The Amazing Benefits of Augmented Reality Marketing for Ecommerce | Rich Watson

Matt Edmundson

00:00:06.960 - 00:03:17.450

Well, hello and welcome to the E Commerce Podcast with me, your host, Matt Edmondson. The E Commerce Podcast is all about helping you deliver E commerce. Wow. Yes, it is. That's what we say, that's what we want to do.

And to help us do just that, I'm chatting with my very special guest today, rich Watson from Augment365, about the amazing benefits of augmented reality marketing for E commerce. Yes, you heard it here first, ladies and gentlemen, the amazing benefits of augmented reality marketing for E commerce.

But before Rich and I jump into that conversation, let me suggest a few of the E Commerce Podcast episodes that I think you'll enjoy listening to. We now have an extensive back catalog and I'm always amazed. Actually, Rich, I don't know if you how many podcasts you've done, but I.

I'm always amazed by the stats showing me how many people are listening to episodes from years ago, which is a beautiful thing. So check out how not to Waste a Bunch of Money on Crappy Ads Campaigns with Jared Spywack. That was a great conversation.

And why you should stop using Facebook ads and start Google Advertising with John Horn was also a good one.

And you can find these and our entire archive of episodes on our website for free@ecommerce podcast.net now, this episode is brought to you by the E Commerce Cohort, which helps you deliver E Commerce wow to your customers. Now, I don't know how long you have been in e commerce, dear listener.

Maybe you're starting out, maybe you're new to the whole thing, but it's a real issue trying to keep up, especially if you're working by yourself or working in a small team. So Cohort is here to solve that problem.

It is a lightweight membership group with what we call guided monthly sprints that cycle through all the key areas of E commerce. So every month, they deep dive into a topic, an area. It may be marketing, it may be how to do augmented reality marketing.

You know, all those kind of things. The sole purpose of Cohort is to provide you with clear, actionable jobs to be done. You get to work with, with an awesome group of people.

So it's just a great way to either get stuck into E commerce or to make sure that you're continually growing and develop in this amazing area of life.

So whether you're starting out or whether, like me, you're a bit of a dinosaur in E Commerce, check out ecommercecohorts.com or you can email me directly at mattecommercepodcast.net with any questions that you have. Okay, so let's dive into today's guest. Rich Watson is a strong force in augmented reality marketing.

He has spoken all over the world about the future of E commerce and how he's going to be bought into Web 3.0. Rich has over 8 years of Facebook ad media buying experience and he is an avid believer in non fungible tokens and the metaverse.

Although, Rich, when we were talking before we hit the button, you were like, people think that usually means buying pictures of monkeys, but you're more interested in the technology behind it, right?

Rich Watson

00:03:18.330 - 00:03:48.390

Yeah, well, I did. I was into NFTs when the massive spike happened and everybody started making a lot of money, of course, because there's such excitement to it.

I was always interested in technology behind it. I'm interested in blockchain technology, I'm interested in Web3 in general. So all these things sort of have more of a future vision.

Whereas this buying and selling art thing, I don't know, I think it might die out or it would just sort of shrink to a very, very small percentage of what it is now, essentially.

Matt Edmundson

00:03:48.790 - 00:04:15.540

Yeah. It's funny, isn't it?

If there is anybody out there listening and would like to buy any of my photos for a couple of hundred thousand, you're more than welcome. Just get in touch, we'll make it happen. But beyond that, I like you. I'm really fascinated by blockchain technology and how that all works.

But I'm always equally interested in your fascination with, with augmented reality. So tell me about augmented hype and what it does, what your company does and why it does it.

Rich Watson

00:04:16.660 - 00:04:53.030

Yeah, sure. So we help brands and agencies leverage augmented reality for their marketing. So I think a lot of people have heard of augmented reality.

You know, most people have heard of Pokemon Go, for example, but they don't quite understand the connection between that, what the technology is and how that can help them with building this relationship with their customers, helping retain customers, getting better marketing performance. So that's really what we do.

We sort of start to work with people, we focus on what their main bottlenecks are, and then we basically create a bespoke augmented reality experience to harness their goal and their objective they have.

Matt Edmundson

00:04:54.870 - 00:05:53.050

So let's define right here at the start. I mean, you say most people know what augmented reality is because of Pokemon Go.

If my mum was watching this podcast, she'd go, I've no idea what Pokemon Go is. And I was, I was actually, I followed a Link from your LinkedIn profile to a. I've Got it here.

Actually, an article that was posted on the Shopify website about augmented reality and there's a little graph on there which tells me that the age of users or where augmented reality is growing specifically is in Gen Z and millennials. You know, those sort of age gaps or age gaps, age ranges, which makes sense because it's use of technology.

So for the purposes of those who are maybe older than the millennial age and like myself or like my mum, have no idea what Pokemon Go is, just explain what augmented reality is and how is it different if it is in fact different from virtual reality?

