AR treasure hunt app is increasing shopper count

The award-winning Go Bournemouth Coast AR treasure hunt app was created as a digital initiative to attract visitors and generate footfall for retailers within the eight trading districts of the South Coast of England town Bournemouth and its surrounding areas. Since its launch in November 2017, the app increased footfall by +4.8% against a declining national average of -4.9%.

The app’s show-stopping feature revolves around Wikitude markerless AR technology within a gamified user experience. The game challenges app downloaders to unlock and collect a set of augmented reality characters that become available at specific locations within the eight trading districts. Different locations and different stores reveal different characters, sending visitors on a treasure hunt around the area, on a mission to collect them all.

Once a character is found and unlocked, the app features photo capture functionality that lets the user snap their own selfie with the character, and share across their own social networks as a branded content piece. This social media content feature has been further exposing Bournemouth and it’s retailers as a destination.

The app features an Events and What’s On Guide, local area maps, and key points of information relevant to retailers within the trading districts. It also includes push-notifications managed by the Bournemouth Team themselves, sent out to app downloaders keeping them up to date with local news, competitions and relevant activities going on.

First launched in November 2017 with the “The 12 Elves of Christmas” AR character treasure hunt. This was quickly followed by Chinese New Year and Easter versions that have all contributed to bucking the national trend in declining footfall.

View the promo video created for the app below.