Augmented Reality provides brands with an engaging experience that merges both the digital and the real world. This 30 second video shows how a 3D animation on the product box enabled me to understand the assembled product.
Lego’s “Digital Box” Provides Customers with an Interactive 3D Digital Experience
This weekend, I went to the local Lego store here in Silicon Valley (Hillsdale) to see a practical version of Augmented Reality. I was previously briefed by Metaio, the technology vendor that empowers the software for the Augmented Reality kiosks called, Digital Box. This store, outfitted with a kiosk with a screen and webcam gives instructions on how to show the contents of any box assembled in real time. Not all of the boxes were equipped (I tried the Star Wars line with no available) but was able to grab this lego kit of a bus, hold it in front of the kiosk. You can see that the contents ‘assembled’ on the screen, and came to life as a pre-set animation, as I rotated the box, the virtual animation would move with it, giving the illusion that the bus was actually moving over the box.
Breakdown: “Kiosk” Style Augmented Reality
| Description | Accessing Augmented Reality experiences from a built in camera and screen at a physical location |
| Market Maturity | Embryonic, this market has physical and software barriers, as well as low consumer awareness and adoption. |
| Vendors | Metaio |
| Requirements | Kiosk, webcam, encoded experiences. |
| Opportunities | Increase customer engagement in store, increase intent to buy and reduce sales costs. An immediate opportunity is for retail, small business, tourism, and consumer packaged goods industries. Secondly, media, gaming, home and business design, and mobile industries should take note and investigate this space. |
| Challenges | Consumers have limited awareness to AR space, and are unaware of the kiosks. Interaction is clunky and requires practice, graphics are effective –but not refined |
| Benefits | Brands that deploy AR in 2010 will benefit from “cool” factor being an early adopter. |
| Risks | Expensive deployment to create animations, and put kiosks in all locations. |
| Verdict | Innovative, but a victim of ‘shiny object’ syndrome as the business benefits aren’t directly indicated. Heavy overhead required to deploy hardware and software, as well as moderate learning curve for consumers. To truly become a mainstream channel, AR within stories should be accessed by mobile devices –not kiosks. Secondly, existing web content should be ‘linked’ to existing products that include additional videos, support, and consumer generated content. Brands that have complex consumer packaged goods should deploy in stores, or products that have an heavy education or support cost and can’t deploy in house sales or service folks. |
Augmented Reality Not Ready For Primetime –Yet Promises Real World Engagement
The above matrix is just a breakdown of ‘Kiosk” style of Augmented reality, however let’s look at this space as a whole. This technology is in its infancy, the animations are still simple, don’t have a lot of interaction beyond rotation, and require moderate ability to line the product up directly with the web cam. Furthermore, there are barriers to entry as most people didn’t even know about this feature in the store till I showed them, and not every product was outfitted with the ability to display the interactions.
Despite the fact that this is an emerging technology with years ’till maturity, there are three major business opportunities:
- Extending the web to the real world. Reusing existing digital marketing and support content (from the web) in the physical world will add mileage to marketing assets. Consumers can access related existing content such as brochure facts, customer reviews, or web based demos that already exist wherever they are, without looking for a URL. The camera lens will identify the product, then serve up the context information with a click of a button.
- Greasing marketing and sales process. Creating an engaging experience with customers near point of sale reducing sales costs through sales aids or increasing interest. Animations and virtual experiences can be connected with any device from anywhere, triggering demos, how-to videos, or even 3D media that would entice a prospect to spend more time, or purchase the product. Essentially, this means a virtual sales person or guide could assist any consumer from anywhere at anytime.
- Ubiquitous information with mobile devices. Aside from kiosks in stores, we should eventually expect mobile devices to be equipped with the capability to instantly bring up internet information about any product in real-time. Expect Google to develop a product that maps physical products with their online information, making them yet the middleman for internet advertising –again. Furthermore, it gets really interesting when a brand can ‘hijack’ another company’s brand by creating augmented reality experiences on the boxes of their competitors.
Love your analytical breakdown chart above – great shorthand. Forrester training? Or just good sense?