Rich Watson

00:05:54.180 - 00:06:53.900

That's a really good question. Augmented reality is essentially upgrading your immediate surroundings with digital assets. That's the best, easiest way to explain it.

The way that differs from virtual reality is virtual reality is essentially an entire environment that you're stepping into, whereas augmented reality is just overlaying the one you're already in. So you just do that glasses. And of course right now the majority of the time it's phones, whereas virtual reality.

You obviously have to have a headset, which I got, I got one of these right here actually. No, it's downstairs. But yeah, you have to have this big bulky headset on and you're completely immersed in the world.

Whereas augmented reality is something that comes into, in front of you, you put it on yourself, you put it in your surroundings and you can see what's going on around you. And there's another thing called mixed reality, which is essentially a mix between both of them.

But if we go down that rabbit hole, it gets really confusing. It's essentially onto VR, if that sort of makes sense.

Matt Edmundson

00:06:54.460 - 00:07:15.400

Okay, so that's mixed reality. When you. Okay, learning all kinds of terms today, Mum, if you're listening to the show now.

So what would be some examples of companies that have used ar? Well, so you talked about Pokemon Go. What are some other maybe well known examples?

Rich Watson

00:07:16.680 - 00:09:17.270

I think probably some of the biggest ones. So IKEA have used it quite extensively for a long time now. So it, they use it in lots of many different types of ways.

They use it to sort of visualize products and catalogs, but they also use it to enable you to have what's called a spatial AR experience. So it basically means it's within your space. I'm not sure why that's called, if that's why it's called spatial, but anyway.

And you can essentially have the product, you know, the furniture within your space and you can basically see what it's like in your house because that's the biggest thing Is like, okay, well, I think that would look good in my living room, but I don't 100% know. So IKEA have definitely capitalized this on really, really well. Loads of other brands have used sort of gamified versions.

So, you know, McDonald's, Burger King, they tend to use it more for incentivizing gaming, maybe with some discount or something like that. So the game would just be something, you know, like catching burgers in your mouth, something fun, you know, something that's gonna get engagement.

And then recently, Mini have used it really well for showing you their latest hatchback, I believe is one of the Mini one, you know, the sort of standard model they have. And essentially you can plonk a Mini down in your living room and you can go through all the different colors.

Everybody likes what it's like, so it's. Yeah, it's.

It's used quite a lot for, as it's sort of like visualizing something in your space, which is essentially like one key part of it, but it's not really the only part. But a lot of brands know that that's what people are expecting to use it for. So that's sort of what they go into.

Not a lot of people have explored the realms of, like, you know, what. What really could actually be done with it and how you could dig a bit more because it's so new and everyone's a little bit more.

More wary of it as a new technology.

So that's like, part of my mission is to show everyone all the different ways it can be used and how that can benefit your businesses other than just seeing something in front of you, which is, of course, cool, but it's not the only way.

Matt Edmundson

00:09:17.589 - 00:11:02.960

Yeah, and we'll get into that. We'll get into that. But let me. Let me just deal with this at the moment.

So I can, using the Ikea app or the website, I can sit there with my phone or my iPad. I can put the camera on. I can be in my living room and see the living room on my screen on my iPad or on my phone as I.

And then I can overlay furniture from Ikea and IKEA using the technology on the iPad. And the phone will figure out the right dimensions and so on and so forth.

And you can virtually place the chair or the sofa in the corner, and you can kind of get an idea of what it's like. When I was in the beauty business, we saw companies like, was it Maybelline that did the shades of lipstick one?

And you could try on different shades of lipstick just with, you know, by pointing the camera at yourself and you can see what you look like with the different shades of lipstick. I've seen that the sunglasses one was probably the most obvious one.

You know, what do you look like in these, in these glasses and Warby Parker, I think have used that, haven't they? So I get that you can, you can use now your phone and you can use the technology to try things out on or to see things in your space.

I guess my first question here, Rich, right, at the basic level of that is, let's say I'm a guy who's handcrafting furniture and I sell the pieces online.

I'm going to look at the IKEA website and go, there's no way I can compete or there's no way I can offer augmented reality because it just instantly feels like I don't know the technology. And surely that's got to be expensive to get done. Right. I need a whole stream of developers. I don't know if that's actually the case or true.

Maybe you could speak to that.

Rich Watson

00:11:03.600 - 00:11:48.750

Yeah, I think that's a really good point.

And that's one of the biggest things that holds people back as well is this assumption that you have to have an app because that's always how it's been done and that's obviously how Ikea are doing it. But we have. Not only is it becoming more, you know, why there's more creators.

So it means that there's a lot different, there's different ways of using it, but also different platforms are utilizing it. So of course we have social, we have web ar, obviously app based ar and these are three completely different ways of like housing the AR essentially.

And leveraging social obviously means there's already an audience of, you know, for, for example, meta. 5 billion people, is it? 5 billion? Yeah, something like that.

