Driving awareness and
engagement through interaction

Challenge

As a major sponsor of the Australian Football League (AFL), Hungry Jacks has made a considerable investment in the channel.  Audience awareness however was limited to logo placements and traditional ATL activity in a crowded market.  Hungry Jacks needed to connect with AFL fans in a meaningful way to highlight the alignment with the sport and drive loyalty and engagement.  In an increasingly connected world already bloated with AFL content, cut through meant Hungry Jacks needed to empower fans with a genuine and unique football activation, not just another logo placement or piece of content. In a time poor world the activation needed to be quick and fun, capitalising on the mirco moments of downtime in our daily life while still being a genuine and unique AFL experience.

Solution

For AFL fans, there’s something fun that happens in between watching a game or playing it themselves.  It’s the simple act of just passing a ball back and forth between two people, enjoying the companionship and basic skill of a mini game that can be easily played in a range of basic settings. Phone Footy leverages this simple interaction via a free peer-to-peer app that turns phones into footballs.  Played between 2 phones, players can see and feel a virtual balling leaving their hands and flying through the air for a catch.  The game plays best when players take a footy passing style position 5-10 metres apart and handball their phone to their mate (while holding on to their phone!).  The other player sees a camera view in the game and virtual ball flying from the passer towards them for a catch and return. 

Results

Exceeding all exceptions, Phone Footy generated huge hype for Hungry Jacks in the lead up the 2014 AFL Grand Final (ranking 4th in the Sport Game Category in the App Store during September 2014)   With no media support, we achieved 5,000 downloads in lead up to the 2014 Grand Final (only 4 weeks after release). Through clever game play design, our average engagement lasted 6.27 mins per session with 3 levels attempted by participants. Phone Footy has now set the benchmark for realistic mobile sports games. Most importantly, Phone Footy has connected the AFL and Hungry Jack outside of Victorian Heartland. 
A world first in peer to peer mobile interactivity 
The app simultaneously utilises the iPhone's gyroscope, accelerometer, magnetometer, face detection, augmented reality, edge detection and haptic feedback, all within a peer to peer network with built in game logic
Kick
&
Catch
Automatically reacting to the individual user
The software knows how you’re holding, aiming and hitting the ball for a hand pass, and then wirelessly presents the appropriate trajectory to the receiver presenting the flying ball that moves realistically towards you, over your head, to the side or however the passer has acted.
As close to real football as a virtual game can get!
To catch the ball, passers need to clasp their hands together at the right time as they would a real catch (phone in one hand). 
Results