Cracker Jack replaces plastic toys with augmented reality

/ / Augmented reality @en

USA baseball fans suffered a serious blow in last days: the famous snack Cracker Jack, the one that appears in a lot of movies and that many Americans tried personally during baseball matches in their childhood, announced a big change that opened the discussion on the web straight away.

The snack, made of molasses-flavored caramel-coated popcorn and peanuts, a true institution in the USA, won’t let your search anymore for the famous plastic toy on the bottom of its box: the company that now owns the brand, Frito-Lay, part of PepsiCo, preferred to leave behind the vintage memories and try augmented reality.

Inside the boxes the plastic toys will be replaced soon by new stickers with a code that, once scanned, will make baseball themed augmented contents appear.

How does it works?

You will only have to own a smartphone and download the app Blippar, available for free for Android and iOS; through the app it will be possible to scan the stickers to see immediately hidden contents appear and take life. The augmented reality content, all baseball related, are four, everyone different: there are two games, Dot Race and Dance Cam, and then Get Carded and Baseball Star, two apps through which you can make yourself a baseball star in baseball cards and autographed photos that can be traded and shared with your family and friends.

We are a brand that authentically reminds people of simpler times, childhood memories and family experiences,” said a Cracker Jack spokesperson. “With this redesign and new mobile game experience, the Cracker Jack brand embraces a modernized, young-at-heart attitude while keeping that treasured feeling of childhood wistfulness.

The fans of the brand didn’t take good this news: the memories are really too many to let them go so easily, so the complaints started to appear on the web. Nonetheless, this is Cracker Jack’s step to survive the current change and to get closer to the youngest ones.