Matt Edmundson

00:11:48.750 - 00:11:50.670

There's a lot. Sounds like there's a fair few.

Rich Watson

00:11:50.670 - 00:12:07.230

Yeah, yeah, maybe it's one billion. I've forgotten that.

But yeah, like there's obviously a load of people on there, but whereas if you're creating an app or something, you have to be Ikea for people to actually download it and see it.

Otherwise it's a bit like, oh, I'm throwing a birthday party and I'm going to put the invitation on a tree in the middle of a forest, you know, no one's going to see it.

Matt Edmundson

00:12:07.230 - 00:12:07.990

Right, yeah.

Rich Watson

00:12:07.990 - 00:13:42.000

So leveraging things like Spark ar, which is Meta's AR platform, it means all these people can see it.

But not only that, it Makes it way more affordable because you can essentially work with one or two creators, depending on what your, how your concept is or how complex the assets are, etc. And you can have something really visually striking and really engaging created on a platform where you run ads already.

These are things that people are even aware of. They think to use AR we have to have it on the website, we have to have an app. But I'm sort of.

And others like me are saying there's social ar, which is not just Snapchat and Instagram, you know, bunny ears. It's like using AR and this is what speaks to, you know, you're going over the stats of like the Shopify.

I think it's to do the Shopify E commerce 3D versus 2D stats. And they're talking about AR. And of course Gen Z and Millennials are the people who use it the most. And that's because of the exposure.

So the way that AI has been used so far has been for face filters and that's those doing it. But as adoption of AR goes on and we start seeing more ways of using it, a lot more people will be able to use it.

You know, older people will be able to use it and understand it more and it will be more relevant to them. So, yeah, so going back to your question, yeah, it's becoming a lot more affordable and it's becoming a lot more accessible.

So you're not just having, oh, I'm not enough, I'm not a big enough brand to create an app. You know, you can do that, of course, but what I'm saying is you don't need to do that.

You just need to have a problem and a creative to solve it, which is going to be a.

Matt Edmundson

00:13:42.560 - 00:14:19.340

Okay, so actually then the technology is becoming more and more accessible. It's a bit like years ago in E commerce. I remember the first, the first hoo ha about you've got to have video.

You've got to have video, you know, to survive in E commerce. And you kind of like. I remember those cries. I mean, video is such a commonplace thing now.

You know, everyone's live streaming, they're doing live shopping now. Everyone's doing like their own mini QVC channel. So it's interesting how commonplace video is in E commerce.

So is this where you see augmented reality sort of heading? Is it? It's sort of going to become quite commonplace.

Rich Watson

00:14:20.700 - 00:15:17.710

I think it's probably a matter of time, but it's also a matter of technology.

And I think, I do definitely think that the growing Adoption with devices, you know, for mobile devices is going to happen before glasses are more commonplace. But I do think it's probably take glasses to replace things like video. And I don't think video is ever going to disappear. Like it's not going to.

This is the main thing. When I'm talking to people, you know, E commerce people, marketers, they're like, oh, should I use it? What's the metrics versus a video?

It's like, well it shouldn't be versus it should be all in your arsenal. You know, you don't go and get a photographer to do some photos and then just throw the rest of the creative out.

You know, it's all complementing each other. It all reaches people with different sort of interests, etc. So it could make it a little bit more redundant, less later down the line.

But I think it's going to take the actual glasses coming out and not being these huge, clunky, uncomfortable things, but something cool like Ray Bans for people to sort of forget about video and so forth.

Matt Edmundson

00:15:18.510 - 00:16:22.260

That's interesting. And like I'm fascinated to see where it goes, you know, and, and what you can do with it.

And I'm intrigued by how people are using the technology now. I'm fascinated by the fact you talked about sparked ar, you know, with the Spark ar, the sort of Facebook's version. It's not Facebook now, is it?

Meta's version of a platform which you can use, which makes it accessible now to the guy that's doing handcrafted furniture, he doesn't have to be IKEA anymore, are there? I guess if I'm going back to the guy in the workshop doing handcrafted furniture, I've still got that barrier in my head and it might not be cost.

I mean, I don't know what costs are going to be, but I've still got that barrier in my head that actually I just don't get it. I don't understand it. So why should I think about this? Maybe let's talk about that.

What are the benefits, I suppose, of augmented reality in marketing? Why should I think about it?

Rich Watson

00:16:23.380 - 00:17:35.809

I think the biggest one that you can almost guarantee, obviously depending on what you're using, has created already, is the engagement. And part of it is because it's essentially immersing someone into the ad. So it feels completely personalized, essentially.

And it's very hard now, especially with Meta, to personalize things with the lack of granular data we have. Yeah, so there's one. And you can't guarantee any sort of ROI and things like that.

Of course anyone who's guaranteeing that you should run away, but things like you can guarantee almost because of the fact that's a new technology and the fact is it's going to be ultimately thumb stopping, it's going to, it's going to make people just take notice of it. So that's one of the biggest things to sort of overcome when you're doing ads anyway. And then the other things are the platform likes it.

