Experience Manifesto

AR and the Future of Retail

At Brand Experience Lab, we're really leaning into the all of the possibilities of AR and how retailers can use the technology to create new experiences. A recent article on AR in the Business of Fashion shows just how powerful AR can be as a sales tool:

• 86 percent of US brands who use AR say it helps boost sales, helps acquire new customers and drives performance metrics
• 66 percent of end consumers are interested in using AR for help when making purchasing decisions

In addition, Threekit has these AR stats:

• AR product experiences are 200% more engaging as they deliver double the levels of engagement compared to their non AR equivalent
• 61% of consumers say they prefer retailers with AR experiences
• 71% of consumers say they would shop more often if they used AR
• 40% of consumers say they would pay more for a product that they could customize in AR
• 52% of retailers say they are not prepared to integrate AR into their retail.

The BEL Team has been at the forefront of AR tech for many years and believe that it will generate tremendous business opportunities for brands and retailers. The key is creating experiences that drive both brand objectives and consumer engagement. BEL staff is ready to help you better understand all of these emerging technologies and how you can utilize them to achieve your objectives. From our Emerging Tech Learning Labs, to our AR/VR developments to understanding what's next, BEL is your partner to make sure you're not part of the 52% unprepared for these new technologies. Check out the video below to see a test we did with Spike, one of the displays we make at Unified.

The Portal video below shows one of my favorite AR tools. We've shown examples below of both CGI and 360 video immersive experiences and the opportunities are as limitless as the technology is! You can:

• Create teaser experiences for actual trips. Do you sell fishing trips at your retail location? Now your guests can open a portal right in your store and see what it looks like!
• Stores can create endless aisles, showing as much product as you want in the AR portal. We can help you create the tools to complete the purchase right there!
• Step out to join their favorite performer right on stage!

Want to know more about we can help? Reach out to Alexandra and she'll get something scheduled. We have lots of hands-on demos here so you can Experience, Experiment and Execute.

Our AR portal tests

Bringing a retail display to life with AR from David Polinchock on Vimeo.

David led the tech team of this interactive movie experience from 2007

TikTok Sand Table from David Polinchock on Vimeo.

CES 2021, 5G Is Here

Unless you've been on a deserted island (which honestly, might've been a good idea for the past year), you've no doubt heard of 5G. You might even have a 5G phone right now, there are a number of them on the market right now. 3G enabled the phones to start being more than a voice/text device, while 4G brought us the data opportunity that we've been living in for a few years now. Without 4G, much of what we do on our phones on a daily basis would not be possible, including watching content, maps, etc.

5G, as it becomes more widely available, will drive even more opportunities in our mobile/digital worlds. This report by Microsoft Cloud has some great stats for you to dive into! Some other 5G links:

• You can see the Verizon 5G keynote talk here.
• The CES 5G hub is here.
• Forbes Wrap-Up of 5G here.
• c|net panel on how 5G can help with Covid here.

• Location aware services/presence marketing. With the AR cloud and 5G, there will be really exciting opportunities. A few years back, I wrote about how Place & Information Will Change in an AR World to begin asking the questions about what happens when information is truly location aware.

Back in maybe 2012, I was out with a colleague looking for a place to eat. As frequently happens, you can easily get in a food rut, and we were looking for someplace new. We stood on a street corner going through Yelp, etc., looking for a restaurant that was actually across the street. Being able to place information onto the real world will become a very critical part of our futures. Think of the number of times you read an article on the best new restaurants in a certain town and how great it would be if that information could actually be overlayed onto that location the next time you visit. Or being able to see what your friends thought about a specific physical place while you were there.

