# Augmented reality app urges smokers to swap cigarettes for cash

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2013/03/13/augmented-reality-app-urges-smokers-swap-cigarettes-cash/
- Published: 2013-03-13T09:50:45+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

![](https://www.fundraising.co.uk/files/images/news/swap-fags-for-swag.jpg)

 

 

 

## Advertisement

The British Heart Foundation has worked with augmented reality app specialists Blippar
to try to persuade smokers to quit and use the money saved for something else. The
app is being launched on No Smoking Day.

 

Point your smartphone (with the Blippar app on it) at the Government warning signs
on any cigarette packet, and onscreen the packet will transform into one of three
3D scenarios demonstrating what the smoker could do with the money saved from giving
up smoking, together with the health benefits. These are family cinema tickets, 
gadgets, and a holiday.

 

![Blippar and BHF's Swap Fags for Swag augmented reality campaign](https://www.fundraising.
co.uk/files/images/blippar-bhf-no-smoking-day.jpg)

 

The BHF stops short of using the app to suggest that smokers make a donation so 
it is a public health campaign rather than a fundraising campaign. Yet the 'swap
fags for swag' campaign does have some characteristics that fundraisers can learn
from.

 

 *  The app works on an everyday object, the cigarette packet.
     
 *  It brings to life a simple text-only message
     
 *  It demonstrates the impact of the incentive – tickets, gadgets or a holiday
   
 *  It uses humour, with the cigarette packet disappearing in an appropriate puff
   of smoke

 

![Blippar and BHF's Swap Fags for Swag augmented reality campaign](https://www.fundraising.
co.uk/files/images/blippar-bhf-no-smoking-day2.png)

 

The [Blippar app](http://www.blippar.com/download) works on any iOS or Android device.
Blippar say that this is "the first time ever that product packaging has been hijacked
using augmented-reality for a charity campaign".

 

Once the app has displayed the ‘swag’ items to the user, the 3D interactive content
directs the smoker to WeQuit.co.uk, a website full of resources to help smokers 
break the habit.

 

 

 

 

 

Betty McBride, Director of Policy and Communications at the BHF, said: "The tobacco
giants are notoriously protective about their slick cigarette packaging – here’s
a bit of slick that does some good for once. We need to up our game if we are going
to help people beat their addiction to tobacco by finding new ways to reach out 
to them. We want to help the two thirds of smokers who tell us repeatedly that they’re
desperate to quit."

 

www.bhf.org.uk

 

 

 

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