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                  “When it comes to advertising, I think WebAR is really exciting,” says Loughan. “The fact it gives marketers really deep brand connec- tions with their audiences and, most importantly, at scale.”
Unbnd has been working with brands to incorporate AR into cam- paigns. He says out-of-home (OOH) settings and retail spaces have become common ways in which brands are using the technology.
The company recently worked with Samsung across all of its national retailers to showcase new products in 3D to customers. Some of the products hadn’t even arrived on Australian shores but customers were able to scan a QR code and read all the details about it. This led to an uptick in pre-orders.
The next phase for AR, he says, will be bringing machine learning into the picture to allow it to real-world recognise objects through a camera view on phones. Almost like how Shazam recognises music.
At RYOT Studio, Crocker says the team encourages clients to take digital campaigns from 2D to 3D. The last year has significantly accel- erated the adoption among clients of some the technologies she has been working with.
“I’d say the main difference is that tech used to take a very passive role, commonly as an amplification tool for physical-first experi- ences,” she says. “Now, because we have all of this tech at our fingertips, the mindset has shifted to look at situations with a digital-first approach.”
Over Christmas, the team worked with Officeworks to bring Santa to life through webAR. Social distancing restrictions made in-store Santa photos impossible. Instead they leveraged the technology to create a virtual Santa.
“Simply by scanning a QR code in-store at point-of-sale or using our webAR URL, users could take a photo with a virtual AR Santa and print through Officeworks at home or in-store to keep the holiday tradition alive,” says Crocker.
AR isn’t the only technology being used to create more immersive experiences. Agencies are now investing in state-of-the-art technology to take their clients’ events and campaigns to the next level. Everything from virtual and extended reality to 3D rendering, blockchain and artificial intelligence are becoming more readily available.
“We have two fully equipped, state-of-the-art 5G studios at our disposal which are a great in-house resource to help create incredible experiences for our clients,” says Crocker. “They’re even fitted with LED screens for projection imagery, allowing actors and editors to change CGI [computer-generated imagery] in real-time.”
“We’ve survived because we’ve seen what’s coming and we’ve acted early.”
Caleb Bush MD, GPJ
RYOT Studio recently worked with Doritos on a global campaign to use blockchain technology to deliver augmented reality Doritos shapes in customers’ local areas. This enabled them to play along to capture the objects and to go in the draw to win a PS5 console.
In the UK, RYOT Studio worked with extended reality (XR) artists to bring fashion shows to life. Fabric of Reality used virtual real- ity to step inside the mind of designers and experience the sto- ries behind collections. Designers were paired with XR artists so users could virtually interact in a fashion show. The results saw 4.6 million event streams and seven million video views.
GPJ has also been investing in different technologies prior to COVID-19. Bush says the global experiential firm set up a space called CoLab two years ago.
Since then the agency has used extended reality similar to how The Mandalorian was shot using LED stage production technology. “As far as we’re aware, it had never been used in Australia and New Zealand in a corporate environment,” says Bush.
“It gave us the ability to have people sitting in offices around the world all look like they were sitting together on a stage set in Sydney. We got to beam in different product specialists and people from differ- ent markets, but create one clean screen view for the customer.”
  INVNT Studio TEDxSydney
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