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Creative in association withGear Seven
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Is This the Only Way You Want Future Generations to See a Rhino?

29/08/2017
Production Company
London, United Kingdom
206
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How augmented reality is being used to raise awareness for rhino conservation

For companies who utilise physical presence to showcase their products or services, using immersive technologies can be an instant win. For brands, the reasons are simple: you introduce something innovative, immersive and interactive to clients and customers. In an experiential marketing setting, the technology is simply a medium for the overall brand message.

A recent augmented reality app created for a corporate event in Las Vegas explored the use of immersive technology not only for brand storytelling, but also awareness raising for an important cause. Trying to push the boundaries of their activations, experience marketing agency George P Johnson approached Inition on behalf of their client, Cisco Systems, to highlight their corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative for rhino conservation. Suzanne Hanson, Senior Creative Director at GPJ explained the inspiration behind the story she wanted to tell: "Cisco's 'Connected Conservation' initiative, spearheaded with their global business partner Dimension Data, is an innovative and proactive approach to protect the rhinos in South Africa from poachers."

The activation was developed for Cisco's annual Global Sales Experience event in Las Vegas. Using a grasslands-themed floor marker, Inition implemented augmented reality technology where a user would hover an iPad over the marker to see large 3D models of rhinos appear. Augmented reality works by overlaying digitally generated images over real world imagery. The life-sized virtual rhinos were large enough to walk around and interact in their virtual grasslands. 

"I wanted to tell a story that would show a life size rhino in front of attendees. The majestic creature is running the risk of becoming extinct," Suzanne explains. "The story we created was intentionally simple and clear: attendees would look through the tablet and the hero rhino would appear, in the background other rhinos would appear. After a few moments the rhinos would start to fade and disappear before the message would start to fade and disappear before the message appeared: Is this the only way you want future generations to see a rhino?"

The idea came from a presentation Suzanne had attended on using virtual reality for charity campaigns. Amnesty International had found donations increased by an incredible 60% when shown 360 images in virtual reality of a region affected by war. The results showed that highly impactful content could drive empathetic behaviour. Not only did people feel immersed in the content they were viewing, but there was a strong enough emotional connection to respond to a call to action and donate.

Marker based AR in this case had more than one effect. With its interactivity and visual appeal, the virtual rhinos evoked an emotional response from the user. "This called attention not only to the technology used in telling the story, but also made a much bigger impact than watching a video or looking a poster," said Suzanne.

The technology itself also helped raise awareness for the cause: "The response was overwhelmingly positive. It was mentioned during the event keynote, and the activation was linked to a badge scan. Participants then received an email giving them more information, and motivated contributions to the Connected Conservation project."

While augmented reality is not a new technology, the recent release of Apple's ARKit has challenged developers to explore further how we can blend both the real and virtual worlds seamlessly. Apple ARKit takes augmented reality one step further and uses camera and motion data to accurately track the world around it. iPhones and iPads installed with ARKit analyse the room to detect horizontal planes like floors and tables, allowing the user to track and place digital objects on small feature points. ARKit also uses the camera sensor to estimate lighting conditions and apply the correct amount of lighting to the virtual objects.

ARKit opens up a new dimension for mobile AR use. However, as with all technologies, think message, not medium.

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Work from Inition
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