As the holiday season kicks off in the midst of a pandemic, consumers seek new ways to celebrate.
A recent survey from market intelligence firm Numerator found that 73% of shoppers expect to celebrate Halloween differently when compared to previous years. So how can you bring a COVID-safe experience to audiences who are practicing social distancing that still captures the excitement of the occasion?
WebAR, browser-based augmented reality, allows Trick or Treaters to instantly experience the fun and excitement of Halloween from any location — without the friction of downloading an app. This year brands can captivate audiences with interactive AR costume experiences that bring the world to life in ways previously unimaginable.
Trick or Treat with WebAR
Every trick-or-treat begins with a purchase, whether it’s a Halloween costume, props, décor, or savory candy. In previous years, this would mean a trip to the local shop, mall or big box stores. This year, how can marketers reach their audiences?
To name a few of our favorite initiatives, Hershey’s is teaming up with supermarkets to create candy-centric displays, and Candy startup Zolli Candy is working with Christmas tree company Treetopia to set up “candy trees” for touchless trick-or-treating. These examples show how fun real-life activations using AR can exponentially increase a brand campaign’s reach.
Rather than waiting for your audience to arrive, WebAR makes it possible to bring the activation to your audience wherever they are. Using patented image recognition technology, Geenee’s software can recognize candy bars, packaging, logos and more to activate interactive experiences, show reseller locations, and include direct response E-commerce.
Source: Gabriel, Rene and Mapes, Dan: The Spatial Web: How Web 3.0 Will Connect Humans, Machines, and AI to Transform the World
A Universal Visual Browser to Activate Halloween
In addition to advanced image recognition and launching an activation from the browser, WebAR immerses your audience in the Spatial Web, the three dimensional internet. It allows audiences to interact and transact, enabling brands to monetize in all three dimensions.
AR costumes and decorative products can be virtually dropped into any home as a Halloween fashion show, or personalized shopping experience. Select a custom costume or product of your choice, and bring it to life around you. Users can conveniently click to learn more, purchase, and share their experiences on social media. As seen with Ikea and L’Oreal, this 3D product visualisation experience boosts a shoppers likeliness to check-out, and increases customer satisfaction.
Not only does WebAR present your audience with a multisensory experience, it also presents content in a digital format that your audience is accustomed to interacting with, shopping and sharing. Frictionless WebAR promotes network effects and grassroots campaigns by encouraging user generated content.
WebAR means no physical set-up and no app download is required to deploy quickly and cost-effectively.
Image by Geenee Inc.
AR for World Building
With uncertainty around cinemas and social gatherings this year, many movie studios are altering distribution, or even postponing film releases. A solution is to bring the big screen to mobile screens through WebAR experiences.
Five billion mobile devices in circulation means that there are 5 billion pocket sized home cinemas in the world. Entertainment studios can deliver narratives and new content from Halloween classics, share fan trivia, offer rewarding quizzes, discover and unlock exclusive content.
Earlier, in association with Warner Bros., Geenee brought the dark world of Pennywise of It Chapter Two to consumers in and out of the home. Powered by Geenee’s image recognition engine, the immersive campaign transformed It Two’s traditional 2D promotions into an interactive mobile WebAR experience that placed the purchase flow into the story and encouraged social sharing.
By scanning any It Two poster, fans could explore bespoke content, trailers, and quick access to tickets and the movie trailer. The biggest surprise of all? If you missed it, you’ll have to check it out for yourself.
The experience earned a 49% completion rate, with 8% watching the trailer, 9% of users repeating the experience, and 6% opening the ticketing link. In contrast, successful conversion rates for marketing content averages at 2%.
Halloween From Home
COVID does not have to fully halt the fun of Halloween. Goods are selling at higher rates than previous years, stores are releasing Halloween content even earlier to give consumers a chance to access it. At home, we are consuming more digital entertainment than ever before.
WebAR offers a unique opportunity to extend existing campaign content (video, posters, billboards, location based etc) and leverage multimedia to trigger WebAR experiences wherever audiences may be.
Authentic campaigns through WebAR are possible where dialogue takes place between the brand, content, and consumer to deeply engage like never before. Share your voice, let the audience bring their unique touch to the experience, and enable them to act on their excitement with powerful call to actions (CTAs).
If you are curious to learn more about WebAR, you can reach our team on LinkedIn.
Additional Sources
* (IRI and the National Confectioners Association (NCA).
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