Dr Matthew Freeman, Reader in Multiplatform Media at Bath Spa University, has founded Immersive Promotion Design Ltd., a new marketing consultancy for the world of Extended Reality. It supports Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) businesses to better communicate with their audiences about the magic of immersive content.
The company builds on sector-development research funded by StoryFutures Academy and Bristol+Bath Creative R+D, and brings together expertise from the BBC VR Hub, Limina Immersive, StoryCentral, Raucous, Bath Spa University and beyond. Last year the team partnered with The National Gallery, Anagram and Studio McGuire to build research-led and audience-tested promotional campaigns for live VR and AR experiences. This led to the creation of new promotional strategies, prototypes, industry bibles and teaching resources for how immersive experiences can be better marketed to today’s audiences.
Talking about Immersive Promotion Design’s success so far, Matthew said: “Many people have recognised the enormous potential of immersive technologies like virtual and augmented reality to transform the creative industries as we know them. Up until now, however, the immersive sector has struggled to reach bigger, more mainstream audiences – the kinds of people used to streaming Netflix but not yet interested in VR headsets.
“The challenge is obvious: How do you communicate the magic of being in a VR experience via social media, posters and trailers? Immersive Promotion Design Ltd. provides a step towards establishing a new promotional language for VR and AR, opening the door to a bigger, more diverse immersive audience. We are very excited to see where this journey takes us.”
Visit www.immersivepromotion.com to find out more.
When you meet with prospective customers do they go away impressed ready to take the next step or are they underwhelmed because you’re the same as all your competitors?
If it’s the latter then clearly something needs fixing. In today’s market you cannot afford to be just another supplier and leave prospective customers cold.
In our opinion, the moment you meet with a potential customer is the most important part of the entire buyer’s journey; by this point you’ll have invested a huge amount of time, money and effort into developing products, marketing them and nurturing leads. The buyer will also have invested time and effort in researching suppliers to find the right fit. Those initial meetings between you and the customer are crucial and will determine whether you can secure their trust and win their business.
“Before making a detailed supplier evaluation 79% of buyers are already aware of at least three potential suppliers, and 86% already have a preference.“ B2B Marketing
When you meet with customers, you have a narrow window of opportunity to impress and in that narrow window you need to demonstrate your capabilities; the value you deliver and the opportunities you can create. You need to access any content the customer wants, instantaneously, and this all needs to be delivered through a personalised, visually compelling experience that leaves them empowered, visibly impressed and keen to move forward.
“97% of senior decision-makers said the professionalism of a potential suppliers presentation was very important or important in awarding a contract”, RSW New Business Survey
So, how do you make sure the customer walks away impressed?
The key is to give your sales team and the customer everything they need to support their conversations and create the WOW and an interactive sales tool is the backbone of this. It acts as a window into the core of your business and brings your proposition to life.
A great sales tool needs to be built around three parties:
And, it must seamlessly connect and work for all three together
1. Your Customer
Give them a personalised sales experience
This is probably the single most important element for your customer.
Firstly, they want to feel that you’re addressing their challenges and requirements specifically, and not being presented with generic information. They want to know that what you’re presenting is specifically tailored around them, their role, their needs, their business and their industry sector.
Personalisation helps with familiarity – your customers will quickly understand your proposition if it’s presented to them within a familiar format, using terminology and visuals that they understand and that resonate. This is all the more important if some of the decision-makers are not technical experts in your field.
A personalised experience is memorable – it will be much easier for your customer to remember the salient points of your proposition and be able to articulate and sell your proposition internally to other key decision-makers if you use visuals that are easy to recall. Nobody remembers a list of bullet points.
A flexible narrative
You can never second guess a customer and know exactly what they are interested in or thinking, an interactive sales tool means you don’t have to adopt a linear approach and hope that you’ve covered everything needed.
Interactivity allows you to take a different route as the conversation progresses, letting the customer steer the conversation in the direction most relevant to them. It opens areas for a conversation that perhaps previously you hadn’t thought the customer would be interested in.
Simplicity
Simplifying complex ideas and being able to articulate them clearly and simply is key to demonstrating a greater understanding of the customers’ business, challenges and where your solutions fit. It’s all too easy to think that by overcomplicating your narrative you’ll be demonstrating your deep understanding of their business.
