Helping Santa beat Covid

A Waxeye case study

Countdown AR app

How do you meet Santa in times of pandemic? You invite him into your home with the Santa augmented reality app from Countdown! Since 2020 was such a tough year, the supermarket giant decided to create a little joy for families and make a $5 donation to the Salvation Army for every photo shared on social media. Not to mention have some fun with family and friends along the way!

Working with the team at Fuse, we brought a cute version of Santa to life with a very simple message: Snap, share and be merry! This was followed up with a super adorable AR version of Ronnie the Reindeer, which was triggered using a QR code, to thank everyone who donated goods to the Salvation Army bins in stores.

Using pre-existing 3D assets as a starting point, we simplified the models of Santa and friends to make them work with Facebook's Spark AR tool. Spark AR calls for assets that are simple enough to work on a range of devices including older, slower ones that many people still use. We then rigged the characters so they could be animated similar to a marionette.

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