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English Microsoft HoloLens and the augmented future of Super Bowl
Just two days ago took place one of the most important and awaited annual events in the United States: all America gathered in front of the TV to watch the traditional Super Bowl.
Super Bowl means sport fans with their eyes on the TV, and, as a consequence, small and big brands racing to have a place in the advertising broadcasted during the event to be noticed.
Microsoft, being also one of NFL (National Football League) sponsors, found a truly original way to be part of the awareness race: the company left the Americans speechless with a video showing Super Bowl as never seen before, with the promise of making this a reality soon.
Imagine to get ready like you are about to see the event live: you dress up with your team’s colors, you wait for your friends to meet at your house…and then you can just sit comfortably on your living room’s sofa, watching Super Bowl as it was anyway in front of your eyes. This is what the designers at Microsoft imagined it could happen if using HoloLens technology and augmented reality, and they released a video about it:
In the movie they show some examples of the application of augmented reality to the Super Bowl night: in addition to a wider TV screen, there are holograms of the players, and the viewers can watch replays on their table or 3D live recreations of the match’s data.
As we already know, HoloLens technology isn’t yet available to the public, but soon it will become part of our daily life. Saying it with the words of Brian Rolapp, the executive vice president of media for the NFL: “This stuff is coming; it’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when”.
- Pubblicato il Advertising @en
Train to be a Jedi through augmented reality with Star Wars’ new official app!
It’s “your official mobile connection to a galaxy far, far away”: these are Disney’s words for presenting the new official Star Wars app, released just few days ago.
Freely available for Android and iOS, the new application will fill all the famous sci-fi saga’s fans wih marvel: did you always dream of inserting Darth Vader’s quotes in the middle of your conversations, or perhaps to learn how to fight with lightsabers, or, even more, to take a space-themed selfie? You will find all these in the new Disney app, and also a countdown to the release of the movie and all the news and videos about it.
But why this is interesting also for this blog? Easy: to give the users an unforgettable experience, part of the app uses augmented reality!
In fact the most exciting and engaging feature, the minigame “Force trainer”, provides the possibility of training with the typical Star Wars lightsabers: you will be able to train as a Jedi simply using your smartphone as a sword until you are a true pro!
Still talking about augmented reality, another feature of the app makes possible to unblock 3D characters from the movie: their figures could be projected in the real world, helping the users to immerse completely in the saga atmosphere.
All this, of course, doesn’t miss a social part: through the app it’s possible to create a personal profile and to become part of the growing community.
It seems the news is not stopping there: Disney ends its presentation with the sentence “Always in motion is the future. This app will continue to grow, evolve, and become more powerful than you can possibly imagine”.
This makes us hope that in the future there will be expansions of the app: let’s wait and…may the Force be with you! 😉
- Pubblicato il Advertising @en, Augmented reality @en
Beauty industry and Augmented Reality: Sephora’s new digital strategy
Have you ever thought to the perfect bond between beauty industry and Augmented Reality? Probably there’s no technology more suitable for trying on make-up and learning how to use it, and Sephora seems to know this very well.
Some months ago (June 2014) the company launched in its shops an Augmented Reality mirror that was adding the make-up to the customers’ face; this made the choice of the right product easier for everyone, who could see live the colors and shades on the skin.
The video below is right about this functionality:
The study of sales and trends highlighted how video is huge in the beauty industry: it seems that, especially when talking about millennials, sales widely increase when there are multimedia contents. Sephora, after analyzing data, decided to use this occasion and to experiment with Augmented Reality. Through the app “Sephora-to-go”, the customers will be able to get augmented content just focusing on the faces of more than nine brands’ founders, including Kat Von D and Laura Mercier.
After scanning the images, the customers will see product videos, interviews, images and YouTube playlists, and the links to Sephora’s site for every product, so it will be easy to purchase directly from the app.
Augmented Reality is a part of Sephora’s new digital strategy. It includes also the app The Pocket Contour Class that, uploading a selfie, analyze the shape of the face and gives tutorials on that base, and the so-called Beacons, part of the app Sephora-to-go that reminds the customers special promotions, birthday month benefits, and get a reminder to take advantage of in-store services like mini-makeovers.
- Pubblicato il Advertising @en, Augmented reality @en
Experenti and San Benedetto together to augment water bottles packaging
As you probably already know, Experenti is a company working with Augmented Reality and Experiential Marketing; this means that we help our clients to make their promotional strategies unforgettable, giving to the user not only the essential information about the product or the service, but also gifting him a true experience through Augmented Reality.
