‘Tis the season of AR

It begins slowly at first - a poster inviting you to book your Christmas party, mince pies appearing on supermarket shelves and ‘Elf on a Shelf’ puns taking over Twitter. Then, before you know it, the Coca-Cola trucks are on TV and you’re surrounded by Christmas! However, we all know that Christmas doesn’t really start until the John Lewis ad is released; it has become an annual institution, surrounded by incredible hype. Alongside the ads are the tie-ins. To me, that’s where it starts to get interesting, because that’s where you start to see the real innovation and the early adoption of new mediums.

The past few years have seen a number of campaigns use VR to add to their offering and draw shoppers into stores. The 2016 John Lewis campaign had two different VR experiences: one in-store, that combined Oculus Rift, Xbox Kinect and Leap Motion, allowing you to play with the animals and a 360° video online and for Google Cardboard viewing at home. 

However, a lot has changed in the tech landscape over the last 12 months. While VR’s journey to mainstream adoption is progressing nicely, it is certainly no longer the go-to quick win for coverage and attention it once was. There is a new contender on the innovation scene - Augmented Reality (AR) - and I’m expecting a Christmas brimming with it. 

It has been a few weeks since Apple’s ARKit release, and we’ve already seen some big players come out and create apps that really start to show the potential of the medium. IKEA Place is the perfect storm of a new tech being used to create a buzz, while also adding value for the customer. Being able to try out virtual furniture in your home before making the trip is a win for the consumer, and all of the videos of people dropping furniture in random places help to draw attention to the brand.

So, what can we expect? These are my predictions for what we’re going to see this Christmas:

Virtual Animal Hero 

Every year, there is a campaign that features an unlikely animal hero. John Lewis seems to excel in this area with Buster The Dog, Monty The Penguin and my personal favourite, The Bear and the Hare. While John Lewis isn’t the only one to feature this sort of mascot, I think the odds are pretty high that there will be one centre stage again this year, with a handy little AR companion app that lets you bring the adorable critter into your home to play with, or to help tell a bedtime story. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a badger in search of the right hat...

Virtual Decorations

Think of it as a Snapchat filter for your house: don’t want to get the ladder out and risk scaling the building? There’s an app for that. Not got that perfect ‘White Christmas’ snow for your photo? There’s an app for that. Want that roaring open fire next to the tree? Anyway, you can see where this is going. Taking the idea behind IKEA Places to its next festive step will be a crimbo-themed app that lets you decorate your home inside and out, with a huge variety of different, themed seasonal effects. From the app, you’ll be able to share the photos to social, or, more likely, get tagged in/sent them by your over-excited mum.

Emoji Messages

Let’s be honest - the most exciting thing about the iPhone X is the facial tracking. I’m sure that it can be used in a myriad of different life-changing and exciting ways, but, deep down, that’s not as exciting as the fact that I can now BE the emoji. My lucky wife can expect to be bombarded with talking poops very soon. And, this Christmas, it will give you the chance to be the campaign. Taking the TalkTalk/X-Factor idents to the next level, you’ll be able to download and record your message as one of the cartoonish stars from the adverts, and share it with friends, with the best being featured on idents everywhere.

The Holidays Are Coming

For me, Christmas has truly arrived when I hear the Coca-Cola Holidays Are Coming jingle. It’s probably a sign of my age, but, as a kid, that’s when I knew that Christmas was really on its way. In fact, many believe that Santa’s red suit and hat, with the white fur trim, were dreamed up by canny ad-men who put him in the brand’s corporate colours and ran with a ‘jolly Santa’ campaign for 30 years. With this history and heritage, it is no surprise that Coca-Cola is always looking to make its mark on the season. Whether it’s a Santa in a chimney, or the Coke truck driving down your road, expect the brand to be doing its best to claim the augmented reality space this Christmas.

Food Glorious Food! 

The centrepiece of a successful Christmas Day is a perfectly cooked meal, enjoyed with your family or friends around you. There is a raft of potential routes that supermarkets and food brands can take in order to help make the Christmas dinner perfect - from AR recipe cards and drinks measures, to table layout and decoration ideas. Supermarkets could also use AR as a useful in-store companion to the Christmas shop. For example, by adding an AR layer of the store, supermarkets can create a digital treasure hunt that will entertain kids, or map a route through the store to pick up ingredients for the Christmas roast. 

While some of these suggestions are more tongue in cheek than others, I’m sure that this Christmas will see a raft of AR tie-ins to ATL campaigns. And, if you’re someone reading this, thinking: “Dammit, that’s what we should have done!” - it’s not too late to be the brand that stole Christmas.