Christmas 2024 marked the fourth year that Maribyrnong City Council used the AR application we developed to enhance their Christmas campaigns and events with augmented reality activities. To read the case study from Maribyrnong Council’s first year using our AR services—where we custom-designed an AR application, AR murals, and AR colouring pages for their "Christmas 2021 Campaign and Festival "—please click HERE.

Below, you can explore how the council has continued to use the AR application throughout 2022, 2023, and 2024.

CHRISTMAS 2022

The client: The City of Maribyrnong is a local government area within the metropolitan area of Melbourne, Australia.

Challenge: How can we use our augmented reality app (MARIality app) again during the Christmas 2022 holiday season to provide interactive, engaging, and shareable experiences for visitors and residents?

Goals:

• To create a new type of interactive Christmas tree (an augmented reality installation)
• To provide a Christmas-themed scavenger hunt to entertain children and boost foot traffic in local shopping strips
• To refresh some more selected murals across the city for digital placemaking purposes
• To launch a magical colouring competition offering residents the chance to win a visit from Santa
• To bring Santa to the city in a totally new magical way

Solution: The CreativiTek team worked with the council team to create the following augmented reality experiences and activate them on the MARIality AR app. The app was republished on both App Store and Google Play for both Android and iOS users.

1. Three augmented reality Christmas trees: Augmented reality interactive installations are a huge trend for digital placemaking and festivals. We worked with the council to create three interactive Christmas trees. The mobile users were able to bring some of the Christmas characters (for example Santa, gingerbread man, and reindeer) alive on the tree and make things happen, like fireworks.

2. An augmented reality flying Santa: We enabled the target audience to bring a flying Santa to life from a floor decal, and interact with and capture photos and videos with him.

3. A gingerbread treasure hunt: We created seven gingerbread 3D models and animations, and developed seven augmented reality experiences for a treasure hunt activation.

4. Four new augmented reality murals: We created five 2D animations to enable mobile users to bring four murals across the city to life. Mobile users are able to jump in for a selfie and share their happy moments with their family and friends.

5. A new augmented reality colouring sheet: We created a new augmented reality colouring sheet to allow residents to enter the Santa and Sirens colouring competition for a chance to win a personal home visit from Santa and his helpers on board a vintage fire engine and a sack full of sweets to share with the neighbours. To create this new AR animation, we used the same 3D characters and objects we created for the council last year. A pop-up box was used to direct mobile users to a webpage where they were able to submit their pictures into the colouring competition and go into the draw to win a visit from Santa. Residents were able to collect a colouring sheet from participating local stores, libraries, community centres or download it from the campaign website. The colouring page was also used for newspaper ad.

6. A promotional video: We produced a promotional video of the augmented reality activities to be used for marketing purposes.

Services: Augmented reality development, 3D animation, 3D modelling, graphic design, videography.

Outcomes: The augmented reality decals, images, and colouring page were scanned about 4,000 times during a four-week period. The gingerbread treasure hunt floor decals were scanned 1,747 times, the AR Christmas trees and the flying Santa decal about 580 times, and the AR colouring page was scanned 1,263 times. By January 6, 2023, the new AR murals had been scanned 469 times. These captivating artworks will continue to be active, providing ongoing entertainment and engagement for residents and visitors alike.

CHRISTMAS 2023 

AR Elf Trail

As part of the Maribyrnong City Council's Christmas 2023 campaign, we collaborated with the Maribyrnong events and city experience team to integrate two new Christmas augmented reality activities into the MARIality app (Maribyrnong's AR app). We designed 3D models, animations, and floor decals for an elf trail, where each elf had its own character, name, and voice, providing unique interactions with mobile users.

Santa & Mrs Claus AR Boogie

Additionally, we crafted 3D models of Santa and Mrs. Claus, producing a delightful and festive animation based on the story shared by the client. This offered an innovative way to virtually meet and greet with Santa, providing an alternative experience for those who may not find traditional queues and photos with the real Santa enjoyable.

Feel free to enjoy the YouTube video below, showcasing highlights of enchanting Christmas-themed animations created for the Maribyrnong City Council's Christmas 2023 campaign.

Christmas 2024

In the fourth year of using the custom augmented reality mobile application CreativiTek developed for the council, Maribyrnong City Council tasked CreativiTek with creating a new augmented reality colouring page for their Christmas colouring competition. This year, with a giant snow globe family photo opportunity for the community, the animation for the colouring page was designed around a snow globe theme, featuring an elf coming to life from a house inside the globe and performing magical actions with the council's logo and other branding elements. To add an extra layer of interactivity and fun, users were able to tap the screen to trigger fireworks while the animation played. The council also used the AR gingerbread animations we created previously to launch a new "AR Neighbourhood Gingerbread Trail".

We also added a popup box at the end of the colouring competition, directing mobile users to the council's website, where they could submit their details to qualify for prizes. The destination webpage provided information about the competition’s terms and conditions, privacy policy, and allowed users to upload their entries.