Zappar advances Augmented Reality with scalable affordability as adoptions take off

28 Aug 2020 --- Augmented Reality (AR) is a fast-growing technology in premium and non-premium packaging that imagines new depths of brand-consumer engagement. PackagingInsights speaks with Martin Stahel, Director at Zappar, a proprietary AR technology company with ambitions to provide flexible, affordable and scalable connective solutions globally. Zappar’s AR projects include virtual cocktail recipes for Bombay Sapphire gin, ingredients and nutritional information brought to life on Kroger Espresso boxes, and Chuppa Chups face filters for post-purchase rewards. Stahel discusses Zappar’s technology, the barriers to wider AR adoptions, and where he sees AR heading.

“Over the past decade of developing strategies for partners like Nestlé, Unilever, Beiersdorf, and Coca-Cola, we’ve learned that if you create an engaging experience that delivers value to the consumer, they will, in turn, connect with the brand and be more inclined to share on social, make a purchase and deliver on the brand’s commercial objectives,” Stahel explains.

“The AR experience needs to deliver a strong consumer proposition that offers some form of assistance, utility or entertainment. This point is vital, as without the consumer scanning the packaging, there can't be any commercial value,” he adds.

Zappar teamed up with Shazam and Bombay Sapphire to create a unique AR experience using the bottleneck label as the activation point (Image credit: Zappar).AR and other connective packaging technologies offer brands an array of benefits, including data collection, e-commerce accessibility, partnerships and promotions, social media enhancement, and increased sales and brand loyalty.

Democratizing AR
Zappar’s proprietary AR technology is built from the ground-up to offer brands and businesses an affordable and scalable market solution. From Zappar’s internal creative team to its AR creator tools and mixed reality headset – ZapBox – Zappar’s underlying computer vision technology is designed to fulfil the mission to “democratize AR” and make it accessible worldwide.

Identifying AR’s potential, Nestlé’s Koko Krunch cereal brand approached Zappar to create an interactive social event for its customers to celebrate the Koko character’s birthday. Zappar employed AR to enable children to dance with Koko before sharing the experience on social media for the chance to win prizes.

Meanwhile, Zappar partnered with Ô Quai des Brasseurs, Kombuchanv and le Temps d’une Pinte to launch the “Scan the Can” #cavabienaller (#thingswillgetbetter) campaign, allowing consumers to support local products and express solidarity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Users can scan these cans via a QR code to unlock the interactive experience.

Physical space for digital experiences
Stahel identifies (lack of) physical space as a key barrier to consumer AR adoption. Packaging design is often crowded and the space on pack can be scarce. Historically, brands have found it difficult to allocate enough space for the AR call to action, he says.Zappar used AR to enable children to dance with Nestlé’s Koko Krunch character Koko and share on social media (Image credit: Zappar).

“This led to the messaging being too small and often hidden amongst the small print. It definitely had a negative impact on consumers engaging with the AR experience and hence delivering on the commercial objectives.”

“More recently, as the understanding of AR’s value has grown, we’ve seen the call to action taking a more prominent position in packaging design and, unsurprisingly, the results have increased.”

Stahel pinpoints the example of Carlton Dry in Australia, who took the call to action to another level by featuring it prominently on its packaging while supporting it on TV adverts, retail point-of-sale and social media.

WebAR brings ease of access
The second barrier is technical. Historically, consumers needed to download an app to scan a code and access the AR experience, Stahel recalls. “While this is still the right solution for brands and retailers with their own apps, it remained a barrier.”

“This is why the launch of Zappar’s WebAR solution is proving to be an adoption tipping point for both consumers and brands. WebAR is a new solution that allows consumers to run the AR experience on their device's native web browser. Now that over 80 percent of iOS and Android devices in circulation support QR code reading in the native camera, accessing this web page is easier than ever before,” he tells PackagingInsights.

The technologist’s WebAR platform enables brands to reach 3.5 billion global smartphone users by distributing AR experiences instantly to their web browser. WebAR reaches twice as many users as AR deployed across social apps like Snap and Instagram, the company says.Carlton Dry promoted AR on its packaging, TV adverts, retail point-of-sale and social media (Image credit: Zappar).

Gazing into the crystal ball
Zappar’s R&D team is continuously optimizing its platform to bring improvements and new capabilities to partners. The team is currently focused on improving mobile web browsers’ performance, which are slower and carry less processing power than a native app, Stahel shares.

“We have a strong roadmap of technical features that we’d love to tell you about but simply can’t. However, a key part of Zappar’s strategy is to make these features available to our creative studio and our developer community, who use ZapWorks to create their own AR content.”

Where is AR heading? “It’s incredibly hard to say without gazing into a crystal ball. What will a smartphone look like in five years? Will we still have them?”

“What is clear is that if the rate of brand adoption we’ve seen in recent years continues, we’ll all become more aware of connected packaging in our everyday lives,” Stahel concludes.

By Joshua Poole

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