How augmented reality hacks the human brain

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1 How augmented reality hacks the human brain Sam Peña-Taylor Source: WARC Exclusive, April 2018 Downloaded from WARC Augmented reality (AR) is fast outpacing its more famous Virtual cousin, with an accessible and compelling platform for brands to create digital assets that consumers want to experience. AR experiences command human attention, engage human emotions, and commit themselves to memory far more effectively than other types of non-augmented communication. Customers, however, are unaware of the term even when they have experienced and enjoyed AR; in future, the technology will begin to seep into less novel and more daily use-cases. Big brands are investing in the technology, leveraging innovative packaging solutions primarily, but early examples suggest a strong case for effective advertising uses. The internet has tended towards invisibility. Like electricity before it, or the now ubiquitous technologies of clocks or eye-glasses, the interface with a technology becomes so natural as to fall away. Augmented reality (AR), however, touches a compelling point of inflection in the rise of immersive computing. What began as a term in a 1990 research paper to describe a new way of delivering information to Boeing engineers is, today, a growing interface with the potential to change how humans interact with the internet and with their surroundings, merging the two. Augmented reality, a promise that gained real traction around the beginning of the post-2008 smartphone era, is becoming a convincing candidate for the future of media, with a new report showing its potential for effective and profoundly engaging communications.

2 The future of media: the Demogorgon from Stranger Things visits WARC s office Layered, the product of Mindshare Futures in partnership with AR platform Zappar, explores the changing role of AR. Through a digital-ethnography, a UK smartphone survey of 1,000 participants, a 150-participant brainimaging study, and expert interviews, the agency has sought to flesh out a clearer picture of a technology that literally has the potential to shape the way we see the world. Neuro-imaging threw up the most arresting result, as researchers found evidence for the medium s potential behavioural impact. Creating strong visual attention, making us step back, makes for a really interesting experience, said Heather Andrew, CEO of Neuro-Insight. This is useful, but what matters is whether it s likely to lead to changes in behaviour. Participants exposed to AR experiences displayed a 70% higher memory response than the control group that performed non-ar tasks. Long-term memory encoding is important as the brain perceives a future use for the information, Andrew explained. Because of that, there s quite a strong correlation between strong levels of memory response and subsequent decision-making purchase behaviour. But it s not as simple as cause and effect, she stressed. We don t put something into memory and then go out and action it, it s sort of the other way around. If our brains say, that s really interesting, we might want to do something with that, it goes into memory. Previous Neuro-Insight work attests to this. In comments reported by WARC last year, founder, Emeritus Professor Richard Silberstein told the Mumbrella360 conference in Sydney that the company understands the purpose of long-term memory is not so much to be a store of things that happened, but to be a guide to future behaviour. Its impact is also highly emotional. AR is not only a more compelling medium, commanding exceptionally high attention levels as much as 45% higher than the average for TV viewing or online browsing it also elicits a heightened emotional intensity, particularly, Andrews said, among younger people.

3 Image source: Layered Though the potential for AR is huge, just 51% of UK consumers are aware of the term. Unsurprisingly, such distinctions only matter to those allocating budgets; 27% of a nationally representative sample reported having used at least one AR-enhanced service be that Snapchat Face Filters, Pokemon Go, or QR codes. In London, the proportion rises to 41%; and among young people (18-34) to 60%. As the technology develops, the current deployments that aim to surprise and delight will give way to greater day-to-day utility, said Jeremy Pounder, Futures Director at Mindshare UK. This includes real-time translations, both visually and in audio form, and other such uses. Currently, AR experiences tend more towards single use, but greater penetration suggests that multiple use will grow as experiences become more refined and more useful.

4 Image source: Layered Context is fundamental. AR by itself won t lead the horse to water, said Max Dawes, Marketing Director at Zappar; any deployment of AR technology must take into account the usage occasion, along with practical considerations such as Wi-Fi provision, in order for consumers to be able to spend time with an AR activation. Meanwhile, it is also important to acknowledge that for the next three to five years, any augmented realities will exist primarily on mobile devices. You need to think clearly about when users will and won t want to get their phones out. Currently, the most robust and scalable way to augment a reality is through the code-scan, evidenced by the integration in platforms as diverse as Spotify, Snapchat, Facebook, and of course, Shazam (which works through Zappar technology). Some activations, however, fail to consider who the end user actually is. In the case of an activation that Zappar and Shazam conducted with General Mills in the US, the AR experience featuring on the outside of a snack box failed to recognise that it was the parents that bought and stored the product before handing out individual packets to their children the end consumers. In contrast, an activation with Fanta in Eastern Europe put the AR experience onto the packaging that the end-consumer will live with. Augmenting an occasion has also proved fruitful, as a campaign for Bulmers in Ireland demonstrated. Pub-goers who arrived alone or before their friends could scan a coaster with their Shazam app to unlock a simple keepieuppie game. Though Dawes had no sales figures to share, the coasters drew prolonged engagement, with users interacting for an average of three to five minutes. Thinking about how an AR usage occasion interacts with sales can bake effectiveness into the AR experience. Pez candies placed the AR code on the inside of the packaging: consumers had to buy in order to unlock content which functioned as a reward. The scans, he said, are in the millions. But building something is no guarantee that consumers will come; AR requires good calls to action. You need to tell people what they need to do and what they re going to get, Dawes explained, or people just won t scan. For instance, the message Scan for a selfie with Sergio Aguero, will get far more engagement than Scan for exclusive content. Once that infrastructure is in place, however, you are not reliant on a consumer continually updating an app and can deliver a calendar of content. As the technology starts to draw more investment, and companies build capabilities in this space, visual search will grow in prevalence. It s about trying to ensure when Google Lens scans your product, making sure the right content is surfaced, said Pounder. Optimising content for computer vision will be a new consideration within wider SEO strategies. In future, the report suggests, the technology will become normalised. Pounder recommended identifying moments of assistance, where the technology could add value along the consumer journey, by identifying the underlying need in a particular moment. This could be by helping to visualise products or enabling direct purchase, such as in the case of Nike s Snapchat pre-release of the Air Jordan III in February.

5 Mindshare s report identifies two key themes that suggest that our realities will become augmented to the point of invisibility. Layering, the user s ability to scan the world and add to it, is one way in which it has the potential to change the world as we see. AR could also surface content to users proactively, mapping airports, for example, and searching visually. This takes in computer vision, which will join text-based and voice-based search as ways we seek to understand the world. You can download Mindshare Futures report here. About the author Sam Peña-Taylor Reporter, WARC samuel.pena-taylor@warc.com

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