In the “location wars”, Foursquare is maintaining its supremacy over rival location-aware social networks like Gowalla, brightkite, Loopt,and even social media darlings like Facebook and Twitter who are also getting into the location game. So what gives Foursquare the advantage in this battle? What brands are playing in this space? How can businesses win from this? Watch the video to find out.
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With the evolution of cellular phones into mobile media devices, the concept of “mobile applications” has completely changed. Releasing a branded mobile app isn’t as easy as just slapping your logo onto your consumers’ smartphones, or shoehorning your website into a smaller screen. It’s about creating an entirely new experience specifically tailored to the mobile environment.
As you can see, there are many forms that augmented reality can take—in print, out-of-home, in-store… The possibilities are truly endless. However, the possibilities are also endless for traps—with AR, it’s easy to want to be cool but even easier to end up looking cheesy. The examples below highlight best practices and what not to do.
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Coraline Movie OOH Display
For the stop-motion animated movie Coraline, Focus Features introduced the first outdoor displays to use video, audio, holograms, and augmented reality. Without any prompting, passers-by could see themselves reflected in the store window with Coraline-like button eyes.
Hallensteins Virtual Changing Room
Hallensteins, a menswear retailer in New Zealand, decided to tackle the dislike men have for trying on clothes by bringing virtual changing rooms to their stores. Shoppers need only stand in front of the plasma TV, which acts as a “mirror”, and use hand gestures to shuffle through clothing options to “try on” right on screen.
Ray-Ban Virtual Mirror
Unlike Hallensteins, Ray-Ban doesn’t have their own dedicated brick and mortar stores to hold virtual changing rooms (and how hard is it to try on sunglasses, anyway?) Instead, Ray-Ban has a Virtual Mirror on their e-commerce-enabled site, where users can try on their sunglasses from the comfort of their home.
USPS Virtual Box Simulator
Tired of showing up to the post office only to discover that the boxes available won’t fit the package you want to send? The US Postal Service website now offers a Virtual Box Simulator that allows users to see what size package and shipping rates fit their shipment.
Lego Digital Box
An in-store display at the Downtown Disney store in Orlando features the Lego Digital Box technology. Consumers hold up certain Lego boxes to the camera and are able to preview an animated 3D model of the toy they’re holding. No assembly required.
WHAT NOT TO DO—EXAMPLES TO AVOID
Always
What does feminine hygiene have to do with making a white rabbit appear out of an augmented reality top hat? …Good question.
GE
One of the first to use augmented reality, this exemplifies what happens when marketers rush to produce an AR piece without really considering the ultimate payoff for the consumer.
Papa John’s
Another instance of little payoff and little relevance.
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The Urban Outfitters Flickr pool isn’t anything more than fans posting pictures of themselves wearing UO clothes. No promos or marketing messages here.
The Blendtec YouTube Channel is really just an old-fashioned product demonstration. But it’s one people actually want to watch.
ComcastCares on Twitter is run by Comcast’s Director of Digital Care, who is dedicated to providing customer service. Rather than nurturing a community of advocates to speak for their brand, Comcast has opened a transparent and direct line of communication with its consumers.
The Nike Run Finder lets users find local runs discovered and uploaded by other users. There is no registration required but you can join the community to log miles and accumulate bragging rights.
The Adobe delicious page contains links to the best fan-created Adobe tutorials on the internet. They’re not just relying on their own packaged user manuals and are instead driving traffic to these content creators.
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