Wrong, you don’t want to have to make your customers think hard about what it is you can do for them, that wastes time and creates risk in the customer’s mind. And equally, you want to equip them with information that they can easily relay internally to other key decision-makers within their business who you’ll need on your side to make a buying decision.
Value led not product-led
Always focus on the value you deliver for your customer. If your conversations are purely product-led it makes it harder to differentiate yourself from a competitor and you’re not addressing the underlying reasons why a customer is interested in your product or service in the first place.
Value is a key differentiator and it directly addresses the reasons why a customer came to you in the first place. It’s also important to consider that sometimes a customer doesn’t necessarily know what the true value is that they are actually after and a good sales experience should help them to understand this. This is where the conversation becomes more consultative and helps to elevate your position beyond that of just a supplier.
Make it visual, make it memorable
Images and graphics are far more memorable than just text – your brain can interpret visual information 50,000 times faster than text alone. So, it’s important that key information is visualised in a way that is familiar to the customer so they can easily recall and retell the key points of your value proposition.
You’ll also save considerable time in explaining complex ideas and processes if you can simply visualise them, giving your customer more time to ask the questions that are important to them.
A clear & logical narrative structure
This should be obvious but more often than not we find customer presentations are badly structured leading to confused messaging and a lack of a clear narrative progression.
Your conversations with customers have to follow a logical narrative progression so that you can address a customer’s issues, answer any concerns or push backs and provide them with clear answers as to why they should give you their business. This will also help them internally when they need to persuade other decision-makers within their business that you are the right choice. You’ll have armed them with a clear argument structure.
Create the WOW
Almost every company is proud of its R&D and likes to portray itself as an innovative and dynamic business. It’s not good enough to talk about it you need to live it and show it. Creating the WOW is not just about the message and demonstrating your capabilities it’s about leaving a lasting impression and that also means portraying a strong brand and using immersive visuals.
So, if you can demonstrate you understand your customer, their sector, business and unique challenges, you’ve helped them to understand where you can add value and how you can help their business in a clear simple and logical format this will go a long way towards building trust, and building trust is central to the whole sales process.
2. Your Sales Team
Clear narrative structure & sales guide
Every salesperson has a unique style and you don’t want to hamper that but at the same time you do want to ensure that nothing gets missed in conversations and that messaging is consistent across all your team.
The best way to do that is to have a clear narrative structure but one that is flexible enough for different presenter styles and which ensures that whoever uses it, important messages and arguments are not missed.
Flexibility of message
A recent study by Aberdeen.com found on average sales teams spend five working days every month searching for relevant content they need to make a sale. This is wasted time.
A well-developed sales enablement tool will be able to flex and address the needs of all of your customers no matter what job role, sector, or geography.
This is where non-linear sales tools make a difference as you’re able to personalise the conversation with different customers without having to create new sales presentations each time. You’re also able to address role specific issues within one meeting – for instance, you might have representatives from Accounts, Logistics, Operations and Technical in one meeting and you have to be able to quickly and confidently address the unique challenges and perspectives each has within the business.
Access anything, instantaneously
When a customer asks a question you have to be able to address that question then and there you don’t want to tell them you’ll have to come back to them at a later date. A digital sales enablement tool ensures that you have access to everything a customer might need whether it’s case studies, specifications, technical data, videos, PDFs etc. to cover all eventualities.
Share content instantly with your customer
As we know customers are impatient and don’t like to wait for things, if they are interested in something you need to strike. Having the ability to send them content they’ve just been looking at such as case studies, videos, technical sheets or product details as you’re discussing it is invaluable.
Not only have they got a record of everything they were interested in but a copy can also be sent to your CRM or head office so that you have this vital data too.
Online & offline
It’s not always possible to access online content when meeting customers and you don’t want to be accessing large video files during a meeting. Sales enablement tools are designed to run both online and offline, whether you have an internet connection or not you can still access all that valuable content.
Any device
You don’t want to have to tell your team or customers that they can only use an iPad or laptop to use your sales enablement tools. They should be able to access all of this great content no matter what device – iPads, smartphones, laptops, PCs – or operating systems, Windows, iOS etc. It’s all about making things easy for your team and the customer.
