Choose Your Next Reality: Creating Immersive Brand Experiences with AR and VR - Part 1

Imagine, if you will...you're walking down the street in a remote city. No reservations, no itenerary, no plans really. You see a packed restaurant to your left. Looks enticing. Without typing anything, its Yelp review pops up...followed by OpenTable's reservation system. Now you have dinner plans. After dinner, you leave the restaurant and grab an Uber the same way. While in the car, you see a hotel, followed by Tripadvisor and Kayak...you get the idea. The point being, the world around us is full of search queries and data points that we can use...if we have the right tools.

Augmented Reality. What is this? Augmented reality has been around for a while, though it has definitely matured since its inception. In its most elementary form, one would take a picture of an object they found intriguing or didn't understand, only to research it later - Analog Search Photography. As technology evolved, people were able to take pictures and search via a single device - Google + phone cameras. Then Google created a short lived (though not "officially" sunset) app called Google Goggles. This app provided high level and/or pricing information of certain objects in near real time. It was mainly used to do SKU lookups to make sure one was getting the best price. This technology paved the way for QR Codes and a whole other retail specific apps that worked more efficiently.

Then came Google Glass. The promise of Google Glass - and of the upcoming Microsoft offering, the Hololens, is to expand the range of searchable objects to include places and people...not in "near real time" but in actual real time...right in front of your face. These wearable technologies aim to incerease the user's level of interaction with the outside world.

The Hololens purports to offer search and interactive images projected onscreen. The possibilities of interacting with virtual images are limitless.

You don't have to reinvent the wheel to take advantage of this technology, however. One of the most fascinating inmovations in AR launched this week. Perhaps you've heard of a little app called Pokemon Go. As of this posting, this app has catapulted Nintendo into a leading contender in mobile gaming (not to mention a top trending hashtag #PokemonGo) in less than a week! This app is the perfect example of how AR can help your business. This uses your phone camera and geolocation systems to guide the player through a real life game - enhanced with digital characters, naturally. For those unfamiliar with the game, its purpose is simple: to catch 'em all. This game directs players to walk around town collecting creatures. Simple. And with its portability and purpose, its getting gamers off the couch and facilitating a new active lifestyle.

But why does this matter? Nintendo, and the AR market in general are moving into a deep level of customer and vendor engagement - on a peer to peer level. The UI is designed to be easily accessible, agile and fun - making for a pleasant customer experience.

What's interesting is that the technology works on a software layer, using existing hardware and mobile OS platforms. What that means is the tech is easy to use and deploy for your business, provided you deploy the correct strategy.

The fact that this tech exists at ALL is a game changer whether you choose to participate or not. The next post will discuss these strategies more in depth, along with an exploration of VR tech as well.

What's interesting is that the technology works on a software layer, using existing hardware and mobile OS platforms. What that means is the tech is easy to use and deploy for your business, provided you deploy the correct strategy.

Questions? Comments? We're here to help... sound off below! :-)