Diving Deep: How Discovery+ Boosted Engagement with an Interactive Social AR Game

The Imperative for Interactive Creative Tech

In today’s crowded digital landscape, breaking through the noise requires more than just high-quality content—it demands high-quality interaction. Brands and agencies globally are constantly seeking innovative, sticky, and memorable ways to connect with their audience. This is where creative tech, specifically Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), Web Games, and Generative AI, stops being a buzzword and starts becoming an essential tool.

At AliveNow, a global creative tech studio, we partner with the world’s leading brands and agencies to transform marketing briefs into immersive, cutting-edge experiences. Our success lies in leveraging technology to drive real engagement.

Today, we’re pulling back the curtain on a dynamic campaign we executed for Discovery+ to promote their popular program, Into The Wild.

Case Study Spotlight: Discovery+ and the Quest for Deeper Engagement

The Challenge: Promoting ‘Into The Wild’ in a Scroll-Heavy World

Discovery+ needed a campaign element that was not just viewable, but truly participatory, to generate excitement and drive tune-in for their nature-focused series, Into The Wild. They needed a solution that was:

1. Instantly Accessible: No app downloads required.
2. Highly Shareable: Designed for maximum social media virality.
3. On-Brand: Seamlessly integrating the show’s theme (e.g., marine life).

Traditional video ads alone often fall short of these objectives. The modern marketing objective is to move from passive consumption to active participation, and the solution lay in Branded Social AR Gaming.

The AliveNow Solution: A Branded Social AR Game

We leveraged the power of Social AR—filters and effects built directly into popular platforms like TikTok or Snapchat—to create a captivating, gamified experience. The result was a lightweight, high-impact game designed for quick, competitive fun.

Experience Design: Dodge the Sharks!

For the Discovery+ Into The Wild promotion, we designed an engaging AR game where the user’s movement directly controlled the game-play. The mechanic was simple yet addictive:

• The Goal: Users had to dodge the incoming sharks by physically moving their head/body left and right.
• The Tech: The experience utilized the front-facing camera and facial tracking capabilities to translate real-world movement into in-game action.
• The Result: A few seconds of exhilarating, immersive gameplay that immediately captured attention and encouraged users to challenge their friends.

This approach transformed passive social media users into active participants within the Discovery+ brand ecosystem.

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Unpacking the Impact: Why Gaming AR Drives Success

For marketing leaders and agency partners, the success of this campaign offers a clear blueprint for integrating creative tech:

1. Exceptional Virality and Shareability

Branded AR games thrive on social media because they produce unique, user-generated content (UGC). When a user records themselves playing the “Dodge the Sharks” game, they are creating a fun, authentic piece of content that acts as an organic, trusted ad for the brand. This dramatically lowers the cost of acquisition and scales reach faster than traditional media.

2. Deepening Brand Recall

Unlike a fleeting video ad, an interactive game forces the user to spend 30-60 seconds actively engaging with the brand’s assets, logo, and theme. This extended, focused interaction leads to significantly higher brand recall and stronger emotional connections.

3. The Bridge for Tech-Agnostic Agencies

This case study is particularly relevant for agencies—be they media, creative, digital, or content—who want to offer cutting-edge experiences but lack an in-house creative tech team. AliveNow acts as your seamless, expert partner, translating your client’s brief into a functional, deployable AR, VR, or Gaming solution. We handle the complexity so you can focus on strategy.

Partnering for the Future of Marketing

The Discovery+ Social AR Game campaign is a prime example of how bespoke creative tech can elevate a campaign from good to great, meeting the global demand for richer, more interactive content.

Whether your next brief calls for a Web-Based Game, an immersive AR/VR experience, or a forward-thinking Gen AI campaign, choosing the right creative tech partner is paramount. Our team is structured to deliver these complex projects efficiently and at scale, ensuring your brand stays ahead of the curve.

Ready to integrate the future of creative tech into your marketing strategy?

Explore more of our Creative Tech Solutions and Connect with the AliveNow team today to discuss your next big idea.

IMPORTANT – While this may be an Instagram AR experience, the same experience can be built or re-created for brands on Snapchat, TikTok or Web based AR. As Instagram AR does not support AR filters from brands any more, we can build this as a Snap AR lens, TikTok Branded Effect or Web AR experience.