To sum up, a well thought out sales enablement tool with an intuitive user journey, simple (but not simplistic) visuals and a strong narrative will help to make the sales rep’s job a whole lot easier but not only that they’ll be spending a lot less time explaining what you do and how you do it so that they can focus more time on the customer’s specific needs.
Confidence is everything and if they can go into a meeting knowing they have absolutely everything they need to impress a customer that goes a long way towards creating a great first impression and building trust.
3. Your business
Data & analytics
Crucial to ongoing success and optimisation, sales enablement tools can have sophisticated tracking tools embedded which will report back on every interaction a sales rep and customer has whilst using the tool.
This isn’t about keeping tabs on what the sales team are up to but understanding exactly what the customer is interested in and what content is resonating with them. This means you can channel your efforts and budget into that content proving to be most effective
Consistency and control
An issue for Marketing is always around the consistency of message and branding. How often do your sales teams make their own presentations just before an important meeting? How can you be sure that they are on message and on brand? A well designed and constructed sales enablement tool will negate the need for them to do this as everything needed will already have been carefully built into the tool.
Single source of truth
Ensuring all your sales team have the latest documents, videos, specification sheets, case studies, whitepapers etc. can be a real challenge not to mention time-consuming.
Sales enablement tools can be connected to a central source of information, such as a CMS (Content Management System) and/or DAM (Digital Asset Management System). Any changes made in the CMS / DAM will automatically be reflected in the sales tool, both the sales and the marketing teams can be assured that only the latest, compliant information is being accessed in front of customers.
Integrations
Within your business you’ll have numerous digital platforms to support your efforts. Key amongst those will be your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System – an invaluable sales and marketing support tool. Your sales tool can connect to your CRM so that any information shared with a customer can be recorded directly back into your CRM
Knowing that your sales team has everything they need to have a productive conversation with a customer, that the customer will have access to all the information they need, and the fact that you know both parties have the latest content will give you peace of mind and confidence.
At POP we have a single-minded focus on supporting businesses at this critical phase, it’s all we do.
We work with businesses on every stage of the process from establishing what success and the perfect sales tool will look like to how it will function and support you, your sales team and customers as well as being aligned to your wider business objectives. This is backed up by our agile design and development methodology to deliver, integrate and constantly improve on your sales tool.
Our sector expertise covers Advanced Manufacturing, Medical Devices, Pharma, Construction and The Built Environment and Technology.
If you’d like to have an initial exploratory call then you can talk to me directly on the number below or just email
Ecosurety has announced the first round recipients of the Exploration Fund. The Ecosurety Exploration Fund invests £1 million in projects that aim to reduce environmental impact of packaging, batteries or WEEE through innovation or research.
Reuse Network, Impact Recyling, Impact Solutions and London Waste and Recycling Board share a £500k boost to its UK projects in the first round of the fund.
Skylark is proud to have partnered with the fund to create four films promoting its winners. We travelled to Scotland, London and Newcastle to meet the innovators behind the projects. This is just one step closer to moving our society to a more greener, sustainable future.
The Fit for reuse project will help tackle the growing mountain of old or unused electricals being recycled or landfilled. And this provides more high quality, repaired electrical goods to the people that really need them.
Led by the Reuse Network, this project is set to move significantly more EEE up the waste hierarchy.
Led by Impact Recycling, the BOSS 2D project is building on proven innovation used to sort rigid plastics. In doing so, it vastly improves the recycling of flexible plastic film.
If plastic film can be accurately and efficiently sorted into uncontaminated, material-specific waste streams, they can be recycled instead of incinerated.
BOSS 2D will enable that to happen for the first time.
The Maximising recycling from purpose-built flats project is working to address an age-old problem. How to increase capture and quality of recyclable materials from households that don’t have standard kerbside collections?
Led by the London Waste and Recycling Board, this project will trial new interventions and infrastructure.
Lithium-ion battery technology is likely to be the keystone in moving our society to a greener, more sustainable future. But without effective recycling technology in place, we are fast approaching a significant problem. This is due to the scarcity of raw materials and destructive mining techniques.
Led by Impact Solutions, CellMine could prove to be the Holy Grail solution.
Congrats to the first round of Exploration Fund Winners! Find out more about the Ecosurety Exploration Fund.
Back in the day (and by the day, I only mean a few years ago), your email address used to be the passport to the internet; now it’s your mobile number, your mobile and apps that unlock everything. The average global Android user spent 27% of waking hours on mobile in April 2020, up from 20% in 2019 (App Annie).
