The State of AR: Recent Episodes
Zappar
Welcome to The State of AR from Zappar. On this podcast, you’ll find innovative strategy, advice and tangible tactics that work the best today from AR strategists and creators who are in the trenches doing the work. The content is a mix of our #StateofARLive episodes, along with interviews & fireside chats with AR industry experts.
This week’s episode of The State of AR sees past (and future) guests join Caspar in a special festive edition of the show as we wrap up 2022 and look forward to what 2023 has in store. Each guest shares their industry highlight of 2022 and what they’re most excited about for the new year as well as a few of their favourite Christmas songs.
About Zappar:
Zappar is the world’s leading augmented reality platform and creative studio for mobile and web apps. Zappar’s award-winning self-serve tools and creative consultancy, enable brands, agencies and licence partners across the world to deploy innovative, customizable and market-leading AR solutions to the mobile web and native apps. Partners include Coca-Cola, Nestle, PwC, 7-Eleven, Puma, Rovio, Kellogg's, Fanta, Walmart, and Unilever among others.
Links:
Follow Caspar on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/caspar-thykier
Get the best in AR straight to your inbox and experience it yourself. Subscribe now to get a new AR example every Wednesday.
Speak to Zappar about your next AR project: www.zappar.com
Create your own AR experiences: https://zap.works
Zappar’s Technical Support & Learning Manager, Francesca Ellis, joins Caspar to share her expertise in training people to create their own AR experiences. She shares advice for how to begin your AR creation journey, tried and tested methods of development and how to avoid common project planning pitfalls.
About Zappar:
Zappar is the world’s leading augmented reality platform and creative studio for mobile and web apps. Zappar’s award-winning self-serve tools and creative consultancy, enable brands, agencies and licence partners across the world to deploy innovative, customizable and market-leading AR solutions to the mobile web and native apps. Partners include Coca-Cola, Nestle, PwC, 7-Eleven, Puma, Rovio, Kellogg's, Fanta, Walmart, and Unilever among others.
Links:
Follow Caspar on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/caspar-thykier
Get the best in AR straight to your inbox and experience it yourself. Subscribe now to get a new AR example every Wednesday.
Speak to Zappar about your next AR project: www.zappar.com Create your own AR experiences: https://zap.works
In this episode, Caspar is joined by Kirk Ewing, Zapbox General Manager & Co-Founder at Zappar, Caspar and Kirk discuss the story behind Zappar’s upcoming affordable mixed reality headset, Zapbox as well as their past ventures together from early iterations of the metaverse with Playstation Home and Kirk’s involvement in the video games industry in Scotland.
About Zappar:
Zappar is the world’s leading augmented reality platform and creative studio for mobile and web apps. Zappar’s award-winning self-serve tools and creative consultancy, enable brands, agencies and licence partners across the world to deploy innovative, customizable and market-leading AR solutions to the mobile web and native apps. Partners include Coca-Cola, Nestle, PwC, 7-Eleven, Puma, Rovio, Kellogg's, Fanta, Walmart, and Unilever among others.
Links:
Follow Caspar on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/caspar-thykier
Get the best in AR straight to your inbox and experience it yourself. Subscribe now to get a new AR example every Wednesday.
Speak to Zappar about your next AR project: www.zappar.com
Create your own AR experiences: https://zap.works
In this week’s episode of The State of AR, Caspar welcomes our very own Head of Marketing, Dave Mather to the show, where they discuss the key things to bear in mind when it comes to promoting AR campaigns and tools, including;
The differences between PR for AR vs traditional marketing campaigns
The key elements of a good press release
How to approach sell-in
Timelines and when to think about PR
Common challenges and watch-outs
How to measure success
About Zappar:
Zappar is the world’s leading augmented reality platform and creative studio for mobile and web apps. Zappar’s award-winning self-serve tools and creative consultancy, enable brands, agencies and licence partners across the world to deploy innovative, customizable and market-leading AR solutions to the mobile web and native apps. Partners include Coca-Cola, Nestle, PwC, 7-Eleven, Puma, Rovio, Kellogg's, Fanta, Walmart, and Unilever among others.
Links:
Follow Caspar on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/caspar-thykier
Get the best in AR straight to your inbox and experience it yourself. Subscribe now to get a new AR example every Wednesday.
Speak to Zappar about your next AR project: www.zappar.com
Create your own AR experiences: https://zap.works
This week, Zappar's Exec Creative Director, Andre Assalino will be taking the reigns to discuss ways to unlock the creative process. Joined by Joao Fernandes, formerly Isobar's Chief Creative Officer now turned Leather Craftsman, they cover the challenges of staying creative as well as some of the similarities and differences between design for AR vs other traditional mediums.
