As you can see on timeline on our website we first saw augmented reality here at BTC Group in 2013, a company approached us to see how promotional products and clothing could work with augmented reality, and it did work really well, after a few projects, everything went quiet on the AR side and we didn’t really here much about it business wise and in general media trends. I believe a lot of this was purely down to limitation, there were very few applications out there that supported AR and some weren’t very user friendly at all, not only this but finding people to create content for you was like searching for gold dust, was limited and very expensive. Fast-forward a few years and an incredibly popular mobile game is released that incorporates AR as an integral part of the game of catching pocket sized creatures, and suddenly the world see augmented reality in a whole new light. It was this initial nudge in the right direction that was definitely needed for this technology to make it to mainstream, and people are really becoming more and more interested in not only augmented reality in gaming but how AR can benefit daily routine.
So what kind of things can AR help with in the future? One humungous area AR can be beneficial is when buying product, over 180 billion pounds was spent online last year in the UK alone, many of these people not knowing what the clothing product would look like on, or what the kitchen table would look like in their house, pretty much all of this is done using guesswork. This is wear AR comes in through a device like the Microsoft HoloLens users will be able to see what the dress looks like when they are wearing it, or how a table looks in the room you want to put it and, you can also manipulate and rotate virtually without breaking a sweat!
What we will see in the promotional industry is further research and development into AR triggers, at the moment we’re seeing that using certain apps aiming the camera at imagery with triggers hidden inside is the current method to initiate AI, what would be great is for generic apps to just identify any promotional product, and add the AI element to it, for example T-Shirts with hidden slogans, or pet AI animals that are triggered by aiming the camera at promotional stuffed toys. Another great idea I’d love to see developed for the promotional product and giveaway industry is GPS triggered AR, making products at different locations trigger different things, this would add a whole new level to promotional products, making even the most affordable item more dynamic and fun.