A mobile is in peoples’ hands every day – in lockdown we’re carrying it into every room! It’s actually harder to keep people off mobile than driving them to it. Therefore, we need to ensure we’re making the most of the various ecosystems that brings with it. Brands need to start thinking of mobile as a way of life, not just a device or a screen size.
CRM is at the core of apps
Customer relationship management (CRM) is at the core of apps – a good app becomes a customer’s focal point for interaction with a brand. For example, apps like Amazon and Sainsbury’s Nectar etc used to be an evolution of a website. Now they are the default destination for looking up anything to do with your history with the brands, as well as the easiest way to use their services.
In today’s day and age, it’s the easiest way to start and build personalised conversations, so brands can use it for rewards; changing behaviour; keeping users sticky; building trust; and getting a good understanding of the user’s needs and order history. I say easiest. You can’t just bosh out an app and assume some Field of Dreams magic will happen. You still have to prove the value to your audience; you have to put their needs ahead of your own gains.
And those gains are plentiful! As well as making your customers more sticky, more likely to keep using your service over others, you will start unlocking insight into their spending patterns, their hard transactional data and their behaviour and preferences.
Prove your app deserves space on their phone
Customers are so much more likely to use an app if it’s good. If it’s seen as a bit rubbish, they won’t want to interact with it or share it. Same with a mobile website – don’t immediately force people to get your app or ram it down their throats. Deliver them a great experience on the site first, prove your app deserves the space on their phone and that it will be useable. The worst thing you can do is put more barriers between your users and the content they want.
The key is to make sure you’re understanding the user’s ecosystem. Align your needs with customers and don’t put any barriers in the way. People want a frictionless experience – sending you from an email to an app where passwords are already stored and customers can use single sign on, etc. Customers expect the mobile experience to be seamless and relevant. It’s your job to facilitate that. Helping them is ultimately going to help you. A good customer experience means your customers will spend more. According to a research from PWC, 86% of buyers are willing to pay more for a great customer experience.
Don’t do it just because you can
We do a lot of cool stuff with mobile, in email particularly. People on their mobiles are more likely to be able to see all the interactive innovative coding. That being said, we make sure to never do it just because we can. Time and again I see people using ‘in-email’ technology because it’s available, not because it improves the user journey. It’s about the fundamentals of the next course of action for a user, and if that’s using mobile then great. Every interaction a customer has with your brand will inform their experience, regardless of which channel this interaction occurs on.
It’s also easy when thinking about mobile experiences to ignore or forget about the journey for desktop users. People want to be able to have the experienced tailored to them wherever they are. In email that means not scrimping on designing a less interactive experience; play to the strengths that a bigger screen has. For web-based journey’s, make sure the right tools are in place for people to effectively complete that journey outside of the app you’ve spent so much time developing. Whether that’s making sure the login process is as smooth and frictionless as possible or that the service you are offering is just as easy and exciting, don’t keep forcing people down the channel you’ve chosen.
Mobile devices and apps have quickly become a huge part of our everyday lives. It’s a wonderful opportunity for businesses to strengthen brand loyalty, recognition and streamline the customer experience. Just remember, while mobile is an exciting and worthwhile avenue, as with everything, you need to do it well.
Put the customer experience first, prove that you have something to offer and remember to prioritise those personalised conversations.
Rob Greenfield is an environmental campaigner, activist and adventurer.
Rob undertakes projects and adventures that highlight environmental issues and provides advice on how to lead a more sustainable life. The campaigns include Trash Me (wearing all the trash of a typical American for a month) and also growing and foraging all of his food for one whole year.
He is a keen blogger so the web design had to put a focus on this. Therefore the Blog page is clearly laid out and cleanly designed, which was one of the main objectives of this web development project.
In terms of web development, this was a custom build from scratch using my own base theme. This allows me to have complete control of the development and future updates.
I undertook all the web design and development aspects of the project in order to best showcase Rob’s work. The site is a custom WordPress build, which makes updating information and adding posts, videos and projects extremely simple.
This site runs purely on renewable energy. The hosting is through Green Geeks, a 300% green hosting platform.
Using WordPress as the Content Management System (CMS), I was able to design and build this website with the end user in mind. I used Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) in order to make the site completely manageable by the client with just a few clicks.
