Category: Emerging Trends

Ford Escape Routes

Ford wanted to launch the new Escape in a way that would give people something they had never experienced before in branded entertainment. Billed as an industry first, Ford took the small screen to the second screen by combining TV with social media and mini-gameplay to create a prime time Social TV show called Escape Routes.

Six teams took on daredevil stunts while enlisting online fans as Virtual Teammates (VTMs), whose real-time support helped determine who crossed the finish line each week. Viewers did not just watch. They participated, recruited, chatted, and played along, with the online layer shaping outcomes and amplifying the show’s moments.

How the mechanic works

Escape Routes is structured like a competitive reality series. The TV episode delivers the narrative and the physical challenge. The second screen delivers the leverage. Fans act as VTMs and influence teams through live participation, social activity, and interactive challenges running alongside the broadcast.

The “branded” part is not only the vehicle on screen. The product story gets embedded into the stunts, the travel, and the weekly goals, so the car becomes the enabling tool inside the format, not a separate ad break.

In mass-market automotive launches, Social TV formats can convert broadcast reach into participation, and participation into measurable signals of demand.

Why it lands

It gives people viewer control without asking them to leave the entertainment. Participation is optional, but the invitation is clear and time-boxed. If you want to help your team, you can. If you want to just watch the show, you still get a complete experience.

It also creates a natural social engine. Teams are selected and rewarded for building a following, so they have an incentive to mobilize fans every week. That turns the audience into a distribution channel, not a passive rating.

What the brand is really buying

The business intent is pre-launch momentum at scale. A primetime run delivers reach. The second-screen layer delivers engagement, social lift, and a sustained reason to talk about the Escape over multiple weeks.

In Ford’s own reporting at the time, the social buzz was described as exceeding benchmarks, including a reported 1,033% increase in @FordEscape Twitter followers and a 50% increase in Facebook Likes.

Later trade coverage around awards credited Escape Routes with broader volume metrics across the run, including 7.65 million viewers, 64 million Facebook impressions, more than 65,000 Facebook Likes, and 3.4 million incremental user-generated video views, alongside the claim that it boosted share of voice in the small SUV segment with large-scale social activity.

What to steal if you want “reach plus action”

  • Design a format where the audience can matter. If participation cannot change anything, it will not sustain across weeks.
  • Make the second screen additive, not distracting. Keep actions short, timed, and tied to moments people already care about.
  • Give participants a role name. “Virtual Teammates” is a simple identity hook that makes participation feel legitimate.
  • Build weekly arcs. Multi-episode structure creates repeat engagement and compounding social momentum.

A few fast answers before you act

What is a Social TV show in marketing terms?

A Social TV show is a broadcast format that is designed to be experienced with a second screen, where social participation and interactive actions are part of the content loop, not a separate campaign layer.

What does “second screen” mean here?

It means the viewer uses a phone, tablet, or laptop while watching TV, and that device provides live interactions like voting, mini-games, chats, or challenges that are synchronized to the broadcast.

Why do “virtual teammate” mechanics work?

They turn spectators into contributors. Helping a team win creates emotional investment, repeat behavior, and social recruiting, because your participation has a clear purpose.

What is the biggest failure mode of second-screen activations?

Over-complexity. If the interaction takes too long, needs too much explanation, or competes with the main story, people drop it and the second screen becomes noise.

What metrics matter beyond views?

Registration and repeat participation per episode, share of voice during airtime windows, audience conversion into followers or opted-in communities, and any downstream indicators tied to shopping intent.

Tokyo Shimbun: AR Reader App for Kids

A kid points a smartphone at a newspaper article and the page starts “talking back”. Characters pop up, headlines simplify, and the story becomes easier to understand without leaving print.

Connected devices such as smartphones and tablets have contributed to an explosion in digital media consumption. As these devices gain adoption, print newspapers around the world are seen suffering from declining readership and revenue. To combat this, Tokyo Shimbun, along with Dentsu Tokyo, came up with a new way to connect with readers. An augmented reality reader app brings the newspaper to life by overlaying educational, kid-friendly versions of selected articles.

How the newspaper becomes a “teaching layer”

The mechanism is straightforward. The app uses the phone camera to recognize specific articles, then overlays animated commentary, simplified explanations, and visual cues on top of the printed page so kids can follow along.

In publishing and media brands that still rely on print touchpoints, augmented reality can turn paper into an entry point for younger audiences without abandoning the physical ritual of reading.

