In Part I, we discussed examples of augmented reality best practice in any general retail environment. This post will now address Part II: How to tackle retail challenges, specifically food retail marketing, with augmented reality. Much has been said about how technology can help bridge the growing gap between retail and digital, however this will be taken to a new level through the incorporation of AR.

If used correctly, AR marketing will do wonders for your business. Not only does it promote the notion that your business is at the forefront of technology, but it also creates a more efficient, effective and engaging experience for your customers.

Aside from the previously mentioned points in Part I, the following are specific ways to use augmented reality in food retail marketing.

Recipe Calculator
An obstacle that many tend to face when cooking a meal, especially for a dinner party, is knowing the necessary amount of ingredients for a recipe. Augmented reality offers a solution to this.

When a customer sees a delicious recipe in a supermarket magazine, they can scan the page and select the number of people to cook for. This would display the exact amount of ingredients needed to suit the party. Not only does this make the whole shopping experience easier, but it saves time, money and prevents waste.

Suggest A Meal
Have a favourite vegetable? Customers can use the Layar app on a particular product, and see complementary products that pair well with it. For instance, scanning a page with a red pepper will bring up delicious compatible ingredients, like sun-dried tomatoes and chorizo.

This allows individuals to spice up their usual recipes and ingredient pairs in an innovative and fun manner. Similarly, this encourages customers who have little experience in the kitchen to explore and experiment with new foods and products.

Helpful GIFs
You should also embed helpful GIF animations into your food publications. For example, scanning a recipe page with onions as an ingredient will lead to an animation demonstrating a method of cutting onions without tearing up. This would help those with little experience in the kitchen to master the basic cooking skills, essentially making the whole process simple and fun. Additionally, it adds value to the AR content and diversifies it from promo videos and discounts.

South African food magazine, Food & Home Entertaining, is a prime augmented reality case study. For their Christmas issue, scanning each page provided customers with animations on how to recreate delectable treats - making the festival season that much more fun and interactive.

Price Comparisons
Shoppers like to know that they are getting the best price for what they are buying, and augmented reality is an ideal way to demonstrate that. You should incorporate an HTML widget which clearly displays the price of a specific product compared to other brands, which will easily sway consumer decisions. This would allow your business to position your brand as more affordable than others, thus establishing yourself as the price-leader. It also adds to transparency and openness in communication with stakeholders.

Special Deals Around You
The best two combinations to customers are “food” and “special deals”. If you’re running special deals or discounts on specific products - advertise it! This would promote customer reach and push customers to your store, giving you an advantage over your competitors. This would make it both more efficient and intuitive for shoppers to find the best deals at any given moment, wherever they may be.

Stay tuned for the last part of this blog series discussing augmented reality best practice. Part III will address how to use augmented reality to increase social interactions and brand loyalty, as well as trigger customer feedback flow and communication.

Interested in adding a layer of augmented reality to your campaign? Contact us here.

In our last blog post we revealed some of the retail marketing challenges a major retailer has tackled by integrating Augmented Reality (AR) into their mobile app. Did you download the case study?

Now we’ll show some examples of specific use cases to achieve a variety of marketing goals with AR. Contact us for a tailored approach and extra examples fitting your retail business.

Interactive mannequins
Wondering how to make the shopping experience more fun and engaging, raise brand loyalty and facilitate your mobile app use?

Why not use interactive mannequins placed in the store? Your customers can scan a marker on a mannequin (for example, a t-shirt) and directly try out different item combinations, browse size availability in the store and purchase items with a few taps.

Scannable posters
Similar to making physical items scannable, posters give you the opportunity to engage customers on their mobiles inside or outside of the store.

Place scannable posters inside the store so app users can see where to find items around the aisles, what colors (or flavors) they come in, or even purchase them right away after reading about them or trying them on. Make your store “always-in-stock.”

Posters by cashiers
Queueing and mobile phones go together nowadays. Make that waiting time valuable for your customers and they will be thankful.

If you have contests, promotion codes or discount offers, this is the perfect time to introduce customers to them. It will also increase app downloads and sessions as you can get them to focus on the experiences you provide. This moment is also a great opportunity to get them acquainted with your new app features and explain how to use Augmented Reality.

Scannable offers on items

Some items not selling well or do you want to push an offer? Add a code customers can reveal after scanning an item which the cashier can reimburse with a discount, extra value points or a gift.

Store locator
The store locator feature is what it sounds like – an intuitive way for customers to get to their favorite shop. Through a Geo Layer, your loyal customers can quickly and easily find your nearest shop when they are in a new area or country.

360-Degree Product View
Whether in your catalogue, poster or offer leaflet, an image of a product can be seen in 3D through scanning. Your customers can rotate and zoom it to see all angles so there is no doubt that they want it. This will help them to form a stronger opinion and make a decision.

This is a series of blog posts illustrating the vast variety of use cases depending on your strategy, goals and business type.

Don’t miss Part II next week when we’ll focus specifically on Food Retail marketing with Augmented Reality, and showcase more examples of how to tackle retail challenges with AR.

Part III will discuss how to increase social interactions and brand loyalty as well as trigger customer feedback flow and communication.

Contact us if you want to talk to us about integrating our Augmented Reality SDK to your retail mobile app.

The University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, has started making use of Augmented Reality and Interactive Print to create an enhanced experience for potential students when viewing the school’s recruitment materials.

Scanning the pages of its latest recruitment marketing publication unlocks videos, photos and links about student life, residence, and tips for applying. It’s a great way for potential students to better engage with the materials and learn more about the school before applying.

“Our goal is to create a personal connection while demonstrating the innovative and entrepreneurial spirit of the University of Waterloo, and also provide a glimpse of campus, student life, and our strong academic reputation,” says Lisa Brackenridge, Manager of Digital Communications for the school’s registrar.

The idea to use Layar grew out of a class project in which Digital Arts Communications students worked with the school’s Marketing and Undergraduate Recruitment Office on a class project to assess the existing self-guided campus tour. By gathering interviews, creating personas, prototyping and testing, the students developed cases for using Augmented Reality to add a new dimension to the print marketing assets.

“We used this as a spring-board to utilizing Layar to add a digital experience to our viewbooks and faculty brochures,” says Brackenridge. “At Waterloo, we are focused on experiential learning opportunities, and this turned out to be a learning opportunity for our students and our staff at the University.”

To add another level to their efforts, University of Waterloo created unique campaigns for users in the Ontario area and those outside of the area. For those in the area, many calls-to-action encourage users to visit for a campus tour, while those not in Ontario are urged to connect with a recruitment specialist.

“Augmented reality is the next advancement in experiential communication,” says Brackenridge. “By creating a link between our print and digital content, we hope to maintain a competitive advantage and reinforce the University of Waterloo’s innovative reputation.”

Click here to have a look at how the University of Waterloo has enhanced its recruitment materials and give it a try for yourself.