“Innovation Is Knowing The Future And Filling In The Gaps.”

Julie Guest 

About 12 years ago, I was shopping in Whole Foods, and as I rounded the corner of an aisle, I nearly had a head-on collision with a very strange-looking man.

The guy who almost took me out looked like he was from another planet.
He wore large, clunky headphones,  a microphone, and some kind of futuristic eye-attachment that looked like a missing piece of Lady Gaga’s wardrobe. 

“Oh, sorry, sorry," the man muttered, looking surprised and bewildered at having actually collided with a real live human being.

His skin was almost translucent white – like it hadn’t seen sunlight in decades.

His black clothing awkwardly hung off him, and I doubt, had been washed in a long time. The bewildered figure stumbled past me, shopping basket in hand, making wild hand gestures in the air and talking at the top of his voice to his friends in their own private augmented world.

No doubt you've heard of AR – augmented reality? It's hard to read anything in the news without some mention of it somewhere, and for good reason as you’ll soon see. 

What is AR?

AR is any technology that combines your real-life experience with a digital one – for example, you can show your kids a wombat on the floor of their room through your smartphone when you're reading a book about Australia. Or show your customers what that new sofa, rug, coffee table will look like in their own completely redesigned and optimized living room, (as Ikea is doing, see below).

If AR still sounds too futuristic for your business,  think again. 

While it's still a relatively new technology, AR is going to rapidly become the number one new way to win the attention and trust of your customers – surpassing print, online and television ads.  

According to The Drum reports, AR can capture people’s attention for over 85 seconds, increase interaction rates by 20 percent, and improve click-through rates to purchase by 33 percent. 

AR - The New Marketing Frontier

If those statistics don’t impress you, then think of AR as being the next new marketing frontier – a way of engaging with your prospects and customers that will have more possibility and profit potential than the introduction of social media and digital advertising combined.

Why is AR going to be SO very critical to the future of your business? 

Five key reasons:

1) By blending physical experiences with immersive digital ones, it ushers in a new kind of branding – and sales choreography. One where customers get to try before they buy with no risk to them – or you (see Asos below).

2) The experience itself will give rise to brand new categories of digital products and goods (see Gucci example below)

3) AR truly signifies the end of nameless, faceless corporate branding once and for all - one that expects consumers to blindly trust in a company because of either its perceived size and/or track record in the market. Instead, the rise of the hyper-personalized, ultra niched branded experience for customers will continue to micro-segment at an even faster pace.

4) AR will help build trust and win new customers faster and more effectively than ever before (See Amazon Salon below)

5) AR will enable radical inventory changes and flow-down effects to supply chain management by introducing extreme efficiency and reducing risk.

Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, has said that AR will one day be as important in our everyday lives as “eating three meals a day.”

So, the question is – how can you transform your company's brand now to be able to deliver more hyper-personalized products and services?

Here are some examples of AR in action:

ASOS Clothing – ‘See My Fit’ 

ASOS, the UK-based global clothing company, jumped on AR early and in 2019 launched an experimental AR feature called the Virtual Catwalk that was designed to help its users visualize themselves wearing its products in their surroundings. 

As the pandemic hit, Asos scaled up its use of AR with an expanded application of  ‘See My Fit’ technology – allowing people to digitally fit clothes realistically. Not only was this a new, hyper-personalized experience, but it allowed Asos to solve a pressing issue – rapidly updating its website with new inventory on a weekly basis to keep customers engaged.  This experience helped increase ASOS sales by 25% and slashed its return rate.  

The IKEA Studio App

Ikea’s design lab, Space10 takes this 3d immersive experience a step further. The Ikea Studio app enables users to capture their entire room in 3D and redesign them, incorporating everything from windows and door frames to wall colors and rugs.

Image: Design with.studio

Get Amazon To Color Your Hair?

Did you know Amazon was also in the business of high-tech hair styling? Amazon Salon, the e-commerce giant's first-ever bricks-and-mortar hair salon in London, was partly set up to trial new retail technology. One example is ‘Point and Learn’, which as Amazon explains, means “customers can point at the product they like on a display shelf and the relevant information, including brand videos and educational content, will appear on a display screen.” To buy the products, customers scan the QR code on the shelf, and check out online. 

Customers also get to experiment with different hair shades using AR technology before getting their hair done.  Goodbye lousy hair cuts!

Image: Amazon

Gucci – A Pair of Virtual Trainers, Anyone?

Gucci was one of the first luxury brands to use AR, adding an AR feature to its app to let users ‘try on’ sneakers. That isn’t quite so revolutionary anymore, but here’s what is - more recently, Gucci has released a pair of virtual sneakers, which are designed to only be worn and shared online. The ‘digital-only’ trainers, created in collaboration with AR fashion platform Wanna, can be bought via the Gucci app for $17.99, making it an accessible way for consumers to get their hands on the luxury brand.

Wait rewind. 

So Gucci is now licensing the digital use of a specific kind of sneaker for people to use on their own avatars and selfies – and in doing so have created a whole new revenue stream, accessed a brand new target market – and in effect are making people pay to advertise them? 

Welcome to a whole new industry – digital fashion.

Do you see how how AR technology is transforming, well everything?

Your business may well not yet be ready to introduce AR. That’s ok. The key learning right now is two fold – 

1) Get ready - AR is coming fast.

It represents an enormous opportunity to access new target markets, create new products and services, and by combining a digital experience with a physical one – create an extraordinary experience for your customers that will increase sales, referrals and retention rates.

2) It’s time to reinvent your company’s brand by focusing on deeper customer segmentation and hyper-personalization.  No more one size fits all messaging. No more hiding behind a big corporate sounding names and delivering generic experiences. Whether your company is ready for AR or not, take a leaf out of brands like Gucci, Amazon, ASOS, and IKEA who are all scrambling to find new improved ways to humanize their brand and make them more personable, small and customized.  

More on how to humanize your brand next week!

 As William Gibson once wryly commented,

“the future has already arrived, it’s just not evenly distributed yet…”