So if we're talking specifically about meta, because that's really the, in my opinion the best place to run augmented reality ads, you can run them on other platforms, Snapchat for example, but the audience is a bit smaller. You're able to get. So yeah, anyway, I sort of went off a trail but now I remember what I was talking about. They prefer you staying.

Matt Edmundson

00:17:35.809 - 00:17:36.649

I do that all the time.

Rich Watson

00:17:38.310 - 00:19:08.620

That's their goal is like give people the best experience on the platform and that's, you know, and then we win. And what this does is the augmented reality keeps you on the platform for longer.

So when you compare it to standard E commerce video view time, you're probably looking at six to 30 seconds, something like that. Of course it completely different, differs depending on the audio, the industry and things.

But with augmented reality we're seeing 60 seconds, we're seeing over a minute and the reason is because it's you or it's your space in it and you're showing someone, you're like, oh come look at this, you know, all these sort of things.

Again, because it's a fairly new technology, maybe there's a novelty aspect of it, but that the fact that people have longer dwell time with the experience means the platform enjoying it.

The CPMs drop down and your ad costs are lower and then you've also got really good engagement because it's a really good, know completely revolutionary creative. So all of those things complement each other. You know it's going to have better effects down the line.

So that's definitely something to, to take notice of before everybody else does. And I obviously don't know when that's going to be.

But I do think that we're seeing the, the initial bell curve, you know, sort of dipped and it went down and then we had Covid and everything became a little bit more accelerated. We're sort of getting past the sort of gradual part now and we're seeing the acceleration of the adoption which was in that graph.

Like everything is predicted to be 100, sorry, a billion users this year and it Already passed a billion in June.

Matt Edmundson

00:19:08.860 - 00:19:09.220

Wow.

Rich Watson

00:19:09.220 - 00:19:26.380

It's probably going to be two. And then next year it's going to be maybe two and a bit. And then the year after that. So we're going to get.

I think it's predicted to be 75% of the population using AI by 2025, based on that, that prediction of model, of that model. So, you know, it's going to be a common, more commonplace thing that we're seeing right now.

Matt Edmundson

00:19:26.550 - 00:20:57.040

Yeah, rapid growth, isn't it? I mean, it's massively rapid growth and it's interesting. You talked about how the benefits of using it in marketing. I like that.

Obviously, one, it's going to increase engagement with customers and I get that. You know, does this furniture fit in my room, yes or no? Yes, it does. Okay, I'll buy you.

And you're kind of answering questions which everyone has, which stops people buying. You're removing the barriers to entry. Does this shade of lipstick look good on me? You know, do these glasses fit my face?

All the stuff that kind of stops you buying it. You're dealing with that in quite a clever way using technology. So I can see how engagement would increase.

I can see how whilst people can't guarantee return on investment, I can see how actually there are use cases where that would just go through the roof when using things like that. But I'm really intrigued by this comment.

You mentioned about how the platform Meta really likes it as well, because you're on it longer and Meta is doing everything it can at the moment to try and keep you on the platform longer and longer as it's losing more and more market share. It is rapidly scrambling, isn't it? And so it is going to promote and use content which keeps people on the platform.

And I don't think that can be understated or undervalued by really at the moment. So I thought that was. I thought it was actually quite insightful. I like that. I've even noted it down in my little notebook. Rich, I'm still analog.

Still analog.

Rich Watson

00:20:58.000 - 00:22:10.000

10 billion into it, you know, a couple years ago, VR and AR and XR, of course. But my completely my opinion, they lost a lot of people with. First it was Cambridge Analytica and then there was iOS 14.

And of course that's not their fault at all. That's Apple, who are also doing their stuff, by the way. But that's another discussion.

But the fact that they put all this money into it, I believe that they're trying to get the best ad platform for immersive marketing. By immersive marketing, I mean marketing with ar, with VR, with xr.

And the first to come out of all of that is ar, because it's just the metaverse we speak of is a VR one, whereas I think is an AR one because it's going to up enhance our actual reality first before we just jump into a ready player, one world. And they know that too. So they're trying to re, you know, bring, bring the dominance back because obviously TikTok are just smashing at the moment.

They're just most people I talk to. Yeah, I don't do Facebook anymore, TikTok. So that's why I think they're focusing a lot more on this and they're, they're putting a big bet on it.

So that's why I think the platform is so ripe for the picking for people who want to look at this.

Matt Edmundson

00:22:10.880 - 00:23:59.580

That's a very good point. I was listening to. Well, this is totally, slightly, slightly off topic.

I was listening someone talk about this, the big sort of TikTok versus Facebook debate and how Facebook was built on the concept of the social graph, wasn't it?

You have to be connected, you know, and you go on there because of your social connections, and they're showing you less and less content to do with your social connections and more and more of the stuff which people are paying for. So you've less and less reason to go on Facebook. And the same now actually with Instagram.

