Inventory: Top 10 classic cases of AR marketing

The magic of AR is that anyone with a smartphone or tablet can access this integration of the real and digital worlds.

On the cover of an issue of Esquire magazine in 2009, Robert Downey used AR technology to promote the new movie Sherlock Holmes, which was the first AR marketing attempt in print media.

The development history of AR marketing accompanies the evolution history of AR, and entered its golden age after Pokémon Go became popular all over the world in 2016. In the past decade, especially in the past two years, many influential AR marketing cases have emerged.

The author has listed ten representatives among them for your reference.

Top 10 Kohler AR Mix Lab

Highlights: Beyond the screen, introducing AR glasses combined with intelligent interaction

Creativity coefficient: ★ ★ ★ ★

Propagation coefficient:★

Influence coefficient: ★ ★

The AR mix-and-match laboratory launched by bathroom brand Kohler is creative in that it introduces AR glasses and smart interactions. Given the limitations of screens such as mobile phones, AR practitioners have always aimed to use the real world as an interactive interface and develop products that break the limitations of screens. For example: AR smart glasses with a larger field of view, and making more natural interaction methods such as voice, gestures, and body movements the norm.

In Kohler's AR mix-and-match lab, users wear AR smart glasses and customize bathroom product components through voice and touchpad, and simultaneously project the process onto the wall to enhance consumers' shopping experience. As AR smart terminals gradually mature, they will replace mobile phone AR and become the carrier of AR marketing.

Top 9 IKEA AR Shopping Apps

Highlights: AR "pre-experience" products to reduce decision-making costs

Creativity coefficient: ★ ★

Propagation coefficient: ★ ★

Influence coefficient: ★ ★ ★ ★

IKEA, a Swedish furniture and home furnishings brand, has been working on AR for several years. Its ARKit-based AR application IKEA Place allows consumers to place products of the same specifications as real goods in designated locations before shopping, so as to experience the compatibility of the products in advance.

Pre-experience AR marketing is not uncommon nowadays, and products include cars , watches, clothing, cosmetics and other types of goods, but it is limited to technologies such as mobile phone screens, three-dimensional scene recognition and reconstruction, and cannot perfectly simulate the feeling of real products. But compared with the current two-dimensional pictures, videos and other web information, this method is undoubtedly a huge improvement, allowing retail to move from two-dimensional to three-dimensional.

The experiences of Hendry AR watches, SAIC-GM AR car viewing, and JD AR shopping are all remarkable. The reason why IKEA is chosen as the representative here is that from the current scenario, furniture products are obviously more imaginative, living environments and styles vary greatly, and personal preferences also vary greatly. The highly immersive product pre-experience is upgrading the consumption mode. Perhaps, in the near future, all products will be available for “pre-experience”.

Top 8 OPPO O-Video

Highlights: The earliest UGC AR application

Creativity coefficient: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Propagation coefficient:★

Influence coefficient: ★ ★

OPPO's Surprise Creative Shot app was launched in 2014. It supports user customization and focuses on real-scene interaction. Users can take pictures of any object and overlay videos and audio recordings. Personalization of content is one of the directions of marketing, which increases user participation and stickiness. This AR application has achieved personalization in a broad sense. It was launched as the main application of OPPO's press conference at that time, but due to factors such as the market environment and network conditions at the time, the application did not trigger a large-scale dissemination response.

However, up to now, there has been no typical case of UGC AR.

Top 7 Starbucks AR Online Workshop

Highlights: AR+New Retail, penetration in all links

Creativity coefficient: ★ ★ ★

Propagation coefficient: ★ ★ ★

Influence coefficient: ★ ★ ★

From last year to now, Starbucks in China has carried out many AR-related marketing activities . In December last year, it launched the world's largest AR coffee roasting plant in Shanghai, covering two floors and 30,000 square feet. It uses 3D object recognition technology to hide AR clues in more than a dozen key locations in the store. Customers use the AR scanning function to immerse themselves in the story of "from a coffee bean to a cup of fragrant coffee" and promote coffee culture.

