When I was younger, we would watch a lot of American
football on television. Having two older brothers tends to do that to you.
However, I could never follow the play (only the ball) and the first down line
was even more of mystery to me. Today, I still can’t follow the play, but at
least I know where first down is. On Sept 27, 1998, Sportvision debuted the
electronic first down line for football telecasts (Squadron 2014). It was a
monumental moment. Augmented reality completely transformed the viewing
experience for the casual television spectator.
Although augmented reality (AR) has been around a long time,
it is only starting to take hold in the social media realm. Companies are
starting to see how AR can help drive their sales higher. For example, in 2008,
Lego piloted a ‘digital box’ that would allow customers to hold a Lego box up
to a screen and it would show a 3D image of what the finished product would
look like. It proved to be such a success that now every Lego-branded store has
one. This initiative has surely been one of the reasons for a 25% revenue
growth in 2012 (Global Access 2014).
Buying furniture is always a frustrating experience. Will it
fit? Will it look right in the room with your other furnishings? Beginning in
2014, IKEA’s catalog featured the use of augmented reality. Customers can place
the catalog in the stop where they are considering to put the piece of
furniture and use IKEA’s augmented reality app to see how it would look like in
the room using their mobile device (Rollenhagen 2013).
According to the Pew Internet Project’s research, as of
January 2014, 58% of American adults have a smart phone and 42% own a tablet.
This means the majority of people have some sort of Wi-Fi connection at all
times. It is no wonder that companies are starting to create innovative social
media apps to enhance the retail experience through the use of augmented
reality.
Time is a scarce commodity these days. How much of it would
we save if we could use AR to help us in our daily lives? I can imagine trying
on clothes and shoes in the comfort of my own home using a fashion app created
by department stores before buying it online. It would certainly save me the
bother of returning clothes that did not suit me.
Augmented reality is still a new arena that companies have
yet to fully explore. However, as Lego and IKEA have learned, it is something
that cannot be ignored in the ever-increasing retail race for consumer dollars.
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