I’ve always been a bit frightened by the plastered, menacing grin of the Burger King (zoiks – there’s like nothing behind his eyes) – and now, Crispin Porter + Bogusky has helped His Highness bestow power unto all to turn a buck into a double cheeseburger through the spooky magic of augmented reality. Long live the King.
On the heels of our augmented reality webinars last week, the hits just keep coming. John Mayer will use AR trickery to let his fans opt into his upcoming video (starring as themselves, as extras). “We won’t know what we’ve got until they run it through their new-fangled computers,” said Mayer against a green-screen.
Well, it’s not so much that augmented reality (AR) bites, but mostly that people haven’t figured out how to use it yet. That’s the hypothesis we had in mind as we held the first of two Agency Primers on AR Tuesday morning (there’s still time to register for the other session).
Like any new technology, one of the most obvious applications of AR is to be attention-grabbing and disruptive. But as supermarket shelves fill with AR marker-clad bags of Doritos and even our awards shows jump in on the action, AR’s allure will start to wane. So we wanted to cut to the chase and talk about what AR will be good at once it retires from the spotlight of being a “hip” technology.
Here’s the deck:
In our talk, we highlighted a few areas that AR can fall back on after the novelty has worn off. In each of these areas, AR can be leveraged to bring something to the table that traditional forms of digital media can’t. Below are some quick notes and links for each.
This is the least functional and most prevalent form of AR out there today. This is wow factor stuff that engages an audience largely on the novelty of the technology. There are plenty of examples out there, but here are a few that we like:
Using augmented reality as a way of annotating the world around is one application of the technology that makes intuitive sense to a lot of users. As such, it’s one of the first applications to see larger scale adoption:
Integrating AR tactics into packaging design and digital out-of-home strategies can be a great way to draw attention to a product, but it also has the potential to add functionality, giving shoppers a sort of X-ray vision into the contents of a package and their usage. There are also plenty of companies looking to add interest to traditional markets (esp. toys) by adding a new dimension of play and interaction through AR.
Augmented reality can be a way to solidify a connection between online and offline components of a campaign. Not a lot of awesome examples of this out there, but here are a few from Total Immersion:
One of the most practical applications of AR is the idea of using the technology to bridge the gap between digital experiences and the real world. Imagine shopping for furniture online and printing off a AR tag that you set on the floor and snap a picture of to see if that couch will fit in the room – and to get an idea of what it’ll look like. Here’s a great example of pragmatic, problem-solving AR from the United States Postal Service:
Here are links to some of the other resources and examples that we discussed:
The way a lot of people are using it, augmented reality bites. But it doesn’t have to. Attend our Augmented Reality Agency Primer and you’ll learn the basics you need to turn augmented reality (AR) from a gimmick into a genuinely useful technology.
Join us for one of two free webinars – Tuesday, October 13th at 10 a.m. Central and Thursday, October 15th at 3 p.m. Central (RSVP right here). These webinars are part of our ongoing agency primer series geared at helping our partners leverage our technical capabilities as an extension of their own.
We’ll cover the basics of the technology, the terminology you need to know, current and future applications, and how to use AR as more than just a gimmick — everything you need to know to pitch and win AR projects – then we’ll help you deliver the goods.
You don’t need to know every last thing about augmented reality for your clients to believe that you do – you just need to know The Nerdery.
Since I know a few of the nerds are playing with Augmented Reality in their sparse spare time, I’ve been keeping an eye out for extra-cool uses of this mind-blowing technology. Yesterday was double-plus bonus Augmented Reality day because I tripped over two posts.
The Cloud Mirror from eric gradman on Vimeo.
First, Uncomfortably augmented reality. This is an art project that gives attendees a special badge and then pulls information about them from their Facebook status or Twitter feeds. Watch the video to see how people reacted to having their online ideas shared in their offline lives. I really like this one because it makes you consider some of the things you say online.
This second one is just cool fun, showing how to scratch a vinyl record without a turntable (more info on Laughing Squid).
AR scratching from vanderlin on Vimeo.
This video from the Oglivy 360 PR team has been making the rounds via Twitter today. It wasn’t until the third or fourth retweet that I started to pay attention. Something that got that many nerds that excited has to be good, right? Watch the video you will be amazed (unless you are Jess, then you won’t find digital 3D holograms all that cool).
Personally, I’m more impressed with the fireworks one (found from Spark Project (which includes some insight on how this magic was created):
Desktop Fireworks from Saqoosha on Vimeo.
Pretty rad, huh? We tried a few of these out at The Nerdery and they totally work. I’m thinking some of our AS3 nerds should get on this, because I know the web really wants to play with a 3D digital hologram of the Nerdery.