During the New Year period, Alipay launched the "AR Scan" activity to allow friends to receive benefits, with millions of participants.

What is worthy of recognition about Starbucks’ AR marketing is the experiential retail that integrates the entire process, allowing AR to penetrate into every link as a tool to increase the richness of content. However, at a time when many top retail brands such as KFC , McDonald's , Hangendz, Yili , etc. are dabbling in AR marketing, Starbucks does not stand out in terms of content creativity.

Top 6 Disney Magic AR Advertising Screen

Highlights: AR+IP ignites offline scenarios

Creativity coefficient: ★ ★ ★

Propagation coefficient: ★ ★ ★

Influence coefficient: ★ ★ ★

Disney, which is famous all over the world, has its own infectiousness and communication power, and a large group of highly recognizable cartoon characters have become the best AR materials.

Disney has been launching AR advertisements since 2011. During the 83rd anniversary of Disney's Mickey Mouse, various animated characters such as Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Snow White appeared on the streets of Manhattan, New York City, the cultural center of the United States. Pedestrians standing on the floor with AR markers can interact with these classic characters and happily perform behaviors that are usually a bit "out of line". Well-known IP, advantageous locations, and creative interactions are important factors in attracting traffic to this type of AR advertising.

It is difficult to confirm whether Disney is the pioneer of AR interactive large screens, but an obvious phenomenon is that various types of AR interactive large screens have appeared in various offline places with dense traffic, such as subways, squares, museums, and exhibition halls, breaking the unilateral output of offline advertising and the passive reception of users, and increasing the sense of participation and appeal.

Top 5 AR Camera Effects for Meitu

Highlights: AR products that impact women around the world

Creativity coefficient: ★ ★

Propagation coefficient: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Influence coefficient: ★ ★ ★

Among popular AR products, AR special effects cameras represented by Meitu and Snapchat have a wide enough influence to add various cute and cool effects to people's faces, making taking photos a selfie trend. At present, this method has become popular in Meitu's series of products and various live broadcast products.

Last July, Meitu announced that it had become the first partner of Facebook AR Studio Beta early testing version, providing it with three AR camera effects.

Facebook founder Zuckerberg once said:

“In the future, artificial intelligence , AR, and the global Internet will become the core of social interaction , and AR technology will grow into the most powerful social platform within 5 to 10 years.”

This cooperation adds more entertainment attributes to social interaction. For the marketing industry, this kind of AR marketing with strong sociality, strong entertainment and high viscosity will also become the main offensive direction.

TOP 4Pepsi x Coca-Cola AR packaging

Highlights: Let marketing “carry”

Creativity coefficient: ★ ★ ★

Propagation coefficient: ★ ★ ★

Influence coefficient: ★ ★ ★ ★

The two major beverage brands, Pepsi and Coca-Cola, have never been stingy with their marketing creativity in packaging. In 2013, Coca-Cola UK cooperated with the streaming music service platform Spotify to turn the Coke bottle into a music player. Users download an AR app and scan the packaging of a Coke can to create a headset that allows them to listen to the top 50 British songs.

Pepsi launched the emoji AR can in 2017, which allows users to open different types of emoji animations through the "AR Scan" function on QQ. Coca-Cola's "nickname bottle" in 2013, "lyrics bottle" in 2014, "lines bottle" in 2015, etc., have carried out personalized brand promotion at different stages. The addition of AR elements has extended the information capacity, brand value and communication cycle of the packaging, and is currently becoming a regular AR marketing method.

Research conducted by Hayden Research Institute abroad shows that 45% of consumers will buy products after viewing 2D printed materials, while 74% of consumers will buy products after experiencing AR in the product, an increase in purchase rate of nearly 30%.

As leading brands, Coca-Cola and Pepsi play a certain role as weather vanes in the marketing field, driving the normalization of AR marketing. Each AR marketing campaign of the two brands has sparked a lot of discussion.

