When It Comes to Augmented Reality, You Don't Know ﾑJack'

June 8, 2013

Lisa Apolinski

Lisa Apolinski is a professional speaker, blogger, and digital strategist. With her company, 3DogWrite.com, she works with event managers to get their message to attendees, particularly through digital channels, on and off the show floor.

I had the opportunity to speak with Nick Pintler, CMO at Gravity Jack. We talked augmented reality (AR) and what AR affects at a trade show. And it is more than a cool tool to generate engagement.

There is a social connectivity in AR software that has a dual purpose: generate contact and get your attendees to hang out in the booth. AR allows you to provide a visual cue for explaining information, collect leads, even go through a qualification process, and can be quite easy to use.

While most of us think of AR as something that is only to present information in a new visual format, it can also provide data collection without feeling like data collection.

Interactive questions and visual cues provide re-engagement and a deeper dive into the attendee’s needs. Data can then be collected and linked to a CRM system to provide a first touch communication right on the show floor based on how the questions are answered.

There are some pitfalls to avoid, according to Pintler. First, AR is meant to see and be seen, and to move inside (and outside) the booth. So, putting into a kiosk and leaving it there defeats the purpose.

If you are only using AR as a novelty and not truly integrating it into your show experience, you will not see the adoption and engagement potential. Go back to marketing basics and see how AR can be inserted or even replace certain go-to strategies you normally use.

We all know gamification is hot on the trade show scene. Did you know AR provides a fun and incentivized gaming element? You can send people on ‘missions’ using the AR software, have them come back to the booth, and track their level of progress.

And with AR embracing the mobile technology route, there will be even more ways to utilize it with attendees.

AR is another channel to link the virtual world with the physical one, and up the ante on your booth engagement in the process.

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