Asahi × Manchester City AR

Overview

A social-first browser AR game that transforms Asahi Super Dry limited-edition cans into portals to the Manchester City stadium — built on 8th Wall, deployed across global markets, and accessible from a single can scan with no app to install.

To activate the Asahi Super Dry × Manchester City partnership, I worked as WebAR engineering partner alongside Catalyst, who led creative direction and brand campaign design. My responsibility was the technical systems end to end: 8th Wall integration, cross-device compatibility, performance optimization, and the in-market support that kept the activation running through the Singapore launch and beyond.

Technical Solutions

• 8th Wall WebAR runtime tuned for mid-range mobile hardware, with image tracking targeting the Asahi limited-edition can artwork.
• Cross-browser compatibility layer covering iOS Safari, Android Chrome, and the in-app browsers consumers actually open links from — including resolving WeChat-environment edge cases that locked out a meaningful share of Singaporean Chinese users at launch.
• Asset compression and progressive loading so the 3D scene boots fast on mobile data, keeping the scan-to-play flow under the threshold where users drop off.
• Penalty-kick gameplay built on top of the AR scene — input handling, physics tuning, and shot feedback all running in-browser at frame rate.

Technical Implementation

Working under Catalyst's creative direction, I delivered:

• 8th Wall WebAR platform integration and image tracking for can recognition
• AR portal rendering and stadium-scene composition
• Penalty-kick gameplay mechanics with in-browser physics
• Cross-device and in-app-browser compatibility engineering, including WeChat
• Asset compression, lazy loading, and mobile performance tuning
• Live in-market technical support during the Singapore launch

Why It Matters

Brand AR activations often look good in pitch decks and break on real devices. The credibility of this project came from the unglamorous work: resolving WeChat browser edge cases before they became a support crisis, keeping load times short enough that users don't bail before the scene renders, and holding the experience together under live campaign conditions across multiple markets. Shipping install-free AR that works at scale requires the same rigor as any production system — it just has a shorter attention span to win.