TOP 3 Oreo AR Game Console

Highlights: One cookie can unlock 18 games

Creativity coefficient: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Propagation coefficient: ★ ★ ★ ★

Influence coefficient: ★ ★ ★

If common mobile AR marketing is still limited to two-dimensional elements such as pictures and animations, the marketing activities launched by Oreo in collaboration with Alipay and Liangfengtai have integrated products and games, truly realizing "playable food." Oreo's multi-flavored cookies, Chocolate Knots, Chocolate Crispy Rolls and other products in different forms and layouts can unlock AR games. There are a total of 18 games with corresponding game rankings and corresponding preferential incentives.

The endorsement of super popular idol Wang Yuan is also one of the reasons why this event is so popular.

Data shows: As of now, the related topic #王源饼干游戏机# on Sina Weibo has attracted 240 million reads and 13.822 million discussions, #王源Oreo品牌推广# has 630 million reads and 35.357 million discussions, and @TFBOYS-王源’s single advertising Weibo post has been forwarded 10.19 million times, triggering a large number of fan interactions and secondary dissemination by consumers, and also set the No. 1 sales record on the snack list in history.

The Oreo AR game console can be seen as a turning point in AR marketing. After the dividends of new technologies gradually disappear, marketing will return to the competition of creativity. AR provides an effective way to unleash creativity and enhance participation. In the future, AR marketing will play a more far-reaching role in consumption upgrades and new retail.

TOP 2 Alipay AR Scan 5 Blessings

Highlights: Typical cases of new year activities

Creativity coefficient: ★ ★ ★

Propagation coefficient: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Influence coefficient: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

The biggest winner of the 2018 New Year event is undoubtedly Alipay. The "AR Ji Fu" event has surpassed any previous AR event or even any other AR event so far in terms of audience popularity. The author believes that this event also completed the national market education of AR in China, making the term "AR" no longer unfamiliar to ordinary people.

The technology of this event is mediocre, and the recognition accuracy has caused a lot of complaints, but this does not affect the attractiveness of this event. The elements of New Year, blessing, red envelopes, collection, and interaction are enough to trigger a national climax. It is not difficult to find that for a period of time afterwards, collection activities were favored by brand owners, such as: ofo .

The essence and ultimate goal of AR is to realize the superposition of virtual information in the real world, that is, everything can be "scanned". The "Fu" character that can be seen everywhere can be said to be a small progress in the daily life and normalization of recognizable objects.

TOP 1 2016 Rio Olympics QQ-AR Torch 14

Highlights: The largest AR marketing campaign ever, setting a Guinness World Record

Creativity coefficient: ★ ★ ★ ★

Propagation coefficient: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Influence coefficient: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

During the 2016 Rio Olympics, Tencent QQ launched the "QQ-AR" torch relay activity. When users scanned the torch relay poster on their friends' phones, the Olympic main torch, the Olympic main stadium and Qzai would pop up. After drinking Red Bull, Qzai would hold up the torch to light it and complete the relay. The creativity of this event in interactivity is remarkable. It integrates social interaction, participation, and new technologies into marketing, and with the popularity effect of the Olympics, it has triggered a wave of dissemination.

Data shows that the "QQ-AR" torch event covered 366 cities, 157 countries, and more than 100 million people participated worldwide. Among them, a single AR torch identification image was scanned more than 1,211,425 times in 24 hours, setting a new Guinness World Record!

According to insiders, the planning period of this event was earlier than that of "Pokemon GO" which was launched almost at the same time. It is also the first large-scale, nationwide social marketing event in the history of AR marketing.

Afterwards, "QQ-AR" became a regular entrance to mobile QQ alongside QR code scanning. Leading apps such as Alipay, Tmall , and JD.com successively added "AR scanning" entrances, which also led to AR becoming a new standard for marketing.

Currently, Facebook, Snapchat, Google , etc. are exploring AR-based marketing, allowing smartphones to enjoy augmented reality experience anytime and anywhere. It is hoped that in the next few years, more diverse and more engaging AR marketing content will appear.