Beyond Shooting A Goal

Are you crazy about Pokémon Go recently? Are you busy searching for creatures all the time and capturing them by tapping on the ball and flicking it up towards the Pokémon as if it is in the real world? Are  you familiar with the scenario? Let’s see a video first.

In fact, McDonald’s promoted its fry boxes during the 2014 World Cup exactly in the same way. “Consumers were able to align their smartphones with a graphic element on the box, triggering an interactive overlay which appeared to jump out at them. Consumers could continue to interact on their phones by flicking a finger to shoot a goal within the display.”(Refers to Why Augmented Reality Marketing Will Be Huge in 2015, by NewsCred) So this technique – augmented reality, is not that unfamiliar to us since it has been already applied to the marketing world.

What is augmented reality marketing

As you have seen from the above, augmented reality provides companies an opportunity to combine various elements (especially the visual ones and the motion ones) to attract  their customers in a more fantastic way, usually through the apps.

What are the shining points

You will get the points by imagining the following scene – It’s my favorite one.

From the video we can see that IKEA has made it possible for its customers to have a previous look about how the new furniture fit in their home. It’s very useful. What’s more, it brings a lot of pleasure in a family because the family members get to take amusing pictures by this function. It seems that they are enjoying the moments and I think it’s a good way for a company to engage their customers as well. Furthermore, the video conveys messages which echo the brand mantra of IKEA – best design (brand function), family (descriptive modifier), fun (emotional modifier). Therefore, IKEA is advocating its brand culture by the means of exploring augmented reality to some extent. In a word, augmented reality is a powerful tool which is truly multi-functional and innovative, helping companies to attain multiple goals at the same time.

What is holding it back

It’s not about creating something new uncertainly but enhancing the existing experience. Therefore the challenge for the marketers to implement it is that whether augmented reality can always add values. Customers won’t scan every product when they are shopping – so it’s critical for marketers to figure out the contexts in which their customers are willing to do this and finally spend the money on their goods.

It’s fashionable but also promising in the long term

It’s true that for entrepreneurs and investors, AR and VR are the catchwords like big data in their mouths in the past two years. Then you may think of the famous saying, “Big data is like teenage sex: everyone talks about it, nobody really knows how to do it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it…” However, from my point of view, AR is another story, different from big data. It’s like a magic which could help you to realize your dreams – trying on different clothes and different makeups, going to all the places in the world and having all the furniture at home – and in turn, the companies sell their products.

Why I would recommend it

Let’s have a look at some numbers below.

Refers to Why Virtual And Augmented Reality is A Ripe Target For Marketers, by David Bolton

As we talked before, augmented reality gives emotional footprint, which can not be replaced or surpassed by other current techniques. AR is far beyond shooting a goal in a game or an app. It contains a world that your customers may not want to leave even for a while in the future. And it is worth mentioning that there are some augmented reality softwares offering services to the companies for marketing purposes, which makes it accessible for everyone who desires to tap on this technology. Last but not least, will you forget the fact that Pokemon Go craze sees Nintendo share price increase 86% in a week adding 15 billion to the company value? I don’t think you will.

After all, it’s not that easy to get tired of your Pokémon right?

Victor = Prestige + Power?

According to Sally Hogshead‘s The Fascination Advantage Assessment, my archetype is The Victor. The three adjectives that describe how the world sees me are respected, competitive and results-oriented. Nevertheless, my dormant advantage is mystique, which means I can’t hide my emotions or opinions. It’s true. I am not a good emotion-controller and always speak out what I am thinking about. As for my advantages, it makes sense too-so obvious. But does it mean that I should develop my advantages and suppress my disadvantages in front of others if I want to fascinate them? I don’t think so.

Sally Hogshead has done a good job!

There is no doubt that from the TED talk to the website, Sally has done a really good job as a marketing professional. Both her contents and herself are appealing and convincing. Her TED talk is well elaborated from the beginning to the last. Her website is very professional and all the results are designed to be popped out step by step, along with her own recorded videos advocating people to explore more information by registering courses provided by herself. Today, two days after I first did the test, I have received another email from her about the new discovery of my archetype in her new book.

However, humanity is not that simple…

Based on Sally’s theory, there are 7 triggers for people to use as instruments to earn the attention with different responses. The first trigger and the second trigger you use most without realizing them are the ones you should utilize to gain fascination and add value, playing a role as a personal brand, influencing and impressing others.

However, the humanity is very complex and inconstant. It’s a little ill-considered to classify all the characters into dozens of archetypes and come up with suggestions to each archetype about how to attract others. In fact, Sally has considered about it because I saw the pie chart in my test result. Actually for me, I do not have a high percentage of one advantage. The percentage of each trigger is comparatively even. I believe that others may have the similar situation with me-then it would be risky if we focus on enhancing the advantages through communications all the time since we may miss some valuable opportunities by always expressing and showing ourselves in one way.

There is no rule for fascination.

Like Sally said in her TED talk, the world is changing fast, so as the people. Nowadays we are encountered with more and more distractions than ever before so the way to engage people is changing all the time. If fascination really has a rule, then everyone might have known the rule so the rule is no longer useful anymore. As for me, I don’t think mystique is the one that prevent me from making progress and momentum. In fact, many people said when they first saw me, the mysterious flavor from me drew their attentions a lot… Although they would find that I am not an unfathomable person at all afterwards haha~ But it really has happened in several seconds… which means it caters to people’s attention spans today. What’s more, I barely show my prestige or power to others when we first meet. Passion may be the factor that engages people most after communicating with me for a while. However it’s not my primary advantage nor my secondary advantage according to the result of the assessment.

But fascination itself is the rule.

To fascinate others we need to know ourselves well. It’s the first step and Sally has told us something about ourselves. But the next thing is that the world is changing so fast and the people around you are always from different communities with different backgrounds. So we are supposed to inspect the various environments and “judge” the potential targeted persons. The last thing is to take actions after analyzing the current situation and your position in the group. How could I use my prestige and power when I am corresponding to strangers in an unfamiliar area for me with the desire to persuade them? It’s kind of ridiculous and I would never, ever do that.

One sentence. Adapt to the circumstances and customize tactics for each occasion to boost appeal!