Today was our first session back from the Christmas holidays. It has been a while since using this programme, so I was a little nervous but I surprisingly remembered a lot more have done it twice before. It was a little stressful starting as Dom went quickly but he slowed down as soon as I asked so I caught up.
This session was about rotomation. This was tracking a sci-fi suit onto a moving person on a motorbike.
For my essay, I decided to just focus on augmented reality apps as the topic of VR, AR, 360 videos and holograms is too big of a topic in only 1,500 word essay. I have always been fascinated most with augmented reality as it is used in all different mediums and less overwhelming than virtual reality.
In my easy I will be focusing on topics of play, utility, ownership and changing the world. I have found different examples of augmented reality advertising which highlights these different themes.
It is important to note that some of these augmented reality advertising clips feed into more than just one of the categories however I am only using these as examples to back my points in each of the themes surrounding play, utility, ownership and changing the world.
Play
Why does this advert work?
Why doesn’t this advert work?
Why does this advert work?
Why doesn’t this advert work?
Utility
Why does this advert work?
Why doesn’t this advert work?
Ownership
Why does this advert work?
Why doesn’t this advert work?
Why does this advert work?
Why doesn’t this advert work?
Save the World
Why does this advert work?
Why doesn’t this advert work?
Why does this advert work?
Why doesn’t this advert work?
Why does this advert work?
Why doesn’t this advert work?
Why does this advert work?
Why doesn’t this advert work?
Websites Links
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/vr-marketing-examples
https://www.becausexm.com/blog/when-the-coronavirus-closes-a-door-a-new-virtual-world-opens
https://hbr.org/2020/10/how-ar-is-redefining-retail-in-the-pandemic
https://medium.com/ipg-media-lab/where-augmented-reality-goes-in-2020-9c92549472b7
Early in the pandemic, news outlets misreported this survey and claimed 38% of beer-drinking Americans would not buy Corona beer.
Videos Links
p.14 It does not have the kind of immediate application to daily life that something like AR does
p.24 VR can transport people to places, real or imagined, in a way that almost feels real.
p.27 Often in VR you are disembodied, floating in a scene – one of the firsts things people do is look down and say ‘I can’t see my hands!’
p.40 VR has three very special properties that make it so powerful for marketers: It is transportive. It is human. It is memorable.
p.43 Thomas Cook – Try before you buy.
The result – Virtual tour of New York. A 190% uplift in sales when people previewed the holiday in VR.
p82. Content in VR headsets are far more impactful than content outside headsets. You have truely captive audience, their undivided attention
p.187 AR – augmented reality overlaying data, animations, content on to the real world. The longer game is to to greatly increase our efficiency as humans, empowering our interpersonal communications, our understanding and interaction of the world, through navigation, health and safety, education – think the terminator’s view but less fatal!
Essay title: Exploring the politics of new realities in advertising.
Introduction: 150 words
– What new realities am I referring to? (VR/AR/360)
– Why is this important in the current climate? (pandemic/ progress of technology/socia media)
– Intro to advertising and storytelling
————————–
Paragraph 1: 300 words
Point 1: Play
Arguments:
– Gamification
– Fun Theory: fun is the easiest way to change peoples behaviour.
Counter Arguments:
–
–
–
————————
Paragraph 2: 300 words
Point 2: Ownership
Arguments:
– The Endorsement Effect (Kahneman, Knetsch + Thaler (2009): People place a disproportional value on something they build or help to create themselves.
