Last year Lancôme created two Augmented Reality (AR) experiences to promote one of their products, RÉNERGIE, at the Beauty Tech awards event in Thailand. Metalitix was plugged into two different activations, using 3D Analytics, we were able to see how their fans/customers interacted within the two different experiences, each at separate stages in the user journey.
Pre event Lancôme took over Out-Of-Home (OOH) ad space in one of the prime areas in Bangkoks highest-traffic shopping districts. The ads contained a QR code that consumers could scan and they would then be presented with a brand ambassador inviting them to the event alongside an item to collect that could be redeemed for a special offer on the day of the event.
Once at the event guests were then presented with a similar hologram AR Experience with differing messages. The activation for RÉNERGIE was to enhance the consumers immersive experience in discovering & learning about the new advance ingredient "Peptide" and its efficacy delivered by a Lancôme brand ambassador who appeared as a 3D hologram. Guests were also encouraged to interact with AR further by collecting the Peptide in order to redeem a special offer at the event.
Metalitix takes the analysis of any scene from traditional 2D Analytics to 3D Analytics, which means we can analyse space utilising a 3D Heatmap.
As metalitix was tracking the device of the user relative to the holograms, we decided to capture the gaze of the device by placing it within a dome, the gaze of each session would be visualised on the inside of the dome.
Above is a birds-eye view of the dome for one of the experience. It has been split into 4 quadrants to help analyse the user behaviour.
0. This represents the starting location of the mobile device
1. This is the ‘North’ quadrant
2. This is the ‘East’ quadrant
3. This is the ‘South’ quadrant
4. This is the ‘West’ quadrant
5. This is the position of the hologram
Using the Heatmaps for each separate experience we can understand the gaze and differing behaviours across each experience.
In these illustrations, Experience 1 represents the OOH experience before the event and Experience 2 represents the experience during the event.
The Images below now capture the users positions relative to the hologram. These demonstrate that the positional variance in Experience 2 was much higher that in Experience 1.
Further analysis to each experience could be conducted at an individual session level. These examples below show the behaviour which matches the aggregated behaviour above. In experience 1 there was limited movement, only minor movements backwards, wheras in Experience 2 these show signifacneltly more variance to the left and right of the Holograms.
By understanding the behaviours in the Heatmaps above, the Sessions Explorer allowed us to dig deeper by playing back individual sessions and seeing the exact behaviour. In successful sessions we will see a common behaviour in which the users will start a session and remain largely in the single location throughout the experience. These users predominantly are focussed on the hologram or at its base, they are also quick to complete the video and then click on the CTA. In the following assessment of each Experience we will assume that this behaviour is common throughout, instead we will look at behaviours that differentiate in each experience.
The single largest behaviour in Experience1 is that of a minor backward movement. This backward movement typically happens as soon as the experience starts and the user will typically elevate their device (or stand up) to gain a better viewing position of the Hologram. The behaviour is consistent with the aggregated Heat map of the experience as per above. Overall there was minimal movement other than a minor step backwards.
In Experience 2 there was a much broader spectrum of movement across the x and y axis than in Experience one. The users also maintained within the experience longer and were much more active in their interactions and overall engagement.
In this experience a side movement was common, this meant that the gaze distribution was much more wider spread as you can see in the session in Experience 2 and on the aggregated view of the heat map in Experience 2.
Experience one session count was 594% higher than the next closest Experience. Although a little over exaggerated this is to be expected as it was top of funnel for the activation providing a much larger footfall than the subsequent event.
Experience two average session length was 53% higher in Experience one. We would expect to see this as those who have attended the event are much more invested in the experience now they have shown intent and taken the time to attend the event.
The Recentering icon was utilised at a significantly higher rate in Experience 1 than in Experience2.
Experience two conversion from URL to Placement of the Hologram was 22% higher than Experience 1.
Experience two saw a significantly higher physical & Spatial engagement than Experience 1.
What have we learnt from the analytics?
The OOH experience indicated a much lower willingness of users to physical movement and had much lower average Session length. We can infer this is due to being in a public space and being more conscious that others wouldn't know what they were doing. What we learnt is OOH experiences need to get users into the experience as quick as possible and get their message across asap.
Experience two had a much higher average session length and displayed a much broader spectrum of movement by the users. Users were much more likely to engage, travers wider areas of the space and complete an experience. Therefore we can deduce the experience can be spread more widely with a greater amount of interactions available to satisfy the increased engagement levels of a session.
When thinking about your Augmented reality experience you need to think about how it is being utilised within the User Journey. Activations closer to the start of the funnel will mean that you will have reduced amount of dwell time and spatial movement, therefore you need your experience to be quickly accessible and communicated in under 30 seconds. If you are targeting users lower down in the funnel with a higher expected engagement then your experience should have more assets available for the user to engage with and extend their understanding of your product or brand. Additional gamification elements and interactions are expected to be utilise as functional tools to get your key messages across.
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