Bristol-based marketing agency, Seeker Digital, has been ranked 25 in the Deloitte’s UK Technology Fast 50 2020 and makes the top two for the South West region.
The Deloitte Fast 50 winners are recognised as being the fastest-growing technology companies in the UK. The Bristol-based agency has grown by an exceptional 1683% since it was founded four years ago and is the only agency to make the Fast 50 list this year.
Duncan Down, lead partner for the Deloitte UK Technology Fast 50 programme, said: “The Deloitte UK Technology Fast 50 is internationally revered as one of the most important business awards in the industry.”
“Achieving sustained revenue growth of 1683% over four years is a tremendous accomplishment. And to be second in the South West after just four years of trading makes this accolade even more exceptional.” Duncan adds.
Seeker Digital’s growth comes at a time of unprecedented turmoil, shaped by economic and political uncertainty, not to mention the challenges of a pandemic. Despite this, Seeker Digital has continued to grow as an agency thanks to its innovative use of machine learning.
Gareth Simpson, managing director of Seeker Digital says: “As with many other agencies during this current climate, we’ve seen our fair share of challenges. But our investments in tech have aided our success and survival.”
Simpson continues: “We implemented machine learning in many facets of the business to speed up our work and make it more meaningful from day one. And this is all thanks to government research and development schemes that are available to startups across the nation. The result? An operating system that’s efficient, scalable and futureproof for our business and our clients.”
Seeker Digital is keen to share its skills with the wider industry. In October 2020, the team spoke at the virtual search conference BrightonSEO, sharing their knowledge and insights with an audience of over 10,000.
Following the success and popularity of the last one, I’m thrilled to be hosting a second online discussion between authors of some of the best books on new ways of working, the future of work and self-management. It’s going to be another awesome conversation! The theme for discussion will be: New ways of working sound great! Where do we start? Grab your free ticket here and join me in the ‘fishbowl’ on 4 Nov @18.00 with:
You’ll get the most out of the event if you attend with colleagues (including leaders) and schedule a catch up after the event to discuss what landed and what you might try / change. So do invite your team along, and definitely invite your boss! You can watch a recording of the first discussion below.
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With COVID-19 meaning social distancing is the new norm, we’re seeing profound effects on our lives. Face-to-face meetings, gatherings and events aren’t possible, making this a difficult time for the general population and most industries. For many businesses, budgets are under increasing pressure as revenue streams are cut and operational and marketing methods undergo huge upheaval.
As a society, we’re worried about our health, our families’ health, our wellbeing and our job security. Now is not the time for brands to choose a hard-sell approach, or to appear to be ‘cashing in’ on – or even preying on – social insecurity, as audiences become less receptive and more critical of insincere marketing.
So how can businesses maintain those physical interactions that are so vital to customer engagement, and promote their services in as effective and relevant a way as possible?
One option for connecting with your customers is through hosting a digital event.
Digital events have become more prominent in the last few years, and offer a range of benefits:
Two of the primary forms of digital events are webcasts and webinars. The terms are often used interchangeably, but in fact, they both feature a distinctly different approach to hosting an online event.
If you want to engage with a larger audience, featuring tens or even hundreds of participants, a webcast is an ideal way to broadcast your message.
Webcasts are typically a one-way flow of information shared over the internet, delivered like a lecture or speech. In cases where there are a large number of participants, a webcast gives you the opportunity to deliver a valuable presentation with minimum disruption.
If you’re looking for a higher level of engagement with your audience, a webinar might be a better option. A webinar more closely resembles a meeting, often with fewer participants who are more involved in the content. In this two-way, interactive option, your audience can ask questions, and there’s more opportunity for you to drive direct interaction.
For the very highest level of engagement where creativity and collaboration is needed most, virtual workshops create an effective environment within the digital sphere. In ‘real-life’ face-to-face creative workshops, structure is often more fluid, but this can be difficult to achieve in an online environment. To successfully deliver a virtual workshop, you should have a clearly-defined process for organising and managing participation, and use easy-to-implement, highly intuitive technology, to smooth the delivery process.
If you’re looking to fully replicate an existing conference or event, then a virtual tradeshow could be well suited for you. Virtual tradeshows can be hosted indefinitely, taking place online with on-demand information. By using live chat options and providing customer support, your visitors can experience the same feeling of instant, responsive communication as they would in a face-to-face expo.
