Augmented Reality Round Up

Leading on from the success of our augmented reality app at Marketing Week Live we have decided to pull this blog post together to give an idea how you can best use augmented reality for your marketing campaigns and your company. We all know augmented reality has been around for a while, but it’s really in the last year or so that the technology has become widespread enough for us to easily create and distribute augmented reality apps to a wide audience.

So to make the most of this technology and be ready for the Google glass invasion, have a read through the list below with most of these uses, we see that Augmented Reality can be a great way for giving users a reason to download your app. It adds a different angle and something unique to your app which other competitors may not have. And when you consider the rich media that you can layer up on the Augmented Reality you can really deliver a rich experience for your audience. Also, once your app has been downloaded this gives a fantastic channel to market your product to your audience.

Top 5 Augmented Reality uses

1. Bring any brochure to life by using an Augmented Reality app you can allow users to explore more of your product than a flat image allows. By using your Augmented Reality app customers can hover over an image of your product and see the item in full 3D on the page. You can then combine this with additional pop up textual information and videos to give a great interactive insight into your products. If you are thinking that this suits your need, then a great way to distribute the app is by using a QR code on your brochure.  Just get the user to snap the QR code using a QR reader on their phone and they’ll be taken directly to the correct app store to download.

2. Create interactive business cards by using your company logo or a specific image on your business cards as a trigger image, you can really bring these to life. You can bring your company logo to life, add an animated character, or play a video introduction from yourself explaining a bit about what you or your company does. If you are a bit camera shy, then you can always play the company promotional video instead to give your customer more of an insight into the company. If you choose to use your company logo, then this will obviously trigger on all cases of your logo, whether that be on the side of your building, a van or any headed stationary someone may receive.

3. Give extra space to small areas. Small stores or museums can utilise this technology perfectly, bringing bigger displays and exhibits into a small area.  Augmented Reality is perfect for small museums as users can quickly and easily find out more information on each exhibit whether this is just textual information, a video or a 3D visualisation of what the item or area used to look like. This is brilliant for outdoor exhibits, such as battle fields and ruins as users can see how the landscape used to look over the top of how it looks today. Small stores will also benefit from this technology as users can find out more information about items and stock even if they aren’t on display. Shoppers can use their mobile device to browse virtual items or even virtually ‘try on’ items by holding the app up to the required body part e.g. their foot and selecting the types and styles of shoes they like!

4. Spice up any event by using Augmented Reality If you are running an event or exhibition and don’t have much space Augmented Reality is a great way of displaying any product and maximising the space. This is especially useful if you have multiple large products to showcase, such as manufacturing equipment or vehicles that you would like people to view.  By setting your event background to a scene that your products would be found in, your audience can explore your products in context without the need of you physically taking them to the show.

5.   Adding information to real life situations. This is the area that we will start to see the biggest growth especially as Google glass takes off. The ability of merging Augmented Reality information with real life situations really gives any user maximum connectivity with their environment. Whether this is finding out more about the city scape that is front of them, what landmarks can be seen from a mountain view point, what hazards are on the hole they are about to play in golf or even what certain products look like in their home, then this area of Augmented Reality is the way the technology is going. Above are just some of the ways that we see Augmented Reality being used in commercial and marketing arenas. Over the next couple of years we believe that Augmented Reality really will be the technology to watch as devices and apps become more powerful and consumers want to have a greater and seamless connection to the world. McDonald's have already embraced this as part of their World Cup 2014 campaign

This is a great use for Augmented Reality technology, but can you imagine how amazing the Panini sticker album would be using Augmented Reality!!! Do get in touch if you want to talk through your ideas for Augmented Reality and see how we can bring this exciting technology to your campaigns. Also check out our website: www.rjdm.com