Blog's Working Title

After learning about AR, we were eager to show you some examples.

Energy: GE launched their AR web site in February. The site is reminiscent of a page from a child’s pop-up storybook. Spinning windmills pop up to introduce their new Smart Grid Technology. When the consumer blows on their computer microphone, the windmills spin a little faster. In the end this is nothing more than a few minutes of entertainment to satisfy consumer curiosity. The original trigger to this site was provided to customers via the cover of Popular Science magazine blurring the standards set by the American Society of Magazine Editors. GE boasts over a million hits to their Smart Grid site since inception with a quarter of viewers spending more than five minutes browsing. Fascinated consumers created You Tube videos to demonstrate the site. These videos have collectively obtained over a million views. GE hit the mark when it comes to consumer engagement, however the site falls short on education of the Smart Grid Technology. GE used AR to successfully create brand awareness and hype for their Smart Grid Technology Campaign. (GE Smart Grid)

Consumer Electronics: Best Buy put a trigger for their AR site for a Toshiba laptop in their regular weekly circular. The ad allowed consumers to explore the features of the laptop within the comfort of their own homes. With a circulation of 43 million they expected 20% of recipients to own functioning web cams. 6,500 consumers used the ad to try out the AR site nearly doubling Best Buy’s expectations. 78% of visitors that went to the site had web cams and were able to use the AR functions. Best Buy achieved a 12% click through rate from their site to the actual Toshiba site. Not bad for a risk on burgeoning technology. Best Buy noted that they simply want to offer customers a greater range of opportunities to interact with products and mentioned plans to integrate more AR in the future. (Best Buy) **

Restaurant: Papa John’s offers a great example of the use AR with their Road Trip Campaign. They placed an AR trigger on the bottom of 30 million pizza boxes. The trigger initiates a virtual road trip around the U.S. where the consumer drives a replica of the founders 1972 Camero (Which he sold to buy the original pizza making equipment). They follow the Camero from city to city where they conveniently drive past virtual billboards offering Papa John’s Pizza specials. These specials are used to drive sales and also to track who is using the technology. An incredible 200,000 people visited the site within two weeks of the launch. (Papa John’s)

Entertainment: Movies seem to offer one of the most promising utilizations of AR. The new Star Trek movie that opened in May offered a site where the consumer could print a trigger to tour the USS Enterprise. The trigger happened to be the movie poster along with some helpful instructions for using the site correctly. The AR site turned the trigger into a virtual projection screen where clips from the movie were played right in the consumer’s hands. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen employed AR as part of a complete integrated marketing campaign. The transformer site transformed the consumer’s head into Optimus Prime while voice distortion completed the façade. The comprehensive campaign included viral video spoofs of electrical appliances trying out to be in the movie, treasure hunts on Playstation 3, social networking sites where consumers could build banners for their pages, RSS feeds, and fake blogs all created in an effort to build a successful conspiracy campaign. If only that much effort went into the movie itself, it might have been a success. (Transformers)

Tune in next week for Episode III where we look to the future of AR in mobile advertising, discuss practical uses for this technology, and debate consumer involvement and crowdsourcing.

**(Statistics and comments source- Advertising Age Published August 5, 2009)