Hasta La Gadget!

There isn’t exactly much of a need to entice Japanese to buy bottled water right now, but Vittel has another great collaboration with New Balance that pairs the sporty water with miniature versions of New Balance running shoes as mobile phone straps. Running is rather popular these days in Japan after all, and everyone loves some quality omake (giveaways).

On top, Vittel has created the Tokyo Run app that uses technology from Sekai Camera, the augmented reality app that allows for a feature called “air tagging”. This means that you can place tags in virtual spaces defined by geography, and other people can find the tags on their own devices and interact with them.

The Tokyo Run app is also a game of sorts that creates digital running paths for joggers to take, with virtual Vittel bottles marking the turns at set geographic points. By using the phone’s GPS, runners can hit the points during their run, collect points, and then be eligible for winning prizes such as limited edition shoes.

The mini shoes straps are pretty nice and quite detailed. It says a lot about Japan that such cool little gifts can be so casually attached to the bottles without being stolen.

Even the tread on the shoes is realistic!