1. Autonomy
2. Personal relevance
3. Cognitive_
– Stuart Brown ‘most neotenous animal on Earth.’ ‘We are, by physical anthropologist by many, many studies, the most flexible; the most plastic of creatives of all creatures and therefore the most playful (Brown & Vaughn 2009) Ted Talk
Counter Arguments:
–
–
–
—————————–
Paragraph 3: 300 words
Point 3: Utility
Arguments:
– Make things easier
– Add value to costumer
– Consumer wins
Counter Arguments:
–
–
–
————————
Paragraph 4: 300 words
Point 4: Change the world
Arguments:
– Empathy – Walk a day in someone else’s shoes
–
–
Counter Arguments:
–
–
–
—————————
Conclusion: 150 words
Questions to as myself before writing:
Assessment Criteria
—————————————————–
Final Plan
Essay title: Exploring Consumer Psychology in Augmented Reality Advertising Applications
Intro
p5. “Consumer demand, high quality devices and market conditions have all aligned to make VR & AR the next major advancements in the tech world.” Eden Chen – Entrepreneur
p9. Augmented Reality – enhanced reality
– Overlays graphic or video on top of real world.
– Snapchat filters
p23. Digital advertising track you – VR/AR bring extra dimensions to these targeting offers.
p24 AR will show how consumers interact with and use products.
Nielsen & Airpush VR study
p29. RYOT – VR journalism tagline “Catalysing the future of media by inviting our audience to be more than a witness.”
AR is a tool for your companies to create an even more engaging and personal buying experience for your consumers.
– 71% of shoppers would shop at a retailer more often if they were offered AR
– 40% of shoppers would be willing to pay more for a product if they could experiment it through augmented reality.
61% of shoppers prefer to shop at stored that offer AR, over ones that don’t.
Para 1 – Play
– p3. The fun Theory
Fun is the easiest way to change peoples behaviour.
– Play is a great action spur to influence behaviour.
p131. Stuart Brown ‘most neotenous animal on earth! (we like to play) ‘We are, by physical anthropologist by many, many studies the most flexible, the most plastic of creative of all creatures and therefore the most playful (Brown Vaughan 2009) Ted Talker.
– p133. Gamification
Play is an effective way to influence behaviour but only when you can control and manipulate the wider environment.
Audi App:
Why does this advert work?
Why doesn’t this advert work?
———————————-
Para 2 – Ownership
Gucci App:
Why does this advert work?
Why doesn’t this advert work?
———————————-
Para 3 – Utility
p41. It needs to be on-brand and increase awareness and/or retention. According to Adweek, in order for a brand’s work to stand out, it has to have a reason and purpose to be there. It has to be past of the story and part of the reason why consumers are going engage with it.
Dulux App:
Why does this advert work?
Why doesn’t this advert work?
———————————-
Para 4 – Change the World
p28/29 “most effective way to maximise customers value is to move beyond more customer satisfaction and connect with consumers at an emotional level – tapping into their fundamental motives and fulfilling their deep ofter unspoken emotional needs.”
In the Room App:
Why does this advert work?
Why doesn’t this advert work?
———————————-
Conclusion
As the AR apps develop
p26. Considerations for marketers making AR & VR safe place that reflects more utopian vs dystopian vision.
– length of viewing 5-20 mins
– low volume
– prosocial
– relevant, enhances experience
p43. Mark Szymczyk, CEO of Zugara, and AR company, says that, “AR should be used to enhance content -not replace it. The main challenge is understanding that AR is not a digital strategy but rather a digital tactic that can enhance a campaign across multiple platforms.”
p5. “Consumer demand, high quality devices and market conditions have all aligned to make VR & AR the next major advancements in the tech world.” Eden Chen – Entrepreneur
p7. 360 video – an immersive experience
– you can look up, down, left & right
– viewed in “magic window”
– Doesn’t have agency (control)
p8. Virtual Reality (VR) – an actively immersive experience
– 360 degree virtual environment
– you do have agency to influence the world around you
p9. 6 degree of freedom (6DOF) – move around in a VR environment
-VR creates new worlds to inhabit and experience.
p9. Augmented Reality – enhanced reality
– Overlays graphic or video on top of real world.
