For those of you that weren’t able to make it the Augmented Reality Event, we wanted to share Matt’s presentation from yesterday (5/8). Titled “The Augmented Reality Retail Hype Cycle 2012″, Matt discussed the market viability and realities of several AR retail triggers within today’s marketplace (not 5 years from now), including: smart-phones, in-store kiosks (OOH), tablets, web and the digital living room.
We’d love to hear your thoughts and questions in the comments below. Also, we lost some formatting when importing the deck to Slideshare, so please excuse any irregularities…
There’s debate as to whether holograms are technically augmented reality but either way, the advances with hologram technology are simply amazing. Japanese virtual star, Hatsune Miku, has been selling out real concertsand you can view that embedded video below. But, even more impressive (and albeit a tad creepy) was the recent hologram of Tupac performing with Dr. Dre at the Coachella Music Festival. You can view that video here or also embedded below.
Much is written about HTML5 being the savior of interactive production. And one day, it may be. But the fact is that that day is not today.
To be clear, we don’t have any loyalties or ties when it comes to the technology we use – we’re not tied to any proprietary platform or the like. Our goal as an augmented reality software developer is simple: Build an amazing, easy to use experience for both our clients and their shoppers. And the fact is that today, and for the foreseeable future, that means developing in Flash. Here are two key reasons why we’re not currently on the HTML5 bandwagon:
No Official Webcam Support – Obviously, the camera is a key component for any augmented reality experience.
No Digital Rights Management Support – Do you want people to steal your content/code? We don’t.
Now, I’m confident that as the technology/market matures these issues will be worked out, but we’re talking a few years out from now, not today. And that’s where our focus lies, in creating experiences that work today (for as many people as possible).
What about your experiences? Are you developing in HTML5, or are you waiting too?
eMarketer released a report today that I thought you’d find interesting. Their main finding states that the apparel and accessories category (in the U.S.) is now “climbing faster than any other other ecommerce product segment.” In fact, while ecommerce in general is expected to remain very strong this year, up 15% from 2011 (reaching $224.2 billion), apparel will outpace the market in 2012 by gaining 20% (reaching $41 billion).
And it’s not just 2012. ”The apparel and accessories category will lead ecommerce sales growth throughout the forecast period”, which runs through 2016.
The reasons for these gains? Well, eMarketer principal analyst Jeffrey Grau notes that “Retailers continue to increase the scale of their ecommerce operations, particularly by investing in online sales platforms that display products and convert shoppers more effectively; apparel sales have benefited more than any other category. Apparel has become an online success due largely to easy and free returns, innovative visualization tools and the presence of customer reviews.”
More data proving that innovative visualization tools help drive online apparel sales? I must say, it’s great to see 3rd party data supporting our findings.
About a month ago we shared some data from an augmented reality brand engagement that we created with SocialVibe and Deutsch titled: “Anthem Blue Cross Webcam Exam”. Running on Zynga’s network the ad unit saw the following metrics:
Average time spent – 76.1 seconds
Click through to the landing page for more information after completing the interaction with the advertisement - 71.6%
Well, our second execution with SocialVibe, this time a brand engagement for Toyota’s Prius is yielding even better results in both key metrics:
Average time spent – over 80 seconds
Click through to the landing page for more information after completing the interaction with the advertisement - 77%
The Prius engagement is a game that allows people to use their motion to collect items they want to put in their Prius, and avoid items that they don’t. Simple and engaging, the data above is just further evidence that people have the equipment (i.e. webcams) and the desire necessary to interact with augmented reality (on their computers).
A player is unable to dodge a paint can and loses 1,000 points
The latest company to license our augmented reality merchandising software, the Webcam Social Shopper (WSS), is one of the world’s most iconic brands: Barbie.
Partnering with Mattel, AttentionUSA and several other amazing companies we let fans of all ages step inside Barbie’s Dream Closet and actually see what they would look like in some of her most famous outfits. It was just over a week ago that the Dream Closet came to life as both a New York Fashion Week event and a website, but I’ll let Mattel’s press release provide more context, rather than recreate the wheel:
The Barbie® Dream Closet New York Fashion Week Experience
Debuting at the famed Lincoln Center, Barbie® will unveil a larger-than-life installation of her ultimate Dream Closet complete with 24-foot tall, jewel encrusted doors leading into a two-story, 9,000 square-foot set with multiple dressing vignettes. The New York Fashion Week installation will transport fashionistas and fans in the area inside Barbie’s fantastical wardrobe complete with augmented reality technology “mirrors” that allow users to literally doll themselves up in Barbie’s most iconic, playful and glamorous outfits from the past five decades. Live models also will “dress the set” adorned in high-luxe looks on loan from the Albright Fashion Library, an exclusive couture library that includes styles from Oscar de la Renta, Alexander McQueen, Gucci, Moschino, Chloe, and Burberry.
