Mobile phone network Three will be running a pop-up ‘All You Can Pug’ brunch to celebrate Puggerfly, the star of its latest ad campaign and, the network claims, the world’s first Augmented Reality (AR) pet.

Three has teamed up with the Pug Café, UK’s leading pop-up event provider for pugs, to create an immersive experience for dog owners and admirers alike. A limited number of tickets are available, priced at £5, which entitles the holder to one 75-minute brunch slot including one main breakfast dish, bottomless pastries, prosecco and coffee or tea, as well as food for their dog, if they bring one.

All proceeds from the event will be donated to the Pug Dog Welfare & Rescue Association.

The pop-up ‘All You Can Pug’ brunch, which will take place on Saturday May 12th, follows the recent announcement that Three has added Snapchat to its range of services offered as part of Go Binge, allowing customers to snap, chat and share without using their data allowance. Three also unveiled the new star of its ad campaign, Puggerfly, a squishy-faced, purple-winged pug, created, according to the network, to embody all things social and fun.

Puggerfly allows users to access different consecutive Snapchat lenses across seven days, letting them nurture and love their Puggerfly as he grows from a ball-chasing, rainbow-pooping puppyfly right through to a fully-fledged flying Puggerfly. Snap’s 12 million UK daily active users can interact with the animated dog, no matter what network they are on. Users can feed Puggerfly treats, play ball with it, enjoy sloppy dog kisses and even watch it twerk to dance music. The seven lenses launched on April 26th, one per day; after the seven days are up, they will be available to Snapchat users via Snapcodes that will be incorporated into Three’s UK wide advertising and media campaign.

The Pug Brunch was created and managed by Three’s PR agency, W Communications.

Three’s ‘All You Can Pug Brunch’ will take place simultaneously in London and Liverpool, with dog owners and admirers invited to head to Covent Garden Grind in London and Love Thy Neighbour in Liverpool for bottomless brunch dishes and the chance to pet pugs. Guests also have the opportunity to capture photos of themselves with Puggerfly’s giant rainbow poo statue (recently seen roaming London’s capital’s streets), dress up their pampered pooches as Puggerfly, or sample all seven Puggerfly Snap codes.

Consumers can book tickets for the one day pop-up pug cafes via https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/Liverpool/ and https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/London/.

The post Three launches pop-up Pug Brunch appeared first on IPM Bitesize.

The UK’s biggest selling stock brand, Knorr, has launched a new online tool, ‘Eat Your Feed’, an app which analyses a user’s Instagram feed and serves up a personalised selection of recipes based on their experiences.

Users just connect using their Instagram account and the Eat Your Feed bespoke technology suggests recipes personalised to their feed. Accessible on mobile, desktop or tablet, the tool suggests recipe ideas along with ingredients and cooking methods to create quick and tasty meals in the comfort of users’ own homes. They can save the recipes or, with a few clicks, add the ingredients (including Knorr products) to their shopping basket.

Creative digital agency AnalogFolk made Eat Your Feed possible by turning data from the Instagram post into a matching recipe from the Knorr recipe database. AnalogFolk used visual recognition and individual image data to build a bespoke AI algorithm, and trained it to understand posts and match to the perfect recipe.

Each Instagram image holds a very rich source of information. Every image has data that contains the time it was submitted, potentially a geolocation if the user added it and, of course, the caption. The location provides the city and country name, and the caption, containing phrases and keywords, supplies context.

For the image itself, AnalogFolk incorporated the IBM Watson Visual Recognition service to identify the scenes and objects in the picture – for example Nature, Beach, Lake, Snowboard, Dog etc.  This created a list of keywords that a bespoke prioritising algorithm scores and then finds the best match from the Knorr recipe database the perfect match.

The Eat Your Feed tool will be supported by the world’s first Instagram powered restaurant, created by Knorr’s PR agency W Communications, where traditional menus will be scrapped and instead diners will be served meals matched to their Instagram feeds. The one-of-a-kind pop-up dining experience takes place on Wednesday 11th April at Jones & Sons restaurant in Islington, North London. Once the technology has analysed each diner’s feed, it will then share personalised recipe suggestions with the Jones & Sons restaurant kitchen. The innovative dishes served at the restaurant will each match a special memory captured on Instagram.

Philippa Atkinson, Senior Brand Manager Knorr UK & Ireland, says: “Eat Your Feed is an innovative concept that showcases the transformative power of Knorr stocks to a new younger generation, adding twists to their favourite recipes or discovering new ones. We’re excited to be the first Instagram inspired recipe solution – using our consumers’ own posts to prompt recipes with real value and relevance we know they’ll love, as well as a reminder of the great adventures they’ve had in the past.”

The Knorr brand is owned by Anglo-Dutch food and household products company, which acquired it in 2000 when it bought Best Foods. Knorr makes a range of products including stocks and soup mixes.

The post Knorr launches ‘Eat Your Feed’ Instagram-powered menu app appeared first on IPM Bitesize.

To celebrate its 40th birthday, and its new Birthday Cake flavour, ice-cream brand Ben & Jerry’s ran a giant birthday cake themed ball pit at London’s Old Spitalfields Market.

For one day only on Saturday 10^th March, ice cream lovers were able to dive into a ball pit while being churned around like the ingredients in the making of the Birthday Cake ice cream. Ben & Jerry’s swirling Birthday Cake ball pit came complete with giant candles and 45,000 multi-coloured balls – plus free ice cream, with the Ben & Jerry’s team scooping free samples of the new Ben & Jerry’s Birthday Cake flavour, which includes vanilla cake batter ice cream, pink frosting, strawberry swirls and cake pieces. The new variety retails at £5.49.

The launch is being supported by a £3.5m marketing campaign spanning TV, digital and outdoor advertising.

Christina Dunn, country business leader at Ben & Jerry’s UK and Ireland, said: “We know that our fans like to gift Ben & Jerry’s to their friends, so new Birthday Cake responds directly to this insight, with a new addition to our flavour family ideally suited for the gifting occasion. We have also seen an increasing desire for innovation when it comes to birthday cakes, with boundaries being pushed from traditional designs to impressive, bespoke creations.”

The Old Spitalfields Market event was free, and ran from 11am – 6pm on Saturday 10 March.

The campaign was created by PR agency W Communications, with experiential agency Bearded Kitten delivering the event.

Ben & Jerry’s was launched in 1978 in Burlington, Vermont, USA, where it is still headquartered. The business was bought by Anglo-Dutch food and household products group, Unilever, in 2000.

The post Ben & Jerry runs birthday cake ballpit sampling event appeared first on IPM Bitesize.