Is this really the experience you want for your consumers?

Our newest Augmented Reality project is now live. It’s a Motion Capture based Augmented Reality game we concepted and developed for Nestle called “Nesquik Factory”. “Nesquik Factory” puts people in the role of being a new hire that’s put to work filling Nesquik bottles. To be successful at the job the player must keep the production line flowing by making sure the right flavor of milk goes into the right bottle.

By utilizing our proprietary Motion Capture Augmented Reality Software, “ZugMO”, we are able to turn a standard webcam into an input device that translates a person’s motions in front of the camera into data that casual Flash games can utilize.  And since the software was developed in Flash, not a proprietary platform, players won’t be turned off by a bulky download or the like.  ZugMO enabled us to create an immersive experience for Nestle’s customers by turning their webcam’s video stream into the Nesquik Factory. Now, rather than using a mouse or keyboard to play the game, people are actually in the game itself and using their motions to fill the Nesquik bottles.

“Motion based gaming is already popular, but it’s really poised to explode over the next six months,” said Matt Szymczyk, CEO, Zugara. “The Wii is the fastest selling console in history, and both Sony and Microsoft are launching their entries into the motion based gaming market this year. People will be clamoring for these types of experiences, and with ZugMO, brands can meet that demand by creating incredibly dynamic and engaging online flash games. The great thing about creating online games to engage your audience is that people won’t need to purchase any expensive hardware to play. All they need is what they most likely already have, a computer and a standard webcam.”

“Nesquik Factory” was developed to be a social gaming experience. To help players share the fun with friends and family a “snapshot” is automatically taken at that exact instant they lose. Then, if they choose, players can easily share their snapshot (and their score) on Facebook.

“It was a fantastic experience working with Nestle, and quite frankly they really challenged us to ‘up our game,’” Matt said. “It was incredibly important to them that an actual bottle of Nesquik be recognized by the application to initiate the experience. In the past, this type of execution required that the client put a marker on their packaging, or the consumer downloaded a proprietary plug-in. Neither option was acceptable. As you’ll see when you play the game, we were able to meet this challenge and have the application recognize the iconic Nesquik bottle without a marker or a consumer download.”

Brands and agencies looking to either purchase the ZugMO Software Development Kit (SDK), or couple the SDK with our interactive marketing services like Nestle did can contact us at: info (at) Zugara (dot) com.

ABOUT ZUGARA
Zugara is an employee owned Los Angeles based Augmented Reality Software developer. Founded in 2001 Zugara is the only Augmented Reality Software developer with an expertise in consumer engagement strategy, user experience design, and interactive production. This is because prior to restructuring as an Augmented Reality Software Developer in 2009, Zugara was an interactive marketing agency that created award winning work for Fortune 500 Brands like Reebok, Sony PlayStation, Toyota, Lexus, Casio, Red Bull and the U.S. Air Force.

To play “Nesquik Factory”, click here.

To learn about a motion capture game we created for AT&T, click here.

Copyright 2010 ZugMo Motion Capture Augmented Reality Software

Copyright 2010 Zugara Inc.

Adweek recently published an article entitled, “The Variables of Like“, which went into the latest trend of brands trying any means necessary to increase ‘likes’ on their Facebook pages.  Some brands have even gone so far as to require someone to like a brand’s page before allowing them to view content.  We covered this on the blog here a few months back in a post entitled, “Forcing Someone To Use Facebook For A Brand Initiative Is Not An Effective Interactive Marketing Strategy…”

In the Adweek article, I was quoted a few times specifically when it came to how brands are currently trying to acquire likes:

And three weeks ago, Borders had about 50,000 fans. It then offered a 33 percent-off discount in return for a Like. Its community now has 265,000 members.

But such ploys can backfire. Matthew Szymczyk, CEO of Zugara, says these aggressive strategies can pile up Likes from people who don’t have true brand affinity. In this way, he believes the Likes are tantamount to “false advertising” because a message goes out from the user who just wants to see a video or play a game-not because he’s interested in the brand itself.

Lionsgate, for example, is running a Facebook promo that requires liking the page for the summer blockbuster The Expendables in order to play a game related to the movie.

“You’re almost building a Ponzi scheme with Facebook Likes,” said Szymczyk. “Would you rather have 100,000 liking and broadcasting it or 5,000 who are real brand advocates?”

With that said, I’d like to explain a bit more with why I feel artificially accruing Facebook Likes to unlock content is a Ponzi scheme.  When a user likes something on Facebook, this is then put in their friends feed and broadcast to their entire network that they’ve now liked something.  After viewing the content they were forced to like to interact with, they might decide to unlike that brand/page or block any messages and updates from their feed.  But when someone unlikes something, it in turn is not broadcast to their network in the same way a like is.  So only positive likes are broadcast out which can artificially increase a pages number of likes.  When you unlike a page, it only shows up as a decrease in overall likes.  Compounding this is that the “Unlike” option is not easy to find and relegated to an obscure area on the bottom left side of the page.

This method of accruing a large number of likes of a brand or page is similar to a Ponzi scheme because it’s using previous people’s likes (positive and not negative) to then increase their overall numbers.  So you now might have 10,000 people that have liked your page, but how many are in fact real advocates or even interested in interacting with you?  They might have been forced to like your brand to view content.  On the flip side, there are some very well done Facebook pages by brands that do a great job of engaging their fan base and allowing their page to grow organically.  Vitaminwater is a great example of leveraging the Facebook community and their fans to full effect.

However, this current trend of artificially building likes is a slippery slope as brands look to embrace Facebook Pages over their own microsites.  Clouding the issue even more is the weight put against likes and what their value is.  There was a time when overall site traffic numbers were the main metric for interactive marketing.  As the field matured, it became more important to track true engagement by a visitor outside of just a visit.  With Facebook likes, it’s important that brands look at fan engagement much more than their overall numbers.  Until then, the number of likes a brand or page might have is more akin to a digital pissing contest than to a true read of how many people are actively engaged with that brand or page.

Hype Cycle Definition

2008

Note: As you can see below, Augmented Reality was looking at more than 10 years adoption by mainstream…

2009

Note: In one year, Augmented Reality went from more than 10 years to mainstream adoption down to 5-10 years.

2010

Note: AR Continues to climb so expect even more of it in Q4 2010 and all of 2011

Conclusion: AR has been on a unbelievable trajectory and will continue so with mobile and kiosk-based AR sure to capture the imagination of marketers everywhere – especially in 2011.  Throw in Kinect and the adoption of ‘gestural controls’ in the digital living room, and I think you’re going to see much faster mainstream adoption of AR than predicted here.  If you’re sick of hearing of AR already, I think you’re going to need to deal with it because it’s not going away anytime soon…

P.S. The webinar also had another interesting graphic showing a different view of information in the hype cycle.  I personally think AR is transformational but that’s just me Embedded below.