Recently Toyota released the third generation Prius. Coordinating with the launch you may have seen a number of odd commercials showing off the new car. The focus on the commercial is showing off the connection of nature and automobiles. I could write a whole other post on those ads but for now I want to talk about another way they are marketing the new Prius.
They took that “reality” one step further by developing an iPhone app that is part game, part augmented reality. I first noticed the application in one of their ads in Fast Company. In the lower right hand corner I noticed directions to download the app and take a picture of the advertisement. I was intrigued so I downloaded it.
Now first let me begin with a little background on augmented reality. This is probably a new term for most. Recently there were a number of iPhone applications that enabled this feature. Simply put augmented reality is:
“Looking at the real world with data over-layed in your view”
This can be done using a headset or in this case using an iPhone camera to take images of the real world and overlay data on it. There are some great programs that are out there using this technology.
When I downloaded the application I was pleased to see that is it had more than just the augmented reality app. As instructed in the ad I took a picture hoping for some cool augmented way to interact with the ad. However it turns out that it’s not really augmented reality per sei. It is more of a photo recognition program. Because after I took the picture it pointed me to a static version of the image. This image had small hot spots that I could touch to learn more about those features. It gave me a little bit of information but really didn’t sell me on the car being that innovative. On top of that the type was pretty small. I was a bit disappointed. I didn’t write it off just yet.
Next I tried out the “Tour” feature. This feature allows you to use the accelerometer in the phone to move your iPhone around to see a 360 degree view of the interior of the car. This also has lots of potential but once again under delivered. When I was using the app I couldn’t control the movement at all. I moved left, right, up down. It did what it wanted. I was able to use my finger to point the movement, much better I thought to myself. This feature ended up being ok but not great.
The next two features I’ll put in the same bucket as they were trying to show off other features of the car by having the user play little “games” with the car. The first one is the draw feature. This feature asks the user to draw things using your finger. The user draws items like boxes, trees, leaves to demonstrate interior room, “greeness”, and aerodynamics. Still adding little to no value in my opinion. This is coming from a guy that is currently thinking of buying a new car. None of this resonated with me. It just didn’t excite me at all.
Lastly the “Play” feature is all about the aerodynamics of the car. Again this feature shows off the new aerodynamics of the car. This is a huge problem with hybrids. The drag of the car can really hurt the efficiency of the electric engine. Essentially this feature puts the car in a wind tunnel where you control the wind. Not a horrible feature to the application, I learned about this car. I ended up playing for a couple of levels. Still just made me say to myself “ok, but I don’t have anything to compare it to?”
The bottom line with this application is that it is a clever application and has good intentions but falls short at really engaging the consumer. If your company is wanting to use such a specialized application to show off your product please provide engage me in fun way while educating me or another way to educate me about why I should buy your product.
With a few simple tweaks to the application it could have achieved this. If I were redesigning this application here is what I would recommend:
- Interact Feature – Step up the quality on this feature by adding a true augmented reality application. Take it one step further and make it possible to use this same approach if a potential customer is sitting the car to learn more about the features. Heck this could almost be like a little car manual using this feature. This could be a great sales tool for dealers.
- While educating the consumer on your features, offer a comparison to your competitors. If you want to show how good your product is there needs to be something to prove it.
- Locating your retailer shouldn’t be hard. It certainly shouldn’t be outside the application. I recommend that you have less features and focus on the real needs of a consumer. Keep in mind what the main reasons that a user would use their mobile phone to interact with your company/products.
What are your thoughts? We’d love to hear what you think.
