AR technology is aiming to make things more interesting for planners and exhibitors who want to share their messages.
The event attraction industry has been undergoing some changes that involve technology, over the last few months and years in order to better reach people in ways that they will find new and exciting, and Foto Master is hoping that augmented reality will dramatically improve the results that exhibitors are seeing.
Planners and exhibitors already face a considerable challenge in the delivery of their brand messaging.
Driving this effort to bring augmented reality to trade shows and other events is a company called Foto Master, which has already established itself with a substantial product line. Its specialty is already in the interactive entertainment, family entertainment, and event attraction fields. Recently, at the IAAPA 2014 expo, the company launched three additional products, which were presented there.
Clearly, the company is turning its attention toward augmented reality and other unique interactive technologies.
The three new products that take advantage of interactive entertainment and AR technology include the following:
• The AR Foto Booth – this creates party favors that have been generated within the augmented reality environment. This allows users of the booth to wear three dimensional props that will move around with them, making it appear as though the guest is in an exotic location or is within a branded image, interacting with the prop.
• The MiniMe Foto Booth – this is a similar idea to the AR Foto Booth, only it allows two participants to use it at a time, and it will shrink one of them to a miniature size. This makes it possible to make it look as though one participant is in the palm of the other participant’s hand.
• The Interactive Story – an augmented reality environment designed for children by running animated stories. The child can interact with the various characters as the story runs on a screen.
The marketplace in India is starting to experience the same level of “app fatigue” being seen elsewhere.
A recent study conducted by Forrester Research in India has shown that consumers will be spending a growing amount of time on their devices, but will be using fewer apps, with a preference for mobile gaming over other types of applications.
The app fatigue that is being seen in other regions of the world is clearly setting in within this country.
This trend has been especially notable in developed markets such as the United States, and Forrester Research stated that it will not take over as quickly in India for a while. The report was entitled “Predictions 2015: Most Brands Will Under-invest In Mobile”. It showed that while device users in India may be showing signs of app fatigue, their love of mobile gaming remained strong.
The report showed that mobile gaming will be, to some extent be immune to the upcoming wave of app fatigue.
The report indicated that smartphone apps are going to start to become less popular among Indian mobile device users, but at the same time, mobile games will start to increase in popularity, to a certain degree. In the United States and the United Kingdom, the average smartphone owner will use an average of 24 apps every month, but 80 percent of their time will be spent on only five of those, as a result of app fatigue.
According to iVoice Ventures’s Venky Vaiyapuri, though many smartphone users are downloading applications, many of those apps will go unused. There are also many applications that remain entertaining only when they are new and that become boring over time. Vaiyapuri explained that there are simply too many apps and this is not appealing to consumers.
He used Angry Birds as an example. While many people download that mobile gaming application, not many will use it or will continue to use it over time. He stated that “We will soon follow the US and UK markets and lose interest in downloading apps.” A Vodafone India spokesperson added that India hasn’t yet reached the level and energy of monetization seen in developed markets.
