Most AR campaigns ask people to point their phone at their face. This one asked them to point it at a pizza box — and then rewarded them with pizza. Working in conjunction with Hoopla Digital, we built a WebAR game for Apache Pizza that turned the top of every box into a playable game board.
The brief
Apache Pizza wanted a campaign that lived where their customers actually were: at home, box open, phone in hand. The mechanic needed to be instantly understandable, genuinely fun for more than one play, and tied directly to sales. And, critically, it had to work without anyone downloading anything.
What we built
The game is a classic 3D runner — a format everyone already knows how to play — with a twist: the game board is image-tracked to the top of the pizza box. The box isn’t just a trigger; it’s the playing surface. Open the box, scan, and the game unfolds on top of it in your browser.
Because it’s WebAR, the whole experience opens from a simple URL link in Safari or Chrome — no app store, no install, no sign-up wall between a customer and the game. If you’re new to the format, here’s how WebAR works in plain terms.
The commercial mechanic
Playing wasn’t just for fun. Different coupon codes were rewarded each day across the week-long campaign — a simple loop that gave people a reason to come back daily, and gave Apache Pizza a direct, attributable line from AR engagement to repeat orders. That’s the part most AR campaigns miss: the experience was the promotion, not a decoration on top of it.
Why this worked as WebAR
Zero friction at the moment of attention. The customer is already holding the box. A URL and a scan is all it takes — an app download would have killed the moment.
The packaging became media. Every box Apache shipped that week was an ad placement, a game console and a loyalty mechanic at once. Print and packaging activation is one of the strongest use cases for browser AR — we cover the others on our WebAR development page.
Daily rewards drove repeat engagement. Rotating coupon codes meant the same creative earned seven days of attention instead of one.
What this means for your brand
If your product ships in a box, sits on a shelf or lands on a table, you already own the media space for a campaign like this. A browser-based AR game turns that space into something people play with, share and come back to — and every scan is measurable. Since Instagram filters shut down in 2025, this kind of owned-channel AR has become the go-to for food, retail and FMCG brands; social platforms like TikTok and Snapchat still have their place for reach, and we break down when to use each on our AR filters page.
See it and build yours
Screenshots are on the Apache Pizza WebAR game portfolio page, alongside our other augmented reality work. Got packaging, a product or a promotion that could carry a game? Tell us about it — we’ll scope the idea, the cost and the timeline for free.