Augmented Reality for Marketers

Presenters: Lynne D Johnson – R/GA, John Havens – Porter Novelli
Hashtag: #arsxsw

There’s been a lot of talk over the last few years about augmented reality (AR), and the increasing adoption of smartphones and portable devices has accelerated predictions about its possibilities.  In fact, Juniper Research expects global revenue of AR to reach $1.5 billion in 2015.  Much of this is currently being driven by location based apps.  Those which have been successful for consumers have focused on utility and ease of use, and marketers have used it successfully for awareness and tracking ROI.

There are many, many different things that qualify as AR on this spectrum:

<–  SMS/QR codes – Web/Hologram – Location-Based – POS – Real World Applications –>

Here are a few examples of these types of AR:

QR Codes,  Webcam/Holigram example  – Dabs Acer Augmented Reality ad, Tissot watches (experience of how watch would look on you, and in store sales of watches grew by 85%), Location based examles: Le Bar Guide, Quiznos Layar, Yelp Monocle, Ebay Classifieds, Point of Service example with Legos Kiosk.

In order to move beyond the hype, AR must move beyond simple experimentation, gimmicks, and unnatural behaviors to things that are more useful, natural, and have advanced utility.  We’re only now moving toward real world applications that make life easier and will ultimately increase its adoption.  Examples include Google’s Goggles,  Word Lens,  BMW’s extension of reality for mechanics, Converse Sampler App (try shoe on virtually to see how it looks), and General Motors augmented reality windshield.

Augmented Reality – Future Implications for Marketers and Culture View more presentations from johnchavens

Right now, augmented reality is limited to certain devices, however, as it matures, and people see the utility in it and begin to view it as a virtual “GPS” for their lives, the next step are glasses, contacts, and eye tracking cameras that provide facial recognition.   Examples of things people already see this type of value in includes displaying nutritional information about food at restaurants and in dating – displaying web information about a person using facial recognition.

You can imagine that these types of things bring up interesting concerns, from individual privacy to “virtual air rights.”  The virtual air rights are a concern because, as the world around you is literally manipulated, it must be determined who can put what, where.  For example, can Pepsi pay to literally prevent you from seeing Coke machines?

Other interesting visions of what the future holds inlcudes:

TagWhat Augmented Reality network – lets you tag the virtual world, creating a virtual scrapbook at locations for you or your friends.

Virtual graffiti (seen here)

Bump (the iPhone app) – The next phase is to automatically send your information to other people in the same room, based entirely on certain criteria, such as their number of twitter followers.

Checking into products – Such as Stickybits – Illustrates that community management goes beyond online and into the world of virtual reality – listening to what consumers are saying in this new place.

Products checking in to you, through Facebook sponsored stories

Kraft – Anonymous Video Analytics (AVA) – At the point of purchase, the machine looks at you, estimates your age, sex, health, etc, and provides you with a unique ad/offer based upon your estimated demographics.

Activity Interference –  Jon Froehlich, at the University of Washington uses a microphone in the ear to detect when you are eating (with 99% accuracy).  He uses it to pick up on eating patterns and health, but this could be used in the future to help you track your eating habits, or even sound an alarm when you eating when you aren’t supposed to.

Facial recognition – allows you to see more information on the people you are with.  For example, Viewdle is a facial recognition program that shows you the most recent tweet, Facebook post, etc. of the people you are with.  It lets you identify who you may want to talk to in a social context, or in a business context, screen the people you are around to get more information on them.  Similarly, some companies are giving Facebook and Twitter credibility scores (such as Klout), which could allow you to scan the influential people in the room.

This same technology lets police now scan a crowd with a phone and see, through a tag in their phone, who the former criminals are in a crowd.  It’s good because it allows police to find people with a criminal history quickly, but bad because of potential implications of viewing – or blocking – people.  For example, a person might choose to not view any homeless people laying on the street, changing their perspective on the world.

As mentioned earlier, there are definite concerns with virtual air rights and virtual advertising rights.  For example, Bing can block out existing advertising and resell the rights to those ad spaces within their Streetview platform.

As you can see, the world of augmented reality is incredibly interesting, and it will only be a matter of time before we see the tipping point on many of these cutting edge technologies.