About Zappar:
Zappar is the world’s leading augmented reality platform and creative studio for mobile and web apps. Zappar’s award-winning self-serve tools and creative consultancy, enable brands, agencies and licence partners across the world to deploy innovative, customizable and market-leading AR solutions to the mobile web and native apps. Partners include Coca-Cola, Nestle, PwC, 7-Eleven, Puma, Rovio, Kellogg's, Fanta, Walmart, and Unilever among others.
Links:
Follow Caspar on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/caspar-thykier
Get the best in AR straight to your inbox and experience it yourself. Subscribe now to get a new AR example every Wednesday.
Speak to Zappar about your next AR project: www.zappar.com
Create your own AR experiences: https://zap.works
In this week’s episode of The State of AR, we shine a light on one of the unsung heroes of digital content production - the QA team. Caspar is joined by Eden Carter, QA Tester at Zappar who shares his knowledge of the vital role QA plays in the successful delivery of campaigns.
About Zappar:
Zappar is the world’s leading augmented reality platform and creative studio for mobile and web apps. Zappar’s award-winning self-serve tools and creative consultancy, enable brands, agencies and licence partners across the world to deploy innovative, customizable and market-leading AR solutions to the mobile web and native apps. Partners include Coca-Cola, Nestle, PwC, 7-Eleven, Puma, Rovio, Kellogg's, Fanta, Walmart, and Unilever among others.
Links:
Follow Caspar on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/caspar-thykier
Get the best in AR straight to your inbox and experience it yourself. Subscribe now to get a new AR example every Wednesday
Speak to Zappar about your next AR project: www.zappar.com
Create your own AR experiences: https://zap.works
This week Caspar is joined by Anna Broadhurst, a true AR Pioneer, designer and illustrator at Zappar who will be talking about how you go about the process of design in AR following her decade in the industry.
About Zappar:
Zappar is the world’s leading augmented reality platform and creative studio for mobile and web apps. Zappar’s award-winning self-serve tools and creative consultancy, enable brands, agencies and licence partners across the world to deploy innovative, customizable and market-leading AR solutions to the mobile web and native apps. Partners include Coca-Cola, Nestle, PwC, 7-Eleven, Puma, Rovio, Kellogg's, Fanta, Walmart, and Unilever among others.
Links:
Follow Caspar on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/caspar-thykier
Get the best in AR straight to your inbox and experience it yourself. Subscribe now to get a new AR example every Wednesday.
Speak to Zappar about your next AR project: www.zappar.com
Create your own AR experiences: https://zap.works
In this episode of The State of AR, Caspar talks through 5 AR failures and what you can learn from them. The joy of being in business for 11 years and working on thousands of AR projects over that period is that inevitably you’re going to come across and experience a few blips.
So here are just a few, from deploying our very own AR-enabled T-shirts, to the more nuanced and recent watch-outs with WebAR and in-store point-of-sale displays. The simple message. Don’t Fear Failu-AR!
About Zappar:
Zappar is the world’s leading augmented reality platform and creative studio for mobile and web apps. Zappar’s award-winning self-serve tools and creative consultancy, enable brands, agencies and licence partners across the world to deploy innovative, customizable and market-leading AR solutions to the mobile web and native apps. Partners include Coca-Cola, Nestle, PwC, 7-Eleven, Puma, Rovio, Kelloggs, Fanta, Walmart, and Unilever among others.
Links:
Follow Caspar on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/caspar-thykier
Get the best in AR straight to your inbox and experience it yourself. Subscribe now to get a new AR example every Wednesday
Speak to Zappar about your next AR project: www.zappar.com
Create your own AR experiences: https://zap.works
Understanding the problem you’re solving with AR first and foremost should be the first step in your AR journey before building any AR solution. In this episode of State of AR, Caspar takes you through the ten things you should include when writing an AR brief.
These are:
- 1. Why AR? There needs to be a conscious reason you believe that spatial computing is going to meet your need, challenge or opportunity better than the existing alternative. You need to articulate this clearly or move on.
- 2. What problem are you trying to solve? Write plainly and clearly your business problem/ opportunity statement in a simple sentence. Say it out loud. Does it seem credible and achievable? Be honest.
- 3. Who are you trying to reach? Who are your audience and where are they in the world? Be very sure that what you’re intending to deliver is something your audience will truly be able to use, value and understand at this moment. That’s true of both internal and external audiences.
- 4. What’s the call to action? Where and how are you going to tell your audience about this experience, what they need to do and what they’re going to get from it?