In a virtual tradeshow, you can host digital exhibition halls, booths and auditoriums, helping you to replicate the immersive experience of a real-life event. However, it’s worth noting that this type of event the longest lead time, and can be costly to set up.
In this blog, we look at the different types of digital events, how you can build your audience for your events, and provide some top tips for success.
Different events will attract different audience sizes and levels of engagement. Its success will often rely on the quality and number of participants in the audience you manage to attract.
Traditionally, digital events are split into two audience segments; your existing database contacts, and audiences built through new lead generation.
Unless you have a well-managed and maintained database of contacts, GDPR and other data legislation, such as CCPA, can restrict the opportunity for direct email invitations to your event. So you’ll need to check this, and consider alternative lead-generation tactics if this is the case.
Social media is a great tool for driving lead generation when used creatively, and can be supplemented through media partnerships or other paid media channels – for example, search engine advertising.
One of the greatest benefits of a webinar or a webcast is that either one can be held live or made available on-demand, depending on the platform you choose to host your event. By making an event recording available after it’s taken place, you can make connections with customers and prospects who can’t necessarily attend in real-time, or who may be researching the subject after the event has already taken place.
In fact, with any online session you’ll want to consider post-webinar activity – just as you would with a live event. Your digital session is just the beginning of potential engagement, and with strategic follow-up activity you can continue to nurture leads and maintain interest. Repackaged content following a webinar can be an ideal way to sustain the conversation with customers, as can additional ‘exclusive’ materials.
With a combination of session playback and additional content, your sessions gain additional longevity – and that means maximum impact for your brand.
At P+S, we’ve been hosting digital events for years, both for our own brand, and for our clients too. Our top tips for success include:
When it comes to digital events, our in-house team can take care of everything: from determining the strategy and execution of lead generation campaigns, to designing and copywriting your presentations and content. And it’s all tied together by our expert strategists, who’ll work with you to ensure we meet – and exceed – your expectations.
If you’d like to find out more about what type of digital event would best suit your business, and how we can help you deliver it, get in touch today, by emailing [email protected].
Paradigm shifts, the ‘next big thing’, world-changing, disruptive, next-generation, XYZ 2.0… superlatives are at home when it comes to digital technology. So, it’s not surprising that most people roll their eyes at the introduction of the next tech game-changer.
With the gift of hindsight, we can see which emerging technologies were worth the hype over the last few decades – but they’re few and far between. The home PC, and in turn the laptop, the internet, and the smartphone: for the general consumer, these are the few revolutionary technologies that have truly impacted the way we live, work, shop and socialise, paving the way for smaller evolutionary trends which dictate our behaviour.
But is it really possible to make predictions on the next big shift in tech?
Well, hold your eye-rolling for now. Because it’s likely already staring most of us in the face.
Virtual reality (VR) has the Ronseal factor: it’s a self-contained digital ‘reality’ which you can digitally interact with.
VR has been around since the late 70’s. The most commonly cited first incidence of its use is from NASA, when their artist-in-residence David Em created the first virtually navigable digital world. But today you’re more likely to find it used for a video game or perhaps a training simulation.
Augmented Reality (AR) is slightly different. Instead of being self-contained, AR superimposes virtual elements onto the real world: it augments our physical reality.
You’ll most often find AR used on smartphones and tablets, making use of the device’s camera. Those social media filters which give you dog ears or a drastic makeover? They’re a form of augmented reality. And ‘Pokémon Go’ uses AR too.
AR isn’t new, but it is being used in increasingly novel ways – and no, we don’t mean the new filters which make you look like an attractively chiselled supermodel.
AR has potential because while VR removes you from the real world, AR supplements your experience with reality – and can actually increase your engagement with the real world.
Imagine, for example, your VR headset didn’t block off your view of the real world. Instead, it’s a set of glasses, much like a normal set of eyeglasses, but provided a digital overlay of useful information. As a construction worker, you could look at a site and immediately be presented with spatial calculations which could help you cut materials to size without needing a measuring tape. As a surgeon, you’d be able to see your patients’ vitals in front of you, without even turning your head. As a consumer, you’d be presented with information about the materials which make up the clothing you’re about to buy.