BarbieWow.com: A Global Fashion Destination for Fans of All Ages
BarbieWow.com opens its online doors on February 9th as the brand’s first single, global digital destination. The pink portal will transport fans in more than 30 countries inside Barbie’s Dream Closet with unique brand integrations and new media channels of “sharing and trending” that will turn raiding Barbie’s wardrobe into real-time, globally-shared experiences.
Once inside her Dream Closet, girls of all ages can explore a world of endless fashion, accessories and imaginative play, through interactive activities such as a design studio to dress up Barbie® and augmented-reality “mirrors” to dress up themselves using the doll’s favorite fashions. In partnership with top digital and style destinations Polyvore, Pinterest and Rent the Runway, girls can take inspiration from Barbie to create real-life looks and designs that are all their own. The site also features a section titled “Behind Pink Doors,” where top fashion influencers share stories behind meaningful pieces from their personal closet as an example of the transformative power of fashion.
To date, over 530 stories have been written about the Dream Closet, including pieces by The Wall Street Journal, CNET, PSFK and the Associated Press. And while it feels fantastic to get that sort of coverage, it’s reactions like the ones below that make the late nights worth it. Also included below is a rough cut of some video taken during the Fashion Week event. It documents two young women’s reactions as they use The Webcam Social Shopper for the first time. Just like they would in a store, the young women start to honestly discuss what look works and doesn’t work (for them).
A Young Woman Using The Dream Closet At Fashion Week
A Young Woman Reacts To The Webcam Social Shopper (Credit: WSJ)
In our continuing effort to share as much data with you (about augmented reality) as we can, we wanted to get a quick post up about this: One of our clients, Denmark based online retailer LazyLazy, was recently interviewed by Internet Retailer. In the interview CEO Søren Filbert had this to say about our augmented reality merchandising software, the Webcam Social Shopper (WSS):
”17% of our visitors are using this and they are converting two to three times more.”
Now, that’s a great stat, but when you couple it with data we’ve previously noted in this blog…
Online retailer Banana Flame saw a 50% improvement in conversions on the “add to cart” button after integrating WSS (more Banana Flame data here).
WSS is proven to help young women make more informed purchase decisions – “Seeing it on helped me decide” (Link)
… it becomes a trend. It shows that augmented reality can provide real value for people, which subsequently provides real value (i.e. ROI) for businesses.
The end of last year we partnered with SocialVibe and Deutsch to launch the “Anthem Blue Cross Webcam Exam” for Zynga’s network. It was a branded engagement that used augmented reality to allow people to interact with three Doctor’s tools – if you’re interested you can read more about it here. Today, I just wanted to share some of the data being released:
The average time spent with the Anthem Blue Cross ad is 76.1 seconds, Seventy-seven percent of consumers run through all three tools, and 71.6% of consumers click through to the landing page for more information after completing the interaction with the advertisement. (source)
Not bad numbers for an ad huh?
Below is a little visual walk-through of the experience…
Investment in augmented reality development is one key to our industry’s success. So we thought we’d aggregate, and share a list of our industry’s “success stories”. We’d like this list to not only be about the developers that are getting venture capital funding, but the large corporations that are validating the space by investing their resources/money towards AR as well.
As you can see, the space is starting to heat up.
We’ll try to update this list regularly, so please feel free to add anything I’m missing in the comments.
Ditto Picks Up $3 Million From August Capital, Others For Its Virtual, 3D Eyeglasses Sales Site (Link)
Total Immersion gets $5.5M to expand augmented reality (Link)
Layar Augments Reality With $14M in New Funding (Link)
Tonchidot Raises $12 Million Round B, Expands Augmented Reality/Social Gaming Platform SoLAR Globally (Link)
EU backs ST-Ericsson to deliver augmented reality (Link)
Google, Apple Making Augmented Reality Cool Amid CES (Link)
Microsoft And TechStars Launch Kinect Accelerator For New Kinect-Based Startups (Link)
Qualcomm opens submissions for its $200,000 Augmented Reality Developer Challenge (Link)
Blippar raises seed funding from Qualcomm for mobile augmented reality technology (Link)
Gamma III structures first round funding of Mobilizy GmbH (Makers of Wikitude) (Link)
HP Acquires Control of Autonomy Corporation (Makers of Aurasma) (Link)
Augmented Reality App Maker CrowdOptic Scores $500,000 In New Funding (Link)
More funding news in Poland: augmented reality game ShootAR is backed by IIF (Link)
We Are Organized Chaos (WAOC) is Zugara’s (www.zugara.com) interactive marketing and advertising blog where we’ll be featuring some great projects and discussing upcoming trends in the digital world. Work — good and bad — will be critiqued. Hope you’ll enjoy reading our insights and thoughts on interactive.
