heat Magazine launches augmented reality advent calendar created by Engine Creative
Looking to offer readers an alternative countdown to Christmas, Bauer Media’s heat Magazine has added a double page augmented reality celebrity advent calendar to its latest issue (#708).
The scannable advent calendar was developed by creative agency Engine Creative, who have previously collaborated with heat Magazine, allowing readers to pull out the feature to place on their wall. Using the ‘heat extra‘ app, available for both iOS and Android devices, heat readers can then scan the page each day from Saturday 1st December for the 24 days leading up to Christmas, revealing 24 celebrity videos as a countdown to the big event.
Getting involved in the app videos are X Factor contestants Union J who kicked off the proceedings with a clip of them rummaging through a heat’s stocking. Nicole Scherzinger has also offered her tips for a ‘shamazing’ Christmas whilst Alan Carr presented his Christmas cracker pulling guide and JLS and Tom Daley sang their renditions of Silent Night and Jingle Bells.
Phil Christer, creative director of Engine Creative said: “AR provides a perfect voice for an entertainment brand such as heat to get exclusive video content across to readers.
“Being a reputable brand amongst the celebrities themselves has given heat unique access to a wide variety of music, TV and film personalities making the 24 bespoke videos for the advent calendar campaign possible. heat extra has had a brilliant take-up by its readers since its July launch, and with further development planned it’s only going to get stronger in the New Year.”
Lucie Cave, editor-in-chief of heat Magazine added: “Augmented reality is such a brilliant way of giving heat readers added value and bringing the celeb content literally to life!
“The 50,000+ downloads we've had already are growing week on week and we're really chuffed to bring heat fans this special advent calendar.”