We already recommended to you our Press Kit, which you can download and then use to try our app (free and available for Android and iOS) and get an idea of our work; nonetheless, today we add a new project that we just ended: it’s the work that Experenti made for the famous company San Benedetto.
Our intervention was in range of the promotion of Aquavitamin, non-alcoholic drinks with high content of vitamins in San Benedetto water, and consisted in the creation of a mobile app and of the relative Augmented Reality tags for the product. Aquavitamin’s advertising has been printed on the plastic of water bottles’ package and, once you download and start the Aquavitamin app, you just have to focus it and enjoy your advert experience: all the colored little bottles will appear in front of us through the smartphone’s screen and you will be able to go along and choose the one you want to know more about.
Working with us, San Benedetto found a highly engaging modality of promotion for their Aquavitamin, and also a way of giving all the information about it: colored images and videos will be available on the mobile devices of every San Benedetto customer.
You want to know something more? Watch our explanatory video:
- Pubblicato il Advertising @en, Augmented reality @en, Experenti @en
Visual Art and Augmented Reality: Curioos’ new app and a bit of Van Gogh
Thanks to the diffusion of smartphones and new technologies, Augmented Reality and Experiential Marketing are every day more spread and used in advertising.
A new example of creative use of these two elements had been added to the case histories some days ago: the platform Curioos, a digital art marketplace helping artists to print and sell their works, launched its new augmented reality app.
Do you still doubt about buying that painting because you are not sure how it will look on your living room wall? Finally, you will have the possibility to try it before the purchase. It will suffice to download the app, print a code that will be sent to you when you request it and to hang it up to your wall, where you would like to see the artwork. Focusing the scene with your smartphone you will see the painting appear.
This news tells a lot about what is the direction that art marketing (and not just that) is taking in last times: while the channels that until some years ago were essential are turning in just secondary parts of brand advertising, new communication frontiers are emerging. Not anymore simple descriptions of the products, but true, vivid experiences.
We know this very well in Experenti: it is not a case that some of the example tags in the Press Kit (Don’t you have it yet? Download it here) are dedicated especially to art and its presentation.
Follow us in the visit of Van Gogh exhibition: you just have to scan his famous “Starry Night” and load the content. When you will hit “play” the WOW experience will start.
Now maybe you want to visualize some design products, or even show your architecture projects in 3D.
This is possible, now and easily.
Experenti: we help your contents becoming an adventure.
- Pubblicato il Advertising @en, Augmented reality @en, Experenti @en, Museum
Microsoft presents their new AR headset: a first look at HoloLens
Some days ago a new augmented reality headset was added to the famous trio Google Glass, Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear VR: Microsoft, during its worldwide streaming event “Windows 10: Next Chapter”, presented various projects that will be developed in next months. Among the others (not less than Windows 10 and the new Microsoft’s browser) there’s a particular one which is very interesting to us: we are talking about the suite of augmented reality software called Windows Holographic and the related augmented reality headset, named HoloLens.
The Redmond company didn’t use the words “augmented reality” but “holograms”, still we know what that means: this will probably be the yet-missing mainstream AR set. In fact, at the moment Google Glass has just few AR apps, while Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear VR are more centered on virtual reality. HoloLens seems to be finally a true AR headset, which puts in communication our daily world with the virtual world.
As Microsoft’s Alex Kipman said: “Until now, we’ve immersed ourselves in the world of technology, but what if we could take technology and immerse it in our world?”
Kipman didn’t describe in depth HoloLons technology, but hinted that they are more sophisticated than the other headsets around: e.g. they create the illusion of depth showing to each eye a different plain image. There’s more: first, it seems it will not use markers as e.g. QR codes; second: the headset itself is very close to a pair of normal glasses, so definitely wearable and light (and why not? – even classy).
During the presentation event, Microsoft’s executives Joe Belfiore, Terry Myerson and Alex Kipman showed some examples of everyday use for HoloLens: how to adjust a broken pipe, make a Skype call directly on a wall and also how to build Minecraft buildings anywhere we want. There was also a demo on how to sculpt 3D printable models. These uses open this technology to almost every kind of people, making HoloLens, as we said before, the first mainstream AR headset; we are sure that this new product, with the related software, will be a success.
But this powerful techonology, of course, can be used even on higher levels: in fact, last but not least, Jet Propulsion Laboratory of NASA is working with Microsoft to see if they can use holograms in scientific research.
It’s not strange, in these times, to read on the web users saying that sci-fi is here. Yes, and it seems it just started.
Watch a video:
- Pubblicato il Advertising @en, Architecture, Augmented reality @en, Experenti @en, Industry, Museum, Publishing, Tourism, Training in Realtà Virtuale