Whereas TikTok was never built on the premise of a social graph.

It was built on the premise of we're gonna entertain you very, very, you know, easily, and you're gonna get sucked in way more than you think you're going to, but you're gonna get sucked into this world of immersive, sort of short clip videos. And I think I do find this scramble of meta now quite fascinating, you know, and how TikTok has sort of changed everything again.

But they are two different platforms and I'm kind of curious to see where it all goes. So let's get back to AR augmented reality. So you mentioned that Meta is the best platform to start looking at and start doing stuff on. Right.

And there are certain industries, Rich, where I go, okay, I get it, I understand it. Furniture makes sense, makeup makes sense. But I have. Let me ask you about this. How would it work for say, this brand here? Right.

So this is a supplement brand, Vegetologies Omega 3, which is a vegan. Omega 3. Right. And full disclosure, I'm part of this company and it just happened to Be on my desk. Hence the reason I just picked it up.

And I thought, I'm thinking to myself, how would I take advantage of something like that for a company like this, where it's maybe not. Not as obvious what I should do?

Rich Watson

00:24:00.940 - 00:25:47.090

I think so. I've seen some examples for fitness brands and, you know, I'm completely pulling these concepts out my mind right now.

But it would be something to do with tying it into a routine. So what I'm thinking is gamifying it in a way where you, I don't know, check in every day and it tells you which day it is.

You, like, taking my pill or something like that. And it's sort of. You share that on social and people can see that you're, you know, you've got this accountability or something like that.

So it's quite difficult to come up with a concept straight from. Straight from, like nothing. But I think with something, it's really. I guess the AI should be based on the emotion you want them to feel.

I mean, any advertising should be really. But you can have a much more powerful way of doing it if you can find that concept that works well.

So usually whenever I work with someone who's a bit unsure about the concept, it's like, okay, what are you doing now? What works now? And it's like, oh, we have people, I don't know, giving a gift to someone.

And the experience of giving the gift is the thing that people want to enjoy. It's like, I've given you this gift and then they're looking at you like, oh, wow, this person really thought about me. They really.

So then you, okay, how do I encapsulate that into ar? And that's the sort of concept they came up with. Like a dream box that sort of opens and you tap on it and that, you know, the gift comes out.

So maybe something around those lines, maybe gamifying it in some way or giving some people some snippet of the emotion you want them to be having by using it. In this case, I guess motivation, you know, staying vegan, making sure that you're taking care of your body, something like that.

And also needs to be an element of showing off as well, because then that builds the social proof and the virality of it potentially as well.

Matt Edmundson

00:25:47.780 - 00:25:50.020

So, okay, so the user needs to show off a little bit.

Rich Watson

00:25:50.980 - 00:26:54.890

Yeah, I think so. I mean, it could be influences as well.

I mean, this is right for the pick influence as well, because, you know, the organic reach can be absolutely massive on this. There's one a Guy made a.

I talk about this all the time just because I'm dumbfounded by it, but this guy in Singapore called Eugene is founder of a AR firm called Dude. He created the Squid game game which basically was the red light, green light game.

And you are the person and you, you move forwards and then you know, when the girl moves around, you stop. Otherwise you die. That reached 500 million people organically as an AR experience.

And anyone watching this or listening to this is probably remembering, oh yeah, I saw that it was him. That's none. There was no paid ads or anything like that. So you can imagine that if you found something of that effect.

Obviously not copywriting anything, but if you found something, the amount of organic reach you get is, is huge. So I would probably go down that route for this because that's. This is more.

It feels like more of a tribal thing like people want to be part of a community, things like that.

Matt Edmundson

00:26:55.770 - 00:27:14.460

Well, okay, I'm sorry to throw you in at the deep end there. I just thought I was randomly pick up a product and see, see how we. See how we did. So Gamify, Gamify supplements.

What else have you seen work in the E commerce space work well that listeners to the show kind of go, well that makes sense for my business. You know some of those ideas.

Rich Watson

00:27:16.860 - 00:28:53.240

Yeah, quite a few. I guess the best ones really to mention are the ones that I can back with data.

So I mean we've got some case studies for myself and there's some also there's some ones with Meta, but this is a really good case study. Four case studies given out from Meta, from Mini actually was one I already mentioned before and then another one's Avon and they like used a game.

They use a game basically to, to use theirs as well. And they all found like. So with these four examples, so the other two, one was like an animation or an anime I think from Korea.

And then there's another one that was a social awareness or social impact group in somewhere in Eastern Europe. I don't remember the country now. But they found when you know these, these companies were running ads themselves.

So the, the actual examples are all very different. So it's never all tie in.

But the, the experiment they're trying to run is okay, how does the cost compare when they run the AR with the business usual campaigns?

So they actually found that running this then compared to running business as usual loan is they got a 59% decrease in ad inventory costs just because of the massive, massive engagement that was there. So I think probably they'll definitely share that if anyone wants to read that one.

