Parents shopping for this year’s Bratz Masquerade dolls – and the little girls who will be receiving them as gifts for the holidays – will discover that the product now features new packaging that includes QR codes.
These codes will give their users access to a video that hypes a 3D interactive makeover. The fashion doll’s manufacturer, MGA Entertainment, is hopeful that the QR codes and their associated game using augmented reality will help to add more oomph to the holiday season.
Sales director of digital marketing, Richard Saito, from MGA Entertainment, said that “After evaluating the research and penetration of mobile devices, especially smartphones, and QR code penetration across our major retailers, it seemed that the timing was right.”
That toy manufacturer also observed that many of the top retailers such as Best Buy and Toys ‘R Us have also been using QR codes as a standard part of their marketing strategy, and those barcodes are appearing on a broad range of different types of product packaging. That said, MGA Entertainment hadn’t seen them used on toys, so they decided to lead the way and work them into their marketing materials as well as their own product packaging.
The Bratz Masquerade dolls are sold with two different masks. The first is for the doll and the second is for the child. It also includes a matching makeup kit. The girl uses the mask as a stencil so that both her face and the doll’s can be painted . However, through the use of a webcam, she can also access an augmented reality game developed by Total Immersion.