– Snapchat filters
– brings utility to the world around you
p9. Mixed Reality (MR) – AR & Agency
– mreal world & graphics videos – Interact with
– e.g. Magic leap + Mircosoft
p10. Extended Reality (VR, 360 video, AR, MR
XR encompassed everything including any new technology in the future.
p10. Holograms – 3D images made from light
p20. Social & Advertising Connection
– birthed out of social media
– Facebook – Oculus
– Google
p22-23 Kelly Andersen, SVP and head of GER Creative as USA Today Network ‘It’s an amazing medium for advertising, likely because its so immersive people remember the context and VR has 2x brand recall compared to TV.’
p23. Digital advertising track you – VR/AR bring extra dimensions to these targeting offers.
– Mind is tricked into this ‘reality’ for greater immersion understood as ‘presence’
p24. VR will allow for a full picture of consumer behaviour.
p24 AR will show how consumers interact with and use products.
Nielsen & Airpush VR study
p25. Keiichi Matsuada – hyper-reality 6min short video
– IAM (the interaction bureau guidelines for VR & AR
– The VR/AR Association (VRARA)
p26. Considerations for marketers making AR & VR safe place that reflects more utopian vs dystopian vision.
– length of viewing 5-20 mins
– low volume
– prosocial
– relevant, enhances experience
– safeguards/warning
p27. Why? Power of emotions. Remembering like its your own memory.
moral obligations
-2D vs 3D branding
moving design in and out
p28. The Empathy Machine
– VR lets you feel like you are walking in someone else’s shoes (empathy)
“empathy maching” flawed term as not all VR is for that purpose.
p28/29 “most effective way to maximise customers value is to move beyond more customer satisfaction and connect with consumers at an emotional level – tapping into their fundamental motives and fulfilling their deep ofter unspoken emotional needs.”
p29. RYOT – VR journalism tagline “Catalysing the future of media by inviting our audience to be more than a witness.”
p29. Within – Company focused on human-centric storytelling
360 video in a variety of genres e.g. a day in the life of a Syrian.
p30. The machine to be another from (Barcelona based) LGBQT – BeAnotherLab
– eye opening experience enough compassion to act
– mirror humanity
p30. Baobob Studios Invasion! Pear – Google spotlight stories
p31. original/groundbreaking creative to utilise this empathy machine.
Empathy & AR
– computing labs
– empathetic media generating compassion
p35. Brand Engagement
– seeing something that only people in the know can see
– helps contextualise consumers realities more than other media
p41. It needs to be on-brand and increase awareness and/or retention. According to Adweek, in order for a brand’s work to stand out, it has to have a reason and purpose to be there. It has to be past of the story and part of the reason why consumers are going engage with it.
p43. Mark Szymczyk, CEO of Zugara, and AR company, says that, “AR should be used to enhance content -not replace it. The main challenge is understanding that AR is not a digital strategy but rather a digital tactic that can enhance a campaign across multiple platforms.”
p50. “branching narratives.” Now users can have a find of free will in these environments.
p51. Being social in VR – Oculus Rift, Facebook spaces.
p65. According to Augment, “The primary drawback to online shopping is that many of the sensory elements that customers use to make their purchasing decisions are often lost. When shopping online, a customer cannot touch or feel an item, see how it works, or know how it will fit in their shopping experience leads to uncertain buyers and more abandoned carts.”
AR is a tool for your companies to create an even more engaging and personal buying experience for your consumers.
– 71% of shoppers would shop at a retailer more often if they were offered AR
– 40% of shoppers would be willing to pay more for a product if they could experiment it through augmented reality.
61% of shoppers prefer to shop at stored that offer AR, over ones that don’t.
p69. Moore’s Law, which states that computational power doubles approximately every two years, the speed of innovation is still quite rapid.
p71. No Screens!?!
“Wait a minute,” you might say, “I don’t want to be bombarded by ads all the time.”
p.73. where possible, the virtual worlds will bend as much as possible, to cater programmatically to you.
p4. The AIDA model
p3. The fun Theory
Fun is the easiest way to change peoples behaviour.