All these are real examples – albeit mostly in their infancy. But they have incredible potential to become true game-changers with the right thinking, creativity and application.
Through a combination of enhanced engagement and the presentation of useful information, AR’s possibilities are limitless.
We could go on about the complexities, challenges and intricacies of AR, but instead we’ll keep it snappy, as you’re busy holding down the fort in the real world.
Instead, let’s do a quick summary of AR today:
· AR won’t replace computers
While AR may displace some computers, there’s merit keeping most of them. For example, while some companies have experimented with the addition of an AR dashboard in (mostly luxury) cars, this is unlikely to become the reality for the general public – who needs another distraction while trying to navigate rush-hour traffic? A satnav is plenty enough.
· AR is platform agnostic
AR isn’t owned by Apple, Android or Microsoft: its technology can be used in combination with any of the Big Three (and any other brand, for that matter) as long as the device itself is compatible.
• AR is still in its discovery phase
While we’re already using AR on smartphones, this is unlikely to be its final form – the screens simply aren’t big enough for us to appreciate its full potential. There’s so much scope for AR to play with all our senses: haptic feedback (pressure sensing) could be used for us to more accurately ‘interact’ with virtual elements; eye-tracking could ensure whatever information we need in our peripheral remains in constant view; geo-location and movement tracking can even further blur the lines between the physical and digital. In all likelihood, the vehicle for delivering AR experiences will depend on its context and use case – and that’s really exciting.
• AR could see new tech behemoths emerge
The companies who use AR to its full advantage could well usurp many of the larger, well-established players who ignore it. This may seem overzealous, but in 2000, who could have guessed where Microsoft, IBM, or even Facebook would be today?
If technology’s history has taught us anything, it’s that when a new piece of revolutionary technology comes along, it’s true magic is revealed when it collides with culture. It’s the crucial intersection between technology and the arts which offers the most potential.
Right now, the first wave of AR applications sit in two camps: utilitarian or ‘just for fun’. What we’re seeing today is not dissimilar to the very beginnings of an App Store.
The next wave will come when vehicles for delivering AR experiences gain traction, such as the AR glasses we mentioned above (Snapchat, in fact, launched ‘Spectacles’ as far back as 2016). Not only will we see utilitarian use cases strengthen, we’ll also see AR branch out into new markets.
From seeing how much fuel your car has left just by looking at it, or receiving real-time walking directions without ever having to look down at your screen; from your phone notifications appearing in your periphery, to shopping for new clothes seamlessly without ever having to try them on, thanks to a new AR mirror that superimposes new styles onto your live reflection.
These new applications will go beyond making life more convenient: they’ll start to build the standards behind the tech, and ignite discussions about how our technologies ‘talk’ to each other.
As for the third wave… That comes down to data.
Now is the perfect time for brands to get ahead of the game when it comes to using AR in ways that will truly inspire and engage their audiences.
There are limitless opportunities. Why not contact us today at [email protected] to discuss your goals with our team.
This experimental interactive short by filmmaker Ru Howe is one of the first films crafted with trailblazing technology from Bristol based start up stornaway.io which lets filmmakers create story game experiences easily and creatively without coding. Released at Immersive Encounters this week, you can watch it here.
Part funny vlog, part game, the viewer gets to follow Wolfie all over Bristol, on multiple paths through the city – encountering and re-encountering memorable characters across two timelines.
Behind Howe’s signature jump cut editing and Wolfie’s wide eyed vlogging are layered some wonderfully meditative moments and conversations.
Life Moves Pretty Fast was made hand in hand with the creation of Stornaway.io itself. Originally mapped out on Howe’s kitchen wall with pieces of paper, he and producer Kate Dimbleby used the creative production process to design and prototype an authoring tool which would put the creative process at the heart of stornaway.io‘s revolutionary drag and drop vision.
The film was shot in 2 days with a cast and crew of professional friends on a minimal budget.
Life Moves Pretty Fast is designed to be watched and replayed multiple times – there are over 40 minutes of gameplay (if you find all the secret paths!) but allow yourself 15-20 minutes to take Wolfie through 2-3 different journeys of discovery.
If you are a filmmaker or business interested in making your own interactive content, please contact [email protected] or go to the website and sign up for a free 30 day trial and discounted licenses
https://www.lifemovesprettyfast.io
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