Also wonder what the success ratio is for products = “shiny objects”
Yes,
Forrester training, but believe me, it would be better if I was there as I’d have an editor and a third set of eyes, then it goes through proof editing. Glad you like this, I’ll be blowing out this matrix for the other forms of Augmented Reality later –this is just the start.
Nice write-up Jeremiah. I experienced the Challenges and Risk first hand at the Raleigh NC Lego Store. When my 7 year old son tried to interact with the kiosk (after I explained in Dad-speak what it would do) the interface popped up the dreaded Windows error message with something about a device problem, please contact your administrator. I do like to see this sort of experimentation however and encourage Lego and other brands to keep trying. Very cool stuff when done right.
I’ve found very few examples that show how AR goes beyond the “shiny object” effect.
Some weeks ago I started a brief collection of AR applications that you can browse here http://marcobandini.blogspot.com/2009/09/augmented-reality-some-evidences.html
Lego impressed me but I think MyIkea project is even better because it it’s useful, it really enriches and extends the brand experience, in a playful Ikea-style way.
Do anyone know something more about this project?
An interesting application of the technology. But there’s the danger it stays more gimmick than usable with the masses:
http://www.wearevi.com/augmented-reality-escaping-the-gimmicksphere.html
Ryan, Damian
It really does come across gimicky if anyone says “wow” when they see it –but there’s no recurring business or customer value.
Marco
Great collection here, I would love to do analysis on each (ol matrix style) to indicate which ones are gimmicky and which ones are not
http://marcobandini.blogspot.com/2009/09/augmented-reality-some-evidences.html
Geeh-whiz cool, but it doesn’t translate into anything meaningful, so even less than a gimmick or fad, short attention span theater, half of a one-hit wonder, a burst bubble before even caught on.
These concepts never work as they require active participation, and if 40 years of Madison Ave. hasn’t been enough history, advertising is overwhelmingly passive. And after awhile, will translate into serious backlash resistance and a curse predictor, like Ralphie in a ‘Christmas Story’, going to all that effort, for a “crummy commercial”.
The ‘throw things on wall’ ad agencies will proudly tout such the new shiny toy however, hooking you for a few hits. When you don’t have anything to say, use AR, good gimmick for one or two plays, and that’s about it.
I couldnt agree more with Jeremiah, its cool but not substantive, AR has the potential to be massive but its uses and limitations need to be understood or else everything will be as gimmicky as this. I just finished a blog post about augmented reality and certain implementations being gimmicky- it would be good to get your thoughts http://www.wearevi.com/augmented-reality-escaping-the-gimmicksphere.html
Nice execution of augmented reality! You see this allot lately. Also company’s try there best to experiment with augmented reality. Came across this link on twitter http:// http://www.wehkamp.nl/meerkorting its a dutch online shop that did a pretty good job on augmented reality!
Believe me, I’ve witnessed dozens of bright shiny objects during my 15 years in digital marketing. Those who are impulsively assigning the BSO label to Augmented Reality need to look beyond the obvious gimmickry.
The possibilities of mobile AR seem endless – from reviews to contextual instruction. I wouldn’t be surprised to see mobile AR assembly directions for all those DIY Christmas gifts in the very near future.
Really interesting, excellent article.
Question: what do you mean with “a brand can ˜hijack™ another company™s brand by creating augmented reality experiences on the boxes of their competitors.”?
Also, agree with most of the comments here about other possibilities in AR. You narrow it down to 3 opportunities, but I think something along the lines of “consumer engagement” is missing somehow. Something where e.g. the Esquire AR issue would fit.
Filipe
It’s possible, using augmented reality, to allow an end user to look through a device, and see something that’s not there. It’s possible for a brand to disguise a competitors product, or even replace it with their own.
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Playing with the boxes could be more fun than playing with the toys.
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Great footage, thanks for posting it!
Mbop Megashop
You can see that the contents ˜assembled™ on the screen, and came to life as a pre-set animation, as I rotated the box, the virtual animation would move with it, giving the illusion that the bus was actually moving over the box.
Wow this is really great.