But, bringing AR into our everyday lives brings up a number of critical questions:

• What's the UX for this new, AR world? Do we really want unfiltered and/or sponsored information overlaid on everything we look at? What's the new input experience for accessing this content? Will we use gestures, voice, eye movement? Take a look at what Alain Thys had to say about the future of UX and see what you think of his ideas.
• What is the backend for all of this content? Ori Inbar believes that it will be the AR Cloud that will drive the massive adoption needed to use AR as part of our every day lives. Information needs to be accessible in a very precise location for it to have value to the audience.
• Who will own this backend and be responsible for the massive amount of data that will need to flow through the system in order for it to be universally used? If I can only access data on one platform or another, that will make it hard for mass adoption to occur. I frequently say if TV had started like tech works today, and you needed a different TV set to watch each channel, there wouldn't have been a TV industry.
• Given how much of social media today has been taken over by trolls and haters, what happens to a society where that hate can live all around us, visually, in the real world? How will we clean up the AR graffiti that we know we cover the world? Who will make the distinction between art and garbage?
• How do we handle the right value exchange for the consumer in this connected, overlaid world? They know when the work we're doing is really only of benefit to us and they don't like it. We will not be able to force them to opt-in to this AR world unless they have a good reason.
• Entertainment. Sony showed off an awesome concert featuring Madison Beer during their keynote and it took me a couple of looks before I realized it was all CGI. With 5G, this kind of virtual experience will be available more widely. In fact, consumers will spend even more time on mobile devices to find the entertainment when and where they want thanks to 5G.

In addition, new forms of entertainment will be unlocked thanks to 5G. A number of years back during the Tribeca Film Festival, there was a demo of a new type of entertainment, where you had to walk around Tribeca to watch specific scenes in the places where they were actually filmed (I tried to find a link to it, but couldn't). The idea that you could walk around a city and have to visit different physical locations to experience a movie would be pretty cool.

A few years back, Sydney & I were at EPCOT Center and experienced the Kim Possible Adventure in the World Showcase. This scavenger brought Kim Possible to life and we traveled through the various countries that made up the World Showcase. Sydney & I had a great time and we saw a lot more of EPCOT than we might have otherwise.

• Sports and eSports. The in-stadium experience was being transformed before and Covid will speed that transformation along in sports like it has in every other field. From fan engagement to athlete training, 5G can impact almost all aspects of the sports experience. The NFL is testing 5G in stadiums, bringing player stats to the fan faster and in more detail than they can with existing infrastructure. Using technologies like AR, the field could come alive with all kinds of information. Inc. wrote about the use of 5G here and we're just at the beginning of where this tech can take us. You can als

VentureBeat gives some great examples here to show how the in-stadium experience will change with the addition of 5G. For example, the Sacramento Kings have built an entire virtual venue for guests to explore and see what their seats will look like. Speaking with ZDnet, Verizon VP of Network Engineering Brian Mecum said:

"We set up this 360-degree camera on the scores table, and what it allowed us to do was have the kids see the game as if they were sitting in a rare spot, and be able to put on the VR goggles ... they would be able to watch the game courtside."

From bringing the stadium experience to your home to enhancing the in-stadium experience, 5G will impact all parts of the sports experience. And this is simply building on what we already know to do. I have no doubt that we'll create immersive experiences that haven't even been considered yet as 5G is rolled out everywhere.

You can see my previous #CES 2021 posts here and here.

Welcome Veda Labs!

We are excited to welcome Veda Labs as a member to the Brand Experience Lab! VedaLabs is an India based company who uses an AI platform that helps retailers gather real time insights. From their website:

Veda labs as an AI platform that offers deep insights powered by computer vision and machine learning. These insights allow a business owner to extract deep insights from any form of video data in real time.

VedaVision™ allows retailers the following:

• Real Time Reporting. A single dashboard that allows you to have a real time data on how your stores are performing based on the consumer insights.
• Actionable Insights. Move more inventory, make store design decisions, improve customer experience and product placement with consumer insights.
• Organizational Control. Having the hierarchy in control, as admin you get the right to allow who sees what in your organizational dashboard.

We're already working together on on a test of their Covid Safety Kit, a solution for retailers that allows you to monitor key parameters like social distancing, mask detection, fever screening, space occupancy & sanitization alerts in real time to keep your space safe.

We're working on their travel plans, but anticipate that they will be here by the end of the month. Please reach out to Jim Ackerman for additional information and to schedule a time to see what they're creating. I'm sure you'll be as excited as we are!

