It’s no secret that we’re screen-obsessed digital natives (it’s an occupational hazard), but we still love the experience of walking into our client’s physical retail stores.

When going digital-first, there are a couple things that your online experience will be unable to replicate. The physicality of your product is one, and the environmental context is another.

Why Aren’t More Companies Using Augmented Reality?

To show the physicality of the product with environmental context, we asked the question of why aren’t more companies using augmented reality (AR)?

This thought process got us wondering about how people currently use, interact, and behave with AR content.

There’s no doubt that there is a learning curve with this new technology; however, once we thought beyond current limitations, to a place and time where AR content is wildly accessible, we decided to begin our own R&D in Mixed Reality.

With the increased social adoption of filters, stickers, and AR gaming, contemporary society has adopted a new level of comfort when it comes to mixing our digital world with the physical one. Although much of it still feels like a novelty and not a crucial piece of technology, therein lies great opportunities for brands.

Furniture company Overstock.com introduced AR shopping with a feature called View In My Room. Customers see a three-dimensional product image, their smartphone camera opens up to scan the room in order to view how the product would look in the space. Ikea implemented something similar as well.

More recently, Snapchat partnered with the basketball brand Jordan for a new online shopping experience. Using Snapcodes users unlocked an in-app commerce experience that allowed customers buy the new shoes.

The Opportunity With Snapchat AR

With our own AR initiatives and R&D here at Nuscreen, we’re trying to break down the barriers of accessibility for this kind of technology for our clients and the customers they serve. Utilizing an existing social channel like Snapchat means we can take advantage of use Mixed Reality for Mobile Commerce without having to build a native app or proprietary technology.

We can experiment with products in physical space, prototype ideas and test with user groups.

Here's what we've been working on recently using Snapchat. Let us know if you'd like to unlock our NU filter!

Mixed Reality will be a game charger for Mobile Commerce. We’re just getting started.