Introducing man’s new best friend - Kia Robo Dog
It takes a digital village to create a campaign as immersive as the one surrounding Kia’s all-electric EV6 launch, and we were honored to be collaborators. David and Goliath helped introduce Robo Dog to the world during the Super Bowl with this commercial. They came to 14Four to create an immersive augmented reality experience that would allow animal lovers to bring Robo Dog into their own home, continuing – and growing – the Kia audience’s fully-charged connection to both the pet and the car.
Challenge
How do you bring a TV asset (Robo Dog) to life and allow it to react in real time with audiences through gamification? Our challenge – to help users experience the joy of having their own Robo Dog pet – was accentuated by the fact real time 3D online is still fairly limited when compared to film and TV. Add to that the request to retain as much of the original fidelity of the TV spot Robo Dog as possible while adding even more detail and ability, and we were all hands on deck.
Approach
We kicked off by proposing a detailed system of interactions and activities based on fundamental gamification principles to create an engaging casual activity that audiences could enjoy. To get to this point we first had to explore, then break down, the fundamental aspects and goals of the user experience before mapping them out in detail. How do we get our audience to interact with this experience intuitively without a lot of tutorials or documentation? It needs to feel like play, not learning. What kinds of activities translate well to the AR space? How can we give the pet a personality that reacts to input in real time?
Solution
Big questions. Even bigger solutions. We created a real-time character that pushed the boundaries of a mobile web experience by developing our own animation blending system. This allowed Robo Dog to react dynamically to a user’s input so that it could seamlessly transition from one animation to another. And because we needed to create an emotional connection between the user and their virtual pet, we made sure they could play with Robo Dog, teaching him tricks such as sit, flip, spin, speak, and fetch. Ask any pet owner, and they probably have hundreds of selfies with their pet, so including a selfie lens was a must. Users can take photos with Robo Dog to share on their social media accounts or link out to the Petfinder Foundation website to find and adopt local pets in need. We wrapped it all up with custom sound design to tie it all together.
Impact
Working on the digital side of Super Bowl campaigns is always exhilarating, and with several under our belts, we understand the widespread impact they have. We were thrilled to help Kia create their first ever augmented reality experience, as well as play a role in helping shelter animals find their forever homes.
We created a real-time character that pushed the boundaries of a mobile web experience
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