As our fascination with Augmented Reality grows, so does some great ways to make good marketing use of this amazing technology. Not long ago, Amanda Le (our Augmented Reality Expert and speaker at imarketingsf) was visiting Japan at the time of the release of this Sunshine Aquarium penguin campaign and said that people were going crazy over this latest AR experience in Tokyo.
Now here are some stats that might perk you up. HAKUHODO Tokyo reports that the result was: “Attendance at the Sunshine Aquarium increased 152% over the previous month despite no change in exhibition content. People who downloaded the App spent on average more than 9 minutes at a time playing with it. More than 32% of users opened the app more than 7 times and 93% of users planned to recommend it to friends/families. Penguins brought not only people to the Aquarium, they also brought smiles.”
So what’s to be learned from this? Entertainment sells? People need to be led? People like penguins? Probably, all of this is true but perhaps the real take-away is that Augmented Reality DOES have a place in the marketing mix.
We look forward to learning much more about this on Nov. 5. Steve Dietz, from 900 lbs of Creative will be showing off some of his accomplishments with AR at his 10:00 keynote. And soon after, we can hear from Amanda Le from Metaio and Shenna Coleman of NextPage as they clue us in as to how it’s done. It’s possible that we’ll find that this technology is well within reach and it’s time to start playing!