One of the ways brands can effectively utilize Augmented Reality is through storytelling. Stories that strengthen your brand make information more digestible and easier to remember.
In this blog, explanations and inspiring examples of Storytelling with AR.
Storytelling and Augmented Reality
Thanks to the availability of increasingly smart software and sensors, the rise of Augmented Reality (AR) is unstoppable. There are three ways brands can effectively use Augmented Reality: through storytelling, providing service, and, of course, in sales.
In this blog, explanations and inspiring examples of Storytelling with AR.
What is Storytelling?
Storytelling is a form of content marketing in which you tell authentic stories that strengthen your brand and provide your customers with additional information about your brand or product.
Stories are easier to remember than dry facts and capture the imagination. Information becomes more digestible. This makes them a very powerful tool for conveying your message. With storytelling, you seduce, inform, and entertain your target audience.
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Deepening and enriching existing content through storytelling**
A widely used and easy-to-implement way for brands to use AR is by deepening or enriching existing content with AR content. Think, for example, of enriching printed materials with augmented videos, photos, and 3D images. Companies have been doing this for years by using specific images as ‘markers’. The user can view the added content via an app.
With a custom app, you can connect photos, videos and 3D images to existing communication materials and tell your story interactively.
Examples of companies that enrich existing content using the latest techniques via augmented storytelling include Quartz and the Washington Post.
Washington Post deploys AR
They use Apple’s ARkit and experiment with AR content to enrich their articles. With the so-called ‘SLAM’ technique (simultaneous localization and mapping), images are no longer needed to trigger augmented reality. The software ‘understands’ your environment and displays the AR in your surroundings. This allows digital stories to be truly well integrated into the environment, and that enriches the experience.
Augmented storytelling Quartz
Storytelling in the customer's world
The whole world is a stage these days. Brands can use augmented reality to tell stories in a very rich, context-dependent way. Simply at the dining table about that one product, or at the coffee table as a complement to that commercial.
A nice example of an app that integrates AR into the customer's world is Holo. With this app, you can add photo-realistic holograms of people and animals to your environment. You can then take photos and videos of these and share them with your friends.
The Holo App
Another historical example of storytelling with AR came from the tequila brand Patrón, which brought the brand's history and heritage to life in a virtual story. The accompanying app is no longer available.
Augmented story by Patrón Tequila
With a custom app, you can tell your story in a similar way. Read more about custom apps here.
Storytelling for communication with friends
Many people, of course, know AR from the fun filters and lenses on Snapchat and Facebook. With these, friends can tell their stories to each other and enrich them with AR.
The brand Fanta recently took advantage of this and adorned the packaging of its cans with cool Halloween images. Additionally, they contained a Snapchat code. By scanning the code in the Snapchat app, you gained access to exclusive Fanta Halloween lenses and filters for an hour.
Fanta Halloween promotion in collaboration with Snapchat
Perfect combination
Storytelling and Augmented Reality therefore form a perfect combination. The best way to tell a story is to show it! You can enrich your stories with AR wherever and whenever you want. Experiencing a story on the spot has a huge impact and will engage the viewer more with the story.
With a custom app, you too can tell your story using Augmented Reality. Do you have questions about the possibilities? Feel free to contact us!