- 5. What existing assets are available? What assets are available to create this experience or need to be optimised or created from scratch? This is fundamentally important to understand for any sensible costings: especially when it comes to 3D models in terms of their file format and size.
- 6. What are the distribution methods? Is the activation via an existing native app, a new standalone app, through WebAR or a combination of the above?
- 7. What’s your budget? It’s always useful to have at least a guide to know if we’re looking at say a £75-100k range versus activation of £150-200k or more, as it changes the dynamics of how you think about the project and what can be delivered.
- 8. Are there any legal or infosec requirements? The risk and data protection elements of creating AR activations have only increased and have become a considerable time sink and burden on both sides. So this needs to be understood and managed from the outset to avoid hiccups later and make it efficient for everyone.
- 9. Are there accessibility requirements? How will the AR activation cater for and deliver the content in an accessible and intuitive way? This is quite a complex one when it comes to AR and XR in general so we won’t get deep into it now but suffice it to say that it HAS to be part of your thinking and design from the very outset and cannot be an afterthought or easily retrofitted.
- 10. Who’s the decision maker? Who is the final decision maker and who will be the point of contact running the project? You need to know who the point person is driving the project and whether the final approval point and decision maker is the same person or someone different.
These 10 key questions and areas of consideration for you and your partner as you build out your AR brief in order to get the best possible response and outcome and avoid any costly mistakes. Like with most things, preparation is everything. Get the fundamentals right and then you can really do amazing things in AR.
About Zappar
Zappar is the world’s leading augmented reality platform and creative studio for mobile and web apps. Zappar’s award-winning self-serve tools and creative consultancy, enable brands, agencies and licence partners across the world to deploy innovative, customizable and market-leading AR solutions to the mobile web and native apps. Partners include Coca-Cola, Nestle, PwC, 7-Eleven, Puma, Rovio, Kelloggs, Fanta, Walmart, and Unilever among others.
Links
Follow Caspar on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/caspar-thykier
Get the best in AR straight to your inbox and experience it yourself. Subscribe now to get a new AR example every Wednesday.
Speak to Zappar about your next AR project: www.zappar.com
Create your own AR experiences: https://zap.works
In this week’s episode we take a slight divergence from the scheduled programming with Zappar co-founders Connell Gauld and Simon Taylor taking the helm and steering the State of AR ship in a different direction.
Join them as they give you a peek behind the curtain and share some of the unexpected and weird things from the world of XR, including;
- The strange world of mirrored selfie cameras
- Who is Lenna? The controversial truth behind the first ever JPEG.
- Optical vs video see-through, and the tricks we must play to fool our eyes and brains
About Zappar
Zappar is the world’s leading augmented reality platform and creative studio for mobile and web apps. Zappar’s award-winning self-serve tools and creative consultancy, enable brands, agencies and licence partners across the world to deploy innovative, customizable and market-leading AR solutions to the mobile web and native apps. Partners include Coca-Cola, Nestle, PwC, 7-Eleven, Puma, Rovio, Kelloggs, Fanta, Walmart, and Unilever among others.
Links
Follow Caspar on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/caspar-thykier
Get the best in AR straight to your inbox and experience it yourself. Subscribe now to get a new AR example every Wednesday.
Speak to Zappar about your next AR project: www.zappar.com
Create your own AR experiences: https://zap.works
Getting buy-in for new and emerging technologies is tough, especially when technologies like augmented reality are competing for attention against the millions of other priorities and programmes that marketing, product and innovation teams need to prioritise.
In this week’s episode, Caspar is joined by Nestlé’s ex-Immersive Tech Lead, Rich Hess. Now embedded in Zappar’s mixed reality department, as Zapbox Product & Sales Manager, Rich built Nestlé’s AR muscle, developing their global XR strategy.
Rich wrote the playbook for getting internal buy-in for AR at Nestlé and in this episode he shares his learnings and insights with you, looking at:
Problem solving with XR
Building your AR muscle
How to audit your existing XR programmes
How to pitch AR with storytelling in mind
Measuring the impact of your XR programes
About Zappar
Zappar is the world’s leading augmented reality platform and creative studio for mobile and web apps. Zappar’s award-winning self-serve tools and creative consultancy, enable brands, agencies and licence partners across the world to deploy innovative, customizable and market-leading AR solutions to the mobile web and native apps. Partners include Coca-Cola, Nestle, PwC, 7-Eleven, Puma, Rovio, Kelloggs, Fanta, Walmart, and Unilever among others.
Links
Follow Caspar on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/caspar-thykier
Get the best in AR straight to your inbox and experience it yourself. Subscribe now to get a new AR example every Wednesday.