Parallel Reality at CES

Over two years ago, Paul Dietz, an old friend who used to run the Mitsubishi Electronics Research Lab, reached out about a new company who was developing with some technology that he said would blow me away. He showed me some videos and they were pretty damn cool, I had to admit, but I'm not sure I knew what they were showing me.

So Jim Ackerman and I went to visit their space in Redmond and we were just blown away. Parallel Reality was one of those technologies that was really just magic to me. This technology innovation allows a hundred or more viewers to simultaneously share a digital display, sign, or light and each see something different. From their website:

PARALLEL REALITY™ Displays are enabled by
a new pixel that has unprecedented capabilities.

These pixels can simultaneously project up to millions of light rays of different colors and brightness. Each ray can then be software-directed to a specific person.

CONVENTIONAL PIXEL               PARALLEL REALITY™ PIXEL

Outputs only a single color        Can simultaneously output up to millions
at any moment.                        of controllable rays of different colors and brightness.

 

I was really excited to see them at CES this year, showing off their tech with Delta Airlines. I took one of my tour groups there and we scheduled a time to see them. Wasn't sure they were looking forward to coming back but once they had a chance to see it, they were blown away too. In fact, a great deal of the CES press called this either the best tech or one of the best techs of the show.

The possibilities for this technology are endless. With Parallel Reality, we can create personalized experiences at retail (Jim & I saw a demo of this already) and better connect with the shoppers in a store. Or while at a sporting event in a stadium, we can all see tailored content on the Jumbotrons. Later this year, they'll be testing the tech at the Detroit airport, delivering personalized boarding information to travelers. The possibilities are endless.

Check out the video I took below and reach out to find out more about what they're doing. We hope to be able to showcase them at the Lab in the future!

Ready for Members!

Excited to announce that after a few months of working on the infrastructure of the space, we're ready to open our doors to members! We are creating a word-class accelerator for companies working in retail, VR/AR and out-of-home (OOH). As we looked for our own space, we quickly realized that many coworking spaces are great for working, they are usually not very good if you need to do demonstrations of physical technologies.

Our space is just across the river from NYC, a short PATH train ride away in Jersey City. With 14,000 sf (and another 14,000 available if needed!), we have plenty of room to grow; set up your technology for live demos, meetings, seminars and getting work done in a living, breathing, future factory. It allows for you to go from concept to a real-world testing environment and get instantaneous data and feedback. This also allows our members from outside of the United States to have a US office location. We even provide staffing to present your products when you are away. And did I mention that the Cake Boss bakery is in the building too?

What we offer:

• Shared Space working with BEL design team
• Access to tech member network spaces while in NY
• Client support for hosted meetings
• Desks & office furniture 
• Conference room facilities
• Use of the shared space to host up to 4 events per year
• Demonstration area to present products and technology
• Kitchen for your staff and guests
• Wi-fi connectivity throughout premises

In addition, all members can participate in all events hosted on the premises including (based on availability and suitability) client presentations, industry specific events, meet-ups with other entrepreneurs, workshops about general business topics; demonstration events.

For members, BEL is your brand accelerator, helping you grow your business by:

• Demonstrating your technology to key retailers and clients.
• Presenting your technology to Unified/BEL clients and contacts.
• Working with Unified Merchandising LLC for manufacturing support, from prototype through final product.

Lastly, for companies outside of NYC, the BEL staff can act as your local business development staff. We can represent you in all client presentations that are necessary, acting as your staff on the ground in NYC and in the States. This allows you to be able to react quickly to client requests, without incurring last minute travel expenses.

Julian Fisher, CEO of our first member company, jisp said, "We are thrilled to be the first to take our place inside the Brand Experience Lab showing how the simplest, fastest and most seamless route to outstanding customer service lies in the hands of every shopper, their cell phone. And with jisp it is an experience once tried you’ll never want to shop any other way. It maybe a small step for shoppers but it’s a giant leap for retail."

Want to learn more about what we're doing? If you're developing innovative, new tech for the retail industry, click here to learn about our membership program.

If you're looking for space for your company, you can email David or Jim and we can give you additional information. You can also click here to download our full presentation.

Here are a few pictures of the space, come visit and see what it looks like in person! You can go to Brand Experience Lab for directions to our space. Hope to see you soon.