But for us we've got a few case studies so I'll probably talk about the. The most known one is the people that will probably be able to find more relevant is this glasses brand for babies. So it's called Baby Ators.

They have UV protection for children and babies.

Matt Edmundson

00:28:53.240 - 00:28:54.120

Baby Ate.

Rich Watson

00:28:55.160 - 00:28:56.360

Yeah, it's a great name.

Matt Edmundson

00:28:56.520 - 00:29:01.400

That's such a cool name if you're listening. Baby. That is awesome. I like that. That's really cool.

Rich Watson

00:29:02.120 - 00:30:17.050

Yeah, they're based all over the world I think and we just work with the ones in Australia.

But essentially they have before they were having all their ad creative was really awesome photos, like really good photography, really pristine and clean and awesome looking. But they wouldn't have. There wasn't a lot of. There wasn't like native feel to it. There wasn't ugc, they didn't have a lot of that.

So they wanted to be able to create something that created ugc but also you know, just made some of the objections they were getting or some of the I guess like people things that are turning people off when they're buying it make it a bit easier. And the most common questions they found is styling, sizing, things like that, like is this going to look good on my baby?

Basically because it's hard to tell. So that's where AR came in and completely improved everything drastically because you can actually experience it.

So what we created was it created a four way split where you can try four different pairs on and tap onto one and it zooms in full screen and it could be essentially if you have your child there, you could just do a selfie or you could just do back camera if you wanted so you can see what it looks like on that.

And what they found was actually they got increase in average order value of I think it was over 50% because people instead of buying two pairs they were buying four now.

Matt Edmundson

00:30:17.050 - 00:30:18.730

Right? Of course, yeah, yeah.

Rich Watson

00:30:19.450 - 00:30:55.190

And then they're like oh, I wouldn't have thought that look would look good and it did. So people would increase that and that led to them Getting I think 44 increase in return on ad spend. So now we are also.

Not only that but they were also creating UGC from this. So when people were sending videos they had an incentive like hey, send this into us and you get entered into this competition.

So people are sending videos and we actually use that as the ad creative to pull people into the AR experience. So like free ad creative as well. Yeah, it was a really cool campaign.

That one, I talk about that one quite a lot and there's some, a bit more information in some content I've done if anyone wants more context on that one.

Matt Edmundson

00:30:55.830 - 00:31:00.950

So babyators, are they still running that campaign or is it just like a temporary thing?

Rich Watson

00:31:01.190 - 00:31:51.150

They still got the, they still got the. So you can, when you upload in meta, you can upload the AR's AR AD or as an AR experience.

And when it's an experience it lives in the back of Instagram and in Facebook but it's still in the back of their Instagram so they can still use it. You can, this is the beautiful thing. You have one AR asset created. You can use an ads. You can also use it in your. All your organic stuff.

I mean that's the same as all creative, right?

But for example with this, you would just send it to your email list and go hey guys, check this out and then tell us what you think or send us a video and we enter you into this. You can do it in messenger, you can just do it on your website, you can have a link to it, all these sort of things.

So they're still using it, I think organically to be able to run it. But in terms of actually finding people's ads that are ar, you can't actually find them unless they actually come up on your feed organically.

You can't go to ads library search, which is really frustrating because I wish you could.

Matt Edmundson

00:31:51.310 - 00:31:53.790

Okay. They don't come up in ads. Okay, that's interesting.

Rich Watson

00:31:53.790 - 00:32:15.400

Yeah, yeah. If it actually organically comes up in your. Not organically. You know what I mean? If it comes up feed then that's how you see AR ads.

But most people haven't really seen them because not many people are using them unless they're big brands. Sometimes it's like Christmas time Black Friday, you see a few. But yeah, it's not, it's not a hugely used creative unfortunately.

Matt Edmundson

00:32:16.200 - 00:32:27.960

I mean where Black Friday questions, I'm curious, have you seen any good examples of AR used around Black Friday that were. That made you kind of go, that's really clever. That's. That's well thought through.

Rich Watson

00:32:28.840 - 00:33:51.240

Yeah.

So there was one from Boohoo they used was basically a, a game, like a hacking game and it had a location based AR element to it and it's called Hack Friday. And the whole idea of it was, I think it.

You basically went to this location and there was a boohoo board and you would have your phone and look up at it and it would give you some Easter Egg or something. And then you would send it to them to say, oh, I've seen whatever it is. So it's almost like an Easter hunt, like a treasure hunt.

And then you do it with them. That was pretty cool. And then there's another one called Goat, which is a similar idea.

But the idea for them was to find these, like, I think they're like, they're a sneaker brand. And the idea was to go to these locations and find these, like, hidden sneakers somewhere. So both of these were very soon after Pokemon Go.

So everyone was like, oh, that was such a good concept. So all the marketing people went, right, how do we use that for our brand? And that's just one section. That's what I was saying.