Speak to Zappar about your next AR project: www.zappar.com
Create your own AR experiences: https://zap.works
If you’re like us and really love a check-list, well then boy have we got the show for you as this week we’re delving into the 47-point AR MOT checklist to make sure your activation is a success.
AR is all about the devil in the detail, thinking ahead, getting the foundations and the architecture right so you can focus on the last 2% that turns good AR experiences into great AR experiences.
And that’s why over the years, delivering over 1,000 AR campaigns we’ve got to a 47-point production, QA and account management checklist that’s required for any AR activation.
We don’t go into the full 47 (that would be absurd!) In the episode, we’ve picked our top 7 to focus on and get right.
- Fonts
- Analytics
- Protocol for campaign deactivation
- WebAR browser prompts
- Distribution method and Desktop
- Content package file size
- Sound/Audio
Want the full 47-point check? We can talk you through them if you’re a Zappar partner or ZapWorks community member.
About Zappar
Zappar is the world’s leading augmented reality platform and creative studio for mobile and web apps. Zappar’s award-winning self-serve tools and creative consultancy, enable brands, agencies and licence partners across the world to deploy innovative, customizable and market-leading AR solutions to the mobile web and native apps. Partners include Coca-Cola, Nestle, PwC, 7-Eleven, Puma, Rovio, Kelloggs, Fanta, Walmart, and Unilever among others.
Links
Follow Caspar on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/caspar-thykier
Get the best in AR straight to your inbox and experience it yourself. Subscribe now to get a new AR example every Wednesday.
Speak to Zappar about your next AR project: www.zappar.com
Create your own AR experiences: https://zap.works
References: "You Can't Get Better" 1984 Kwik-Fit Advert: https://youtu.be/PXDeruvd800
In this episode, Caspar takes you through Zappar’s tried and tested 5-step deployment process and what’s required at each stage to create more compelling AR solutions from initial concept to final execution and delivery.
This 5 D’s process has been road tested from delivering over 1k AR executions over 11 years.
The 5 stages are:
1 ) Discovery & Definition – to ensure you have a clear and concise understanding of the business, brand, objectives, target audience, market, available assets, legal and infosec requirements, key stakeholders and timelines from the very start. By the end of this phase, you should have a clear concept, a fully documented statement of work, itemised budget and a full development schedule with agreed KPIs.
2) Design – in this phase, you should be developing all the required assets (2D & 3D) and working through the grey box UX flow and then the final UI design. You’ll also want to consider the CTA and any print or online collateral related to the activation. This is the phase where you zoom out and get a complete understanding of the full customer journey with every tap, click, link and permission and what they’ll be doing at each stage. At the end of the Design stage, your assets and flow should be fully approved by all stakeholders and ready to go.
3) Develop – The Develop phase is where you translate the Statement of Work from UI flow along with all the 2D and 3D assets and build the AR experience within the platform of choice. The Develop stage is all about translating your brand and creative vision into spatial computing and ensuring the experience really meets the context of the end user in the exact moment they’ll be experiencing your activation to deliver against your KPIs.
4) Deploy - Ensure you have the right go-to-market collateral (video, stills etc. for PR and social), and conduct all the necessary final QA across a range of devices along with any final bug testing before go-live and ensuring your analytics are set up as desired and working. This is where you’ll also want to revisit the KPIs and your 5 C’s for Success to make sure that you’ve not missed anything and are also set up for any updates required post-launch.
5) Data Analysis and ongoing support and maintenance (ongoing) - After launch, you should be evaluating the campaign metrics and continue refinement and implementation of learnings into future updates and new projects. The important piece here is to be crystal clear upfront on what data is being gathered and how you are planning to report it and at what cadence - weekly, monthly, quarterly. This is a time for a campaign wash-up and responding to any bug fixing or necessary OS updates.
This simple 5-step process should ensure that all stakeholders are well informed throughout the creative process and fully understand what is required of them in terms of consolidated feedback and input to deliver the best and most compelling AR solutions.
Speak to us about your next AR project: www.zappar.com
Create your own AR experiences: https://zap.works
Want to understand how to create more compelling AR campaigns in 2022? In the first episode of State of AR Live, Zappar CEO Caspar Thykier takes guests through Zappar’s super simple framework for creating compelling AR content. We call this framework the 5Cs:
1) Context – Who, where and what
2) Control – What environment is your audience experiencing your content in and how do we best develop carefully and considerately for it?
3) Call to action – How are you conveying the value and end user benefit of the AR experience?
4) Content – Inspiration, information & incentivisation
5) Communication – Internal and external
Speak to us about your next AR project: www.zappar.com
Create your own AR experiences: https://zap.works