How AR is Making Marketing More Personal and Engaging

There are a number of ways that companies are implementing marketing campaigns using augmented reality (AR) apps. Here are a few examples:

• Product visualization: AR can be used to allow customers to visualize products in their own environment. This can be helpful for products that are difficult to visualize, such as furniture or home appliances. For example, Ikea has an AR app that allows customers to see how different pieces of furniture would look in their homes.
• Instructions and tutorials: AR can be used to provide customers with instructions and tutorials on how to use products. This can be helpful for products that are complex or difficult to use. For example, Lego has an AR app that allows customers to see how to build their sets.
• Games and experiences: AR can be used to create games and experiences that are fun and engaging for customers. This can help to build brand awareness and loyalty. For example, Coca-Cola has an AR app that allows customers to play a game where they collect virtual cans of Coke.
• Discounts and promotions: AR can be used to offer customers discounts and promotions. This can help to drive sales and traffic to businesses. For example, McDonald's has an AR app that allows customers to scan food items to see if they are on sale.

AR marketing campaigns can be monetized in a number of ways. Some common methods include:

• Selling advertising space: AR apps can be used to sell advertising space to businesses. This can be a lucrative source of revenue for app developers.
• Charging for access to content: AR apps can be used to charge customers for access to content, such as games, experiences, or tutorials. This can be a good way to generate revenue from customers who are willing to pay for premium content.
• Data collection: AR apps can be used to collect data about customers, such as their demographics, interests, and spending habits. This data can be valuable to businesses that want to better understand their customers and target them with relevant marketing messages.

AR marketing is still in its early stages, but it has the potential to be a powerful tool for businesses. As AR technology continues to develop, it is likely to become increasingly common in marketing campaigns.

For reference (company and app launch year):

• IKEA Place: 2017
• LEGO AR Studio: 2015
• Coca-Cola Freestyle AR Experience: 2016
• McDonald's Happy Meal AR App: 2019
• Sephora Virtual Artist: 2017

Hello Alexa, part 2

It's been a while since I last posted about Amazon's Alexa being accessible through the Amazon retail shopping app. And while Amazon's generic web search is fine and comes nowhere near the voice-to-search recognition that Google search offers, Amazon is missing the point about monetizing the index system that they have for the millions of products listed on their shopping exchange.

Wouldn't it be better if instead of matching to keywords (mostly nouns) in a user's speech search, that Amazon served up relevant recommendations instead.

Say for example, you ask Alexa (in the Amazon app):

"recommended wines for dinner" or 
"recommended red wines" or 
"recommended fruity wines"

Alexa currently offers no recommended product searches for any of the wines or wineries that sell on Amazon. Well, it certainly can't recommend wines that's for sure. But it could if Amazon incorporated product label text, certified wine reviews, or wine manufacturer descriptions in what can be searched. The words "recommend" and "recommended" are not in Alexa's lexicon of search knowledge. Perhaps this is too advanced a concept for Amazon's AI.

You can still just say "red wine" or "white wine" and those options will show up with valid results in the Amazon app.

Voice searching the Amazon product engine should be no different than typing in the search query. 

The results are mixed, however.

You can say "services for window washing near me" and Amazon's app will show for "Hire a Window Cleaner" (Amazon Home Services) as the top result. That's spot on. The third result (same screen on a smartphone) shows "Window Cleaning" (Amazon Home Services), also a valid result to what I was voice searching for.

Maybe this is a phased rollout for voice search queries.

Best App Deployments of 2011

Google+ Hangouts enable free audio/visual conference calling with a group of up to 10 people. There's a 45-minute timer on the hangouts, so if you intend to be on it for longer than that, be sure there's a warm body who can let the app know that you're still around even when you're busy cooking up a holiday dinner. Check out the "Hangouts with extras" beta features. 

Amazon's Price Check lets shoppers at brick and mortar retailers use a smart device (iPhone, Android O/S) to enter the barcode of an item and purchase it from Amazon.com with a $5-off incentive. This takes comparison shopping to a whole new handheld level.

Move over iPen. Wacom has you beat with its Bamboo Paper app (for desktop or iPad) and its ergonomically-designed stylus for the iPad. Not only does it handle notetaking with handwriting recognition, it can also be used for sketching and presenting notes, ideas and sketches with others. Download these from Wacom's Bamboo Dock.

JPM Chase and Wells Fargo are among the front runners of the banking industry that are creating apps to make it easier for customers to transact with them using smartphone apps. Wells Fargo's Mobile Banking app allows users to check their available balances, view account activity, pay bills, make transfers between accounts or to other Wells Fargo customers, and locate the nearest Wells Fargo or Wachovia ATMs and office locations from an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. Chase QuickDeposit allows customers to deposit checks with an iPhone, iPad or Android device with just two camera clicks. Whatever online banking features customers already use to manage their finances with desktop systems, the momentum within the banking industry for secure, mobile banking apps is bound to increase significantly.

Happy Star Rewards (available on iPhone and Android platforms), a location-based rewards app by parent company CKE Restaurants, invites users to check in when they dine at either Carl's Jr or Hardee's. The first check in earns the user a spin on the "Wheel of Awesome" for a chance to win free or discounted food, gift cards, and merchandise from participating partners. Winners can immediately redeem the prize or within seven days. While the location-based app released early last year, it still totally one-ups Foursquare, Facebook Places, and other check in apps. File this one under retention marketing.

Runner-ups:

Unable to sell off its mobile operating system webOS and no longer a manufacturer of the tabletware that houses this code, HP's webOS and its support resources are now part of the open source community where devs can use and modify freely.

Popplet, a web-based collaborative mindmapping tool. Think of popples as little buckets containing text, photos, and whatever else people share online. Free version only allows you to edit one popplet and the paid version allows you to create unlimited popplet. Downsides: Flash-based for desktop computers, still in beta, clunky interface.

CarrierIQ's hidden app collects device performance data from millions of Android, Blackberry, and Nokia mobile phones. Is that really a bad thing? What R&D entity wouldn't want to know more about their users and how their devices are being used? It is a gray area in US wire tapping laws since CarrierIQ's app engages in passive wiretapping for monitoring/recording data traffic. Unless these class action lawsuits can prove that CarrierIQ deliberately altered the traffic with the app, there's really not much that any user can do about it besides buy a mobile phone that doesn't have CarrierIQ's rootkit installed such as a Windows 7 Phone. So it tracks location data, big deal. How else would a mobile device be able to triangulate the best celltower reception or allow a user to check into their favorite retail shop?