Just it being a visual thing, it can also be this gamified thing. It can also be more of an interactive thing, all these things. So, yeah, those are the only two examples I've seen for Black Friday specifically.

But they both smashed it for them. I think they had really, really good results on that. And I just did a video on Black Friday actually, or I think I talked through it a bit.

Bit more detail. So if anyone wants to have a look at that on. Yeah, my socials and stuff.

Matt Edmundson

00:33:51.480 - 00:34:01.960

Okay. And we will link to all of those, of course, in the show notes, so which will be available on the website. So we'll put all the links in there. Chris.

It's really. Chris.

Rich Watson

00:34:02.600 - 00:34:03.080

Rich.

Matt Edmundson

00:34:03.720 - 00:34:47.230

Chris. I'm just thinking of Christmas is what I'm thinking of. Now you've got me, Black Friday and I'm thinking Christmas. Do I do a.

Do I do an augmented reality where someone dresses up at Santa Claus? The. I guess the. I'm sitting here listening to you and actually from. As an E commerce entrepreneur myself running an E commerce business. Right.

My mindset is kind of like, this is really cool. If I could figure out a way to make this work. I can see that there's a lot of benefits here. So how do I get started? Where do I. Where do I begin?

Because this is all like you say, there's. There's four people in the world that seem to know about it. You're one of them. It's kind of like, how do we. How do we get started?

How do we begin if we want to start heading down this road?

Rich Watson

00:34:48.270 - 00:37:22.320

I think the best way to start is where is your bottleneck? Like, what is the thing you're trying to achieve?

So there's obviously, I'll give an example of something that helped with AOV that was that main focus of that one. We've also worked with people who have problems with really low engagement. So the main focus was, okay, get people engaging.

We've had things where people wanted the granular data so we kept the dwell time longer. So it's like something that keeps people more engaged for a longer time. So whatever that focus is, you can also.

So obviously we talked a lot about social ar, but you can also be using AR for your site. You know, you actually product visualizations is most of the time like what people use AR in 3D site, but then you can also use it post purchase.

So I call it post purchase architecture and I don't know what everyone else calls it, but essentially it can be giving people extra utility on their product.

And the way that can be envisaged is, you know, a manual to teach people how to use the product properly or how to maintain it, or give them some sort of game to make it even extra more fun. This is used a lot in, you know, kids toys and education, stuff like that. And a lot of things have shown that.

Studies have shown that people actually, you know, the customer service queries drop because you're showing people how to use things and they're actually looking at them because, you know, when you get people a manual, they're not going to bother looking at it. It's a bit boring bit of paper.

But if you turn it into something more immersive and you know, for example, if it's a car and you have an AR experience in your car to show people where everything is that they need to know and all the latest gadgets and everything like that, they're actually going to look at it and use it and then there's going to be less issues when they, they get buyer's remorse, oh, I don't have to use this. It doesn't work. So there's loads of ways you can basically use it.

So going back to your question, it's really about what's the area that your first bottleneck is or the biggest one? What sort of creative are you using that works well now?

And also have a look at people within your industry directly or who are marketing to your market and see if anyone's done any AR that's relevant to what you're sort of doing?

And just looking at more examples and of course, hopefully, you know, me talking and us sharing these ideas is it starts to get the cogs turned a little bit in your mind. You're like, okay, actually, I could see that.

And then it's just a matter of Matching the idea with the capabilities of AR because it's not 100% there yet. Well, I don't know. Doesn't really make any sense, I guess. How can it be 100% ever there? It's always going to be different.

For example, is not great yet.

So if you're a clothing brand, the way we've got around it is actually creating a virtual mannequin where you can try different outfits on them, but if you want to try those on yourself, it looks a bit funky.

Matt Edmundson

00:37:22.320 - 00:37:23.280

I'm gonna lie.

Rich Watson

00:37:23.360 - 00:38:32.410

The facial tracking, the hand tracking, the foot tracking, things of that, really good. Like you. Most of the time you can't tell it's not real. That's the thing. But it's. There's still limitations to it.

So know the limitations as well, because then you can avoid pushing your creator too hard because that can happen a lot. It's like, I want this to happen. It's like there isn't technology that does that yet.

But, you know, they always try and just do everything you tell you. Yeah, I'll just do it. That's fine. And then. Yeah, I mean, that thing I was saying earlier, like, what's the experience you want them to have?

Like, how do you want them feeling being in the AR experience and what's the customer journey afterwards as well?

So I think once you've thought those four things, you can approach somebody who creates ar, for example, augmented hype and sort of share your idea, show your brands, share the creatives that are working well and have worked well in the past, or that, you know, Q4 creatives that were well in the past. And then from that, you know, basically create a few concept ideas and then approve one or two or many of them. Yeah.

And then putting them in place and start, start activating them and, you know, start reaping the benefits. Brilliant.