Why this lands with parents and kids

It respects the newspaper as a shared household object, but removes the comprehension barrier for children. The child gets a friendly “translator”. The parent gets a moment of joint attention that feels educational, not like more screen time for its own sake.

What the business intent looks like

This is not only a novelty layer. It is a retention and habit play. If children can engage with a paper alongside adults, the newspaper has a better chance of staying present in the home and staying relevant as a family product.

What to steal for your own print-plus-digital idea

  • Overlay explanation, not just effects. Make the digital layer add clarity, not only animation.
  • Choose a narrow trigger set. Start with selected stories that benefit most from translation and context.
  • Design for “family co-use”. Make it easy for a parent to participate without taking over the phone.
  • Keep the print object central. The magic works best when the page remains the interface.

A few fast answers before you act

What does the Tokyo Shimbun AR reader app do?

It lets kids scan selected newspaper articles with a smartphone and see animated, kid-friendly explanations layered on top of the print page.

Why pair augmented reality with a newspaper at all?

Because the newspaper is still a household touchpoint. AR can lower comprehension barriers for kids while keeping the shared reading ritual intact.

Is this mainly entertainment or education?

The strongest value is educational translation. The animations act as attention hooks, but the real utility is simplifying and explaining complex topics.

What makes this different from sending kids to a website?

The entry point stays on the printed page. The experience is anchored in the article the family is already holding, which supports shared attention.

What is the biggest execution risk?

If scanning is finicky or the overlays feel gimmicky, kids will not repeat the behavior and parents will not recommend it.

AR in 2013: Three Retail-Ready Examples

Augmented Reality in 2013: when the real world becomes the interface

With smartphones and tablets becoming part of our everyday life, we also see more augmented reality apps mixing the virtual and the real world in 2013. Here are some examples from ARworks that recently caught my eye.

Audi Singapore Showroom app

For the opening of their biggest showroom in South-East Asia, Audi created AR experiences that allowed visitors to fly around the showroom building without actually boarding a plane, or drive the Audi R18 race car around Singapore at full speed without the risk of getting a ticket. What’s more, they even allowed visitors to personalize their individual license plates and then take photos with the car.

Dakar race in a shopping mall

A real Dakar desert racecourse was built for the new Opel Mokka on a 4mtrs long table that was placed in a shopping mall. Visitors could use the provided iPads to race against time and each other. The results were then shared on Facebook, and the weekly and overall winners received various prizes.

Christmas Ornament Sling

Deutsche Telekom, for their Christmas promotion, developed an iPad app where visitors could throw virtual Christmas ornaments containing their personal message onto a huge Christmas tree erected in a mall. A successful hit to one of the real ornaments on the tree lit it up through an integrated server application.

The pattern across all three: AR turns “watching” into doing

None of these examples treat AR as a gimmick. Each one uses the device as a bridge between curiosity and action. You explore a building. You race a course. You aim a message at a real tree. The screen stops being a place to consume. It becomes a tool to participate.

In retail and shopper environments, augmented reality works best when it turns a physical setup into a simple, repeatable action loop for the visitor.

Why retail is the natural habitat for AR

Retail already has the ingredients. Footfall, dwell time, and physical objects that can anchor the experience. AR simply adds a layer of viewer control. The visitor decides where to look, what to try, and what to share.

What’s really being built here

These are not “apps.” They are engagement machines. Each one creates a clear reason to interact, a clear reward for completing the action, and a clear path to share or repeat. That is how you turn novelty into behavior.

What to steal for your next AR build

  • Anchor the experience to a physical object people can gather around. A showroom, a tabletop course, a tree.
  • Give the visitor a simple verb. Fly, drive, race, sling. Actions beat features.
  • Design a payoff. A photo, a score, a lit ornament. Make the outcome tangible.
  • Make sharing a natural by-product of the activity, not a forced button at the end.

A few fast answers before you act

What makes these 2013 AR examples feel “ready” for real audiences?

They are built around clear actions and clear rewards. The device is used to do something in the physical environment, not just view an overlay.

Which devices are central to these activations?

Tablets and phones. The examples explicitly reference iPads and handheld devices as the delivery mechanism for the AR interaction.

What role does sharing play in these concepts?

Sharing is tied to the activity. Photos with the car, results shared on Facebook, and personal messages sent as virtual ornaments.

What is the common mechanic across the three examples?

Using the camera-enabled device as a controller that links a real-world setup to a virtual experience, giving the viewer control over exploration and interaction.