Advertising Agency DDB in Sweden – Volkswagen.
p5. The mere exposure effect (Zajonc 2001)
– We like something more because its familiar.
– Subliminal advertising?
p5. Low involvement processing
The hidden power of advertising (2001)
– Behaviour change business
– Influence everyday life
– Its art/ creativity
p11. Lovemark (2005) ‘ a brand should create loyalty beyond reason.’
p20. Fishbien et al (2001)
1. Motivation
2. Capacity
3. Opportunity
p20. Motivation
– Individual incentives
– Find rewards
– Avoid pain
Pavlovs dog
p21. Social Norms – Albert Banudra (1977)
p22. Ease – Ability: does some have the actual opportunity?
p25. Putting motivation and ease together.
p32. Albert Ellis (2007)
Use action to change behaviour
1. Thoughts
2. Feeling
3. Action
p.36 Rule 3
Action changes attitude faster than attitude changes action.
p.38 Insight or action? – Human understanding
p43. Action Advertising
1. Rational thought
2. Emotional feeling
*Cognitive Dissonance
p52. Two types of spurs
– Motivation; individual incentive/social norm
– Ease; ability/opportunity
p67. The ice cream effect
– Identify has been reframes
p69. – Its easier to kill an idea than an opportunity~
Identify the opportunity – Pool Salt
p80. Levin Scheider & Gpeth (1988) Framing to influence others.
p85. The power of emotions – Pringle & Field 2012
– Brain is able to process emotions without cognition
p86. Our brain is more attracted to powerful emotional stimuli – Weiden & Kennedy.
p89. Plutchik (1980) Emotions
1. Joy
2. Sadness
3. Trust
4. Disgust
5. Fear
6. Anger
7. Surprise
8. Anticipation
p91. Interactive Evocation (2010) The widerness
Downtown – Music video
p92. Holy Grail – Creating content thats so engaging its shared and goes viral.
– Earned media & Owned media
P95. Summary – Emotion only opens the door to behaviour change – other tools are needed to effect change. Cumbersome
p98. Collectivism – If you break a social norm you face exclusion from the group.
– Humans mimic each other.
p101. Collectivism Model
1. Obedience
2.Conformity
3. Action
4. Purpose
105. Power to people
p115. Ownership
– People place a disproportion value on something they build or help to create themselves.
p116. 1. Autonomy
2, Personal relevance
3. Cognitive dissonance
The endowment effect – Kahneman, Knetson & Thaler (2009)
p126. The peeing game
Amsterdam (2012) Achung! “Piss off” Campaign
– Play is a great action spur to influence behaviour.
p131. Stuart Brown ‘most neotenous animal on earth! (we like to play) ‘We are, by physical anthropologist by many, many studies the most flexible, the most plastic of creative of all creatures and therefore the most playful (Brown Vaughan 2009) Ted Talker.
p132. Types of Play
1. Object Play – Toy
2. Body Play – Health & Sport
3. Transformation Play – Becomes another person
4. Social Play – Interacting competing or collaborating
p133. Gamification
Play is an effective way to influence behaviour but only when you can control and manipulate the wider environment.
p139. Playing our way to a better world. Jane McGonigal (2011) world of warcraft
p145. How utility work – Barden (2013) ‘The more relevant a brand is to a particular goal consumer has, then the greater the reward the consumer experts they expect -the more value the perceive.’
Value = Ability to meet goal/price
p146. The more value that can be injected into the brand, the stronger the brand becomes.
p147. Art Cannon (2013) “Marketing cant just communicate your ethos anymore, it has to deliver access to your brand through mechanisms that let people experience value in everyday life.”
p150. Utility made easier. ‘Virtual shelves’ Cheil worldwide agency South Korea QR code.
p157. The model becomes the norm.