Matt Edmundson

00:38:32.810 - 00:39:26.640

Absolutely brilliant. So, Richard, listen, I'm aware of time and it seems to be getting away from us, but I appreciate that. Let me ask you a question.

You've got on your virtual reality headset and you're virtually in a crowd of people.

You've delivered your keynote talk on how to do augmented reality marketing to either E commerce cohort guys because, you know, they sponsor the show, so why not let's bring them in and they're virtually stood up on their feet, giving you a round of applause and, you know, crowds going wild. Yeah. Go Rich. Go rich. And you come back on stage and you just, you'd say, listen, thanks for that. I would just like to thank.

Who would you thank a person, a book, a podcast, a film. What springs to mind? Who would you thank? Who would you mention?

Rich Watson

00:39:26.640 - 00:40:42.460

I was thinking just a person, but now I'm thinking a person and a book because of, as we said. So I think the book would, for me, would be.

It doesn't really sound like anything to do what we were talking about, but Built to Sell was probably one of the most powerful books I've read. And it's just about taking us out, taking yourself out of the implementation and trying to be the brain of the body, you know, not trying to be the.

The arms and the legs and everything else as well.

So even if it's your idea is to sell your business within five years, having that in, you know, what the book tells you to do in place means that you can drive the vision. And that's one thing I see owners and business owners in general finding it hard to do.

They're just still in the weeds, you know, doing stuff, and then everything just goes over the head. So that was really powerful. In terms of person, I think Casey Milhouse, who's my AR mentor, essentially, she now works at Meta.

She showed me the ropes of augmented reality, and when I didn't realize it was even a possibility, apart from I'd already started running some AI ads just to test them out, she took me under a wing and showed me what AR can do for marketing. And since then, it's just been an obsession of mine. So I owe it to all to her, basically.

Matt Edmundson

00:40:42.780 - 00:41:26.800

Fantastic. Well, Casey, for listening, thank you. Because it meant that we got this episode, and I'm really intrigued by it. And it's.

I have to be honest with you, I've not got involved yet with AR marketing. And what you have done, Rich, is you have sparked something in my imagination, which is there's 40,000 questions now in the back of my head about.

About the whole thing, which I'm kind of like, well, let's. Let's start looking into this. Let's start finding out. So I liked your points on terms of how to get started, and so we're going to look at that.

Um, what about you guys listening to the podcast? Are you intrigued by it? And what. What are your plans? Let us know, Rich.

Listen, if people listening to the show want to reach out, they want to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do that?

Rich Watson

00:41:28.000 - 00:42:10.400

Yeah, I think so. I have a free Facebook group called AR Ad Strategies, which you can join absolutely free. It's mainly for marketers and agencies and for brand owners.

And there I just give you all the juice, all the information I have, you know, about these ideas going in your head and, you know, that's really the best place to sort of start, you know, firing off questions. We've got other agency owners in there, brands who've all done ar.

So, you know, this is community of people who are sort of at the forefront and they're all testing it out and had great success with it and sharing that with others. So I think that's probably the best place. Other than that.

Yeah, I share a lot on socials, so my Facebook, my LinkedIn or my Instagram, probably the best to learn a little bit more.

Matt Edmundson

00:42:10.800 - 00:42:20.560

Fantastic. We will, of course, link to all of those in the show notes, but the Facebook group. I'm gonna go join AR ads. Is that what the Facebook group's called?

Arkansas Ad Strategies?

Rich Watson

00:42:21.200 - 00:42:22.159

Yeah, that's it.

Matt Edmundson

00:42:22.159 - 00:44:08.040

Okay, we'll go search that and see what comes up. Rich, listen, thank you so much for joining us today. It's been a phenomenal conversation. Conversation.

I've really, honestly, I really enjoyed it and so really, really helpful. Yeah, thank you, thank you, thank you for being with us. It's been, it's been great. Absolutely great.

So a big shout out again to today's show sponsor, the e Commerce Cohort. Do head over to ecommerce cohort.com for more information about this new type of community that you can join.

Be sure to follow the E Commerce podcast wherever you get your podcasts from because, well, we've got yet more great conversations lined up with people like Rich, and I don't want you to miss any of them. And in case no one, dear listener, has told you yet, today, you, my friend, are awesome. Yes, you are. It's just a burden we all have to bear. It's.

It's just the way we've been made. We are awesome people. The E Commerce Podcast is produced by Orion Media. You can find our entire archive of episodes on your favorite podcast app.

The team that makes this show possible is Sadaf Banon, Josh Catchpole, Estella Robin, and Tim Johnson. Our theme song has been written by Josh Edmondson and my good self.

And as I mentioned, if you would like to read the transcript or show notes from today, head over to the website ecommercepodcast.net where coincidentally, you can also sign up for the newsletter. So that's it from me. That's it from Rich. Thank you for joining us. Have a fantastic week wherever you are in the world. I'll see you next time.

Bye for now.