Red Cross introduces “Enter the room”, AR experience that puts viewers at the heart of war

Cristina Blanaru Creativity, CSR, Digital & Media, Mobile

Red Cross launched a new app, “Enter the room”, which invites viewers to discover and experience on their own, via Augmented Reality, the story of a little girl living through war. With the AR app, the international organization wants to raise awareness about the importance of healthcare in the conflict zones.

“Enter the room” was conceived of and developed by French agency Nedd. It uses the “portal effect” which the agency introduced last year, relying on Apple’s ARKit technology. The result is a new kind of immersive experience, somewhere between AR and VR, which pushes the feeling of presence to a whole new level.

The experience, available on the iPhone (requires iOS11 and an iPhone 6S or higher), begins in real life: as users hold up their phone, a virtual door appears. They are then invited to cross the threshold and explore a seemingly ordinary child’s bedroom, as if they were really there.

Users never see the little girl herself and there are no words. Instead, they can follow the evolution of her life and health over the last 4 years of war by leafing through her memories – drawings, toys, and other objects around the room – and by the sounds coming from outside. The room changes through each successive year to the present day.

Augmented Reality (AR) has been used more and more frequently for gaming and other forms of entertainment, as well as in apps as a utilitarian tool (Ikea, Amazon), but the ICRC and Nedd wanted to demonstrate that it can be a revolutionary medium for storytelling, an efficient way of communicating a message, portraying emotions and, ultimately, serving a larger cause.

Nedd is a digital innovation agency based in Paris and Montpellier (France), working with companies such as Danone, Evian, Bioderma, Orange telecom, Le Coq Sportif, Arte TV, Macif Foundation, Snapchat and TheCamp. Nedd has an in-house department entirely devoted to Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality.

Credits:

Client: ICRC (International Red Cross Committee)

  • Brand Management: Ariel Rubin, Christopher Nicholas

Agency: Nedd

  • Creative Directors: Vincent Vella, Bruno Samper
  • Art Directors: Siegfried Rouanet, Amélie Carbon
  • Copywriters: Vincent Vella, Marylin Beaulieu, Margaux Milesi
  • Lead Developer: Bastien Merindol