Creating great AR Mobile App Campaigns -Part 2 (the Ikea 2014 AR app)

I briefly discuss the IKEA 2013 catalogue app in my last post -well, guess what? The 2014 IKEA app is out.

Consumers can place the catalogue on the floor of a room in their home, point at the catalogue with their smartphone or tablet and see how a selected sofa, area rug or other item would look in that particular spot in the room if purchased.  A great try-before-you-buy solution which makes every user part smart shopper, part interior decorator.

Integrating AR into an app can be fun and engaging, with features like 3D model creation and animation.  At its core, AR is about visualizing the environment through a combination of real environment and digital content anchored to reality. 

This is exactly the experience offered by IKEA’s AR app.  However, aside from being cool to use (and being a preventative tool for any buyer’s remorse), what is it about the app that makes it so special?  Well, it’s not just the AR aspect of the app, it’s what IKEA has done around it.

AR is not magic.  It can only do so much.  It alone cannot get the word out about an app, cannot make an app come flying on its own into your home, cannot make users download an app, cannot make an app successful.  Although IKEA is not the first furniture company to use AR in an app, it is the first one to have successfully done so.  IKEA took existing, familiar technology to develop a new experience for consumers that didn’t need to be explained, dissected or examined—just promoted—and therein lies the difference.  IKEA threw some consumer marketing muscle behind the app through videos and outreach to major online consumer media outlets, thereby generating that coveted buzzword:  buzz.

Companies need to think of the bigger picture when developing an app, incorporating not only the tech aspects but the promotional side of things too. Many brands spend large chunks of time and money on developing the app itself, only to fail to plan how it will be launched and marketed to consumers.  If a company’s app only has 100 downloads, that’s not a stellar return on investment but rather a hefty sum thrown out the window, and it’s probably a safe bet that the next app-building budget will be slashed as a result. 

 Neither existing brand awareness nor a brand’s coolness factor will guarantee app downloads without the use of marketing punch, and AR apps are no exception.

So this is the beauty of the IKEA app—and the lesson to take away here.  For a successful app, create a useful app—one with a purpose—but also create a promotional and marketing budget in parallel that will support it, draw in users and encourage app downloads.  Also, ask how such an app will help users and if AR is really the best way to go about doing it.  AR is cool, but it cannot do the heavy lifting alone.

How can agencies produce great Augmented Reality campaigns?

If you are an agency (creative, advertising, mobile or digital) and you are new to augmented reality (AR) it is not easy to decide how to convert a creative idea into a fully fledged AR app.

Where do you start? What AR components do you need? What are the ingredients for a great AR app, be it a game, a marketing app or a functional app? What would it cost and how long will it take? How do you measure the Return on Investment (ROI) for the app?

Here is are 4 pointers that you may find helpful:

1. AR DOES NOT NEED TO BE COMPLICATED

Yes, it's true. Mention AR and instinctively people conjure images of 3D objects flying out of a mobile screen with complex graphic animation. True, you could do this but...it is not always essential. Linking physical objects like a packet of cereals to a TV advert can be done easily and economically simply by using image recognition or tracking (tracking will allow you to view the video on top of the box instead of opening a new screen on your device).

2. WHAT DO YOU NEED TO CREATE A GREAT AR APP?

Here is the tricky part -there are several components you could require for an AR app depending on the complexity of what you're looking to do. Take the IKEA AR shop catalogue for 2013 for example. This catalogue has 43 individual images dotted throughout the printed edition that link to digital content. Some link to videos (if you don't have these, you will need to produce them), some link to web pages (virtual stores where you can purchase items) and others still link to 3D animated computer graphics.

The production of the AR app required:

-a Tracking SDK
-an Image Recognition SDK
-creative computer graphics content
-mobile app development
-an AR creator platform to link "virtual buttons" to actual actions within the mobile app

3. WHAT SHOULD THE APP DO?

This links to the first point..."keep it simple" is my advice. It is clear some use cases work better than others and that this varies according to who you are targeting. AR for retail and print works great. Augmenting a magazine, newspaper or catalogue offers clear, tangible benefits to the reader -you see new content that is helpful or entertaining. AR for retail apps makes sense since indoors, GPS doesn't work, so using physical objects or shop signs as pointers for the app to perform an action is a clever workaround. Scan the poster displayed in the shop window and see special offers, for example.

4. WHAT SHOULD AN AR APP COST AND TAKE TO ROLLOUT?

It depends but....simple AR apps can be developed for around $20-25,000 as a very general rule of thumb. Complex ones can easily cost $100,000+ (hence the keep it simple rule!). A marketing app will offer an intangible return in terms of brand awareness and brand loyalty. Other AR apps generate revenue and more than pay for themselves in terms of ROI: a museum app that acts as a guide (audio and video) and lets you scan the popular exhibits to get AR content when you want it, is often offered at a premium in app stores and can have a short payback period.