Project Overview: The Drum
Martell is a renowned French cognac brand that has been producing high-quality spirits for over 300 years. For their 300th anniversary, Martell wanted to unveil a new La French Touch limited edition that showcases L’Art de Vivre in a contemporary way.
Their signature drink, Martell Cognac, is made from carefully selected grapes grown in the Cognac region of France and aged in oak barrels to achieve a smooth and balanced flavour.
In tandem with the website revamp, we played a significant role in creating an innovative Virtual Reality (VR) experience for Martell’s special edition cognac launch. La French Touch, a responsive and interactive game experience, combined WebGL on mobile with Google Cardboard. The limited-edition packaging transformed into a VR headset, taking fans on an incredibly immersive 360-degree journey from Cognac to Shanghai, accompanied by a soundtrack specially composed by French musician DANGER.
Bring people on an unexpected journey by creating unique packaging that transforms into an interactive 360° mobile experience. With its transformer pack, La French Touch brought Virtual Reality to Martell’s wider audience.
Challenges
- For the Martell project, the integration of VR content and Google Cardboard added further complexity to the testing process. The VR experience, compatible with Google Cardboard, required testing for smooth user interaction and functionality across devices.
- Ensuring that the WebGL-based VR content worked seamlessly with the product packaging as a makeshift headset was crucial. Additional testing was conducted to verify compatibility between various mobile devices and browsers, ensuring that the immersive VR experience was accessible and error-free while adhering to regional legal requirements, including age-gating for restricted content access.
- Realistically the main challenge was testing the website across multiple devices with VR experience and ensuring compliance with specific legal age of drinking.
- The user guides the Martell Swift by moving their phone in any direction to fly through the skies from its origins in Cognac to the streets of Shanghai where the limited edition La French Touch first launched.
- Martell cognac packaging transforms into Google Cardboard to support 360-degree mobile experience.
Solution & Strategy
- Our solution for the Martell project was to deliver a high-quality final product that met the project requirements including the smooth VR experience.
- Developed a comprehensive test plan to cover VR content and Google Cardboard functionality.
- Tested the 360-degree immersive journey to ensure smooth operation with product packaging as a headset.
- Verified compatibility of VR 360-degree mobile experience across mobile devices and browsers
- Performed rigorous age verification checks, ensuring the VR content met regional legal requirements.
- Ensured seamless interaction within the VR environment, maintaining a stable and engaging user experience.
- Conducted cross-browser and cross-device testing for the VR journey’s stability and functionality across platforms.
Conclusion
Our team’s approach to the Martell project ensured the successful delivery of a high-quality, immersive experience, including VR content and Google Cardboard integration. The user guided the Martell Swift by moving their phone in any direction, experiencing a 360-degree journey from Cognac to Shanghai. Martell’s packaging transformed into a Google Cardboard headset, supporting this dynamic VR experience.
Players were given control of the swift bird – the Martell House symbol – which they must fly from Cognac to China, passing a river and Paris at night, cross mountains and an ocean, before arriving at a bar in Shanghai. Along the way, they collect items to win points and can share scores across social channels.
Regular Scrum meetings, collaborative efforts, and thorough testing ensured a seamless fully immersive 360-degree VR journey of the swift bird from Cognac to Shanghai.