Putting Nreal Air through Its Paces with a Wave of Influencer Reviews

Nreal Air augmented reality (AR) glasses launched in the US on Sept 27, 2022. This consumer-friendly headset looks exactly like a pair of sunglasses, weighs only 79g, costs only US$379, and is compatible with Android, iOS, MacOS, and virtually every streaming platform and game console on the market today. 

The problem? AR pioneer Nreal was so early to market, it actually gave the brand more work. With no big-tech heavyweights like Apple or Google readying the mass consumer market already, Nreal had to do all the audience education itself.

As Nreal’s long-term strategic communications and marketing partner, Eleven International led the charge.

The Challenge

Create a full-funnel, integrated marketing campaign that would guide consumers from awareness right through to purchasing Nreal Air on the brand’s newly launched Amazon page. 

For this case study, we’ll focus specifically on the consideration stage of the campaign. 

The metaverse has been a buzzword in the last couple years. Yet, very few people outside of tech-developer circles see AR as an actual part of their daily lives. We needed to show consumers why they’d need these AR glasses in their lives, right now (instead of waiting around for Apple’s headset to launch).

The Solution

For consumers to genuinely consider buying a pair of AR glasses, they’d need to know what they can actually do with them in daily life. The mass market audience don’t care about the specs; they also don’t want to waste money on a fad that’ll die in a couple weeks.

This early-to-market device would need to be put through its paces, to prove to consumers it’s something they’d easily embrace day to day. The best way to do that, was to enlist the help of online influencers already well-known for their in-depth and honest reviews.

Instead of a strip down or basic unboxing, we doubled down on communicating the everyday use cases of Nreal Air and creating FOMO. 

Love watching movies and TV? How about a 201” screen that fits in your pocket?

Always on the road for work? Here’s a multi-screen setup that’s smaller than your MacBook.

Loving your Steam Deck, but the in-built screen isn’t cutting it? Nreal Air’s the device for you.

Each influencer had the creative freedom to produce content highly relevant to their audience base. They also got an individual attribution link, so we could track the performance contribution to the overall campaign. 

The Result

We lined up 35+ YouTube and Twitter influencer reviews for Nreal Air’s launch, amassing more than 17 million views in total. The overall GTM campaign smashed Nreal’s sales target by 130%, even selling out the first batch of units within nine days, and rocketing Nreal to pole position as the #1 smartphone-connected product on Amazon. The influencers deserve their share of the glory, as that all-important consideration phase led consumers to Nreal’s Amazon page in droves.

Check out some of the reviews here: 

Alementary’s YouTube short has more than 12M views alone. 

PhoneBuff highlighted Nreal Air’s iPhone compatibility.

Snazzy Labs celebrated the Steam Deck screen upgrade you get with Nreal Air.