If Hamlet could talk to marketers about interactive technology, what might he say? In Act III Scene II of the famous play, the doomed Dane implores a group of actors to "suit the action to the word, the word to the action..." This advice is also applicable when it comes to how technology is used in marketing and advertising. The idea must come first and then get matched with the appropriate platform, rather than the other way around.
A lot of carts are being put before the horse by clients who approach us with possible assignments that begin with whatever the technical flavor-of-the-month is making the news. "Let's do an iPhone application!" "We have to have a Facebook page!" Are we twits if we don't tweet? Am I a clog if I don't blog? Sure, these solutions can be effective marketing tools, but only if they make sense in telling the brand story.
One popular recent trend is augmented reality. Not to be confused with alternate reality, augmented reality, or AR, is essentially combining the real world with digitally created images, which can be used to form an engaging marketing campaign. To illustrate what it can do, here are some of the more interesting ways AR has been used to connect consumers and brands.
GE Smart Grid
Goodby Silverstein & Partners teamed with creative digital agency North Kingdom on a campaign for GE's Smart Grid. In keeping with the cutting edge nature of GE's commitment to alternative energy, and its program to upgrade the American power grid, a site was created that not only allows you to print out a special "Solar Panel Marker" and manipulate a 3-D landscape when you hold it up to your webcam, but also allows users to control the environment using sound. You can, for example, blow into your computer's microphone to spin the wind turbines that you see on your monitor. According to Mike Geiger, chief digital officer at Goodby, the site has already generated more than 500,000 visits in less than three months, with an average time of 7-8 minutes spent exploring the Smart Grid. The video demo itself has garnered more than 1 million views on YouTube.
Topps 3D Live
Baseball cards will never be the same. With Topps 3-D Live, you hold special trading cards in front of your webcam to see a three-dimensional avatar of your favorite player that you can interact with. You can even play pitching, batting and catching games with your virtual player using your keyboard. According to a recent New York Times article by Eric A. Taub, the impetus for Topps using AR is to make baseball cards relevant again, since statistics on any player can now be googled in an instant. In the same article, Michael Eisner, whose company owns Topps, talks about how 3-D Live "...conjures up an emotional response that has a feel good, Proustian kind of uplift..."
Next page >>
