Philips does not own a store in Latvia but the company has its products distributed by numerous electronics providers across the country. Whilst having a product in multiple stores gives great exposure, the company cannot control how their product is presented or what information is given to the customers and staff at each location. With the help of augmented reality, Philips successfully addressed this issue.
A campaign was launched at one of its distribution stores, Euronics, in Riga. 67 Philips products across the store were tagged with AR-enabled cards. The goal was to enable the staff to learn about the product through videos that appeared when the tags were scanned, as well as to let customers find out more information about the product they were considering to purchase. Within a two-month period, the tags got scanned 8500 times in total.
The tags, which were added to the products invited customers to get a taste of augmented reality through participating in a competition. Buyers were incentivized to keep on scanning as every 300th scanner was rewarded with a surprise from Philips! With such new technology as AR, it is vital to remember that the AR content must be marketed and customers must be encouraged to engage with it.
One of the key campaign takeaways it the great value a brand can receive through providing an interesting and interactive way for salespeople to showcase a product, learn about a product or provide additional information to their customers. Electronics stores are usually filled with thousands of products from various providers and the retail workers may not always know each product in detail. By adding informative AR tags, salespeople could learn about the product themselves, as well as invite customers to find out more. This serves as an example for other stores who are looking for creative ways to educate their staff.