Just in time for the release of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Google has launched their first ARcore app, making it possible for Pixel phone users to drag and drop their favorite Star Wars characters like BB-8 and the lovable Porgs into the real world, via the camera feed. Announced back in October, the new AR Stickers app, available only on the Play Store for Pixel 1 and 2 users with Android 8.1, will give users access to a wide range of stunningly realistic 3D characters and text images through the Google camera. Simply drag the 3D image into the camera feed and the characters will ground themselves onto whatever horizontal plane you point your camera at. Once the character is in the scene, you can use multi-touch gestures to rotate, resize, and move them up and down. From there, you can let your imagination run wild and record videos of playful droids rolling around on your bed or an army of Stormtroopers taking control of the Subway on your morning commute. By choosing to release their ARcore app the same week ‘The Last Jedi’ storms into theaters, Google has perfected the art of promotional tie-ins and created a stunner of a marketing campaign.
Because of the powerful ARcore framework built into the Pixel phones, the 3D images do an incredible job of anchoring themselves to whatever surface you position them in, even as you move from one room to another, and they do a fine job of adjusting to different lightings and environments. If Star Wars isn’t your thing, you can also drag and drop your favorite Stranger Things characters, Google Food characters, and 3D text images into the camera feed. Dare to drop two images into the feed at once and you may witness some clever interactions between characters (Eleven and the Demogorgon will assume fighting stances).
On a technical note, Google has built the AR stickers directly into the Android 8.1 system image which, according to a report by Arstechnica, “makes distribution easy for Google since every Pixel phone will automatically download the whopping 100MB update to make the app work.” The ARcore framework does takes up a ridiculous amount of storage space and it’s a little complicated to remove but if the incredible promotional videos released by Google are of any indication, this new app will be a revolutionary development in the world of AR and you probably won’t want to remove it anyway.
AR technology is becoming an exceedingly popular way for film and TV studios, major brands and small businesses to elevate their content marketing strategies and share stories with consumers in new and creative ways. Over the past few years, AR content marketing campaigns like Ikea Place and the Sephora Innovation Lab have engaged audiences in ways that weren’t possible before and as the technology becomes more user-friendly, we may see content marketers taking full advantage of AR to create campaigns that pique the curiosity of consumers. Going forward, it will be vital for companies to understand audience needs and expectations before jumping into AR content creation. It wouldn’t make much sense for a small online marketing publication to spend the time, effort, and money creating a basic AR ad that projects their logo into a real-world environment. For a small tourism site however, it might be a good idea to explore those opportunities. What better way to sell a hotel room than to let customers take a virtual tour of the room before they book? What works for some brands may not work for others and in order to stand out from the crowd and make AR integration a seamless experience for both creators and consumers, content marketers will need to explore all of the AR options available and work on creating content that their audiences will actually use. In 2018, start easing into AR technology and the Force will surely be with you.
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