, has partnered with Blume Honey Water to launch an AR experience to educate and entertain their customers.The AR activation coincides with the announcement that Blume Honey Water received its USDA organic certification.
AR is now available through a QR Code on Blume Honey Water bottles. By simply scanning the QR code via the in-built camera on iOS and Android devices, customers can see inside the Blume Honey Water brand, meet its founder for a virtual tasting, understand its mission, the sourcing of its organic ingredients as well as learn about its many sustainability initiatives aimed at supporting bees, beekeepers and the environment.
“We began the process of implementing AR on our Blume bottles last year to support our educational mission,” said Meloy Burchfield. “However, in a time when sampling in stores is no longer an option due to safety protocols, we were able to quickly pivot to ensure that in addition to this initial mission, AR allowed our customers to experience and engage with our products safely.”
The experience was built by creative agency, Avenue C using Zappar’s award-winning AR platform, ZapWorks Studio, and delivered through WebAR, enabling Blume Honey customers to access augmented reality content through the dedicated web browser on their smartphone.
“We are seeing a continued appetite for augmented reality in the retail and packaging space as the technology continues to prove its effectiveness at transforming the way brands can market, connect, and serve their customers,” commented Dave Mather, head of Commercial. “What’s really exciting about this campaign is the ability to engage customers through WebAR, further extending the brand and its mission to over 275 million connected devices in the US alone.”
The experience coincides with the announcement regarding its USDA organic certification. The Citrus Vanilla, Wild Blueberry and Ginger Zest honey water flavours now boast the organic certification seal, meaning all individual ingredients in each of its flagship flavours have been certified as 100% organic.
“It is our continued commitment to produce waters that provide an organic, light and refreshing hydration option,” said Michele Meloy Burchfield, founder and chief executive officer of Blume Honey Water. “We are so pleased to have finally sourced all the organic ingredients to secure this certification.”
The original line of honey waters was previously only one ingredient shy of 100% organic ingredients and fulfilled its mission to earn organic certification by finding a newly sourced organic blueberry juice.
“Over the course of 18 months we sampled blueberry juices until we ultimately sourced the perfect one to mingle with our other ingredients,” said Meloy Burchfield. “This allowed us to pursue and ultimately secure organic certification.
“Since bees forage within a 5 mile radius of their hives, everything from the soil up must be certified organic for the honey in those hives to be certified organic. Sadly, our environment here in the US prevents such, however it would be a dream come true to be a part of a mission to achieve such a special place here in our country some day in the future. We continue to promote efforts to maintain healthy bee populations through our work with local beekeepers, our Beeless Beekeeping programme and our Urban Forage Garden Projects.”
To date, Blume Honey Water has committed to urban forage gardens in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Washington, DC.
Blume Honey Water is currently available in select stores, which can be found using its store locator, or directly from the website.