– modelling ins very powerful when it tips over to create a new ‘social norm.’ Mark Sherrington
p158. Cialdini Kalefren & Reno (1991)
-Descriptive norms – existing norms
– Injunctive norms – assumption of norms
p162. How advertising uses modelling
– Testimonials – writing positive comments
– Celebrity endorsements
– Selective targeting
– Influence
– Social media prophecy
– Public relations hype
p176. Skilling up advertising
It’s no longer good enough to make people ‘aware’ of a brand. They need to know how to use products too.’
Good references:
Need to film myself for the reference which should last 10 – 15 seconds by 22 January 2021.
My Ideas for the audio:
For our final major task for the first term is to create a performance animation. This is giving character to your animated character. A personality reflected in how they speak and move. The clip only needs to be 10-15 seconds. We have to choose a voice clip and act out our own animation reference to this clip.
I have chosen the hilarious character Eddie from my favourite TV series Friends.
Chandlers crazy new roommate thinks he stole his fish which was never there and accuses him of sleeping with his girlfriend even though she only came over to drop off this fish tank. I love this line in Friends and think that its a really great expressive moment which I can have a lot of fun playing with.
For my chosen rig I decided to use the Judy Hops rig. I love the film Zootropolis and wanted to have a whack at using it for my animation. I think the contrast of Eddie’s voice and Judy Hops character is amusing. I went online to look on Youtube to see how people have used the rig to make facial expressions to help me as a reference.
Same as the lip syncing project prior, I used the webcam to mimic the movements of my mouth. This was a new rig which did not have the cheat controls like the rig I used before. This was difficult at first because the mouth shape was different and is in the shape of a rabbit not a human. I had play around a lot with the controls to get the shape I need. Wasn’t as straight forwards as a human mouth. However, after I had worked with it long enough, I started to remember the shapes I made for specific sounds. This means that by half way I was able to finish a lot faster than when I started. Becoming use to a new rig is important as you work a lot faster.
Final Phoneme Outcome
So proud of how it came out. There are still a few tweaks in the beginning of the clip because I was still learning how to use the rig in that stage. It is evident that I improve as I go along because the lips are more accurate.
Next I need to focus on the facial expressions. I have made a video to mimic what the face should look like. This is just a close up and will have another reference for the performance.
I used the screenshots of my reference to block my animation so that I could get the gist of Judy will move through the scene. This was quite because my movements in the video weren’t a simple walk cycle. So this meant the feet were dragging along the floor which looked really unnatural. I had to go back and edit the feed so there was toe role the weight shifts to the right foot. This messed with the hands by not being in front of Judy but inside of her. This looked really bad so I had to make sure they were all mover forward.
I also wanted to include the ears in the animation as there are good points where it could add appeal to the character. I used it when Judy slaps here head in shock and also at the end when she beats her fists in the air towards the ground. I also used her facial expressions to show more of her appeal as angry. I didn’t get the chance to do as much as I would like as I had been struggling with learning and the time frame it takes to do it.
I am in my final stages of my performance animation. I have used a preexisting environment from the UAL drive for my staging. I have no particular reason for using a tropical island but I thought it was a bit comical as it it totally out of context. I didn’t realise you had to link the files from sources images in order for it to work. Thankfully Luke showed me but am also struggling with trying to get the iris of the bunny rig to show up.
Final Animation Render:
I had some issues with the timing of the animation and the audio clip so it is out of sync a little and the mouth doesn’t quite meet up. This is a shame! As it looks so much better on Maya. Because of time limits i haven’t had the chance to try it again but will do later in the next term. Either way I am happy how it looks. I am proud of the outcome considering this is all being learnt from scratch.
This is our second session with Dom who will be going further into the 3D equaliser programme. We will be learning to track this scene and put an Iron Man helmet on him.
We were asked to find places in the background we could track which had a very clear pattern that no where else has. This was so the programme could pick up on where the different depths of the video are.
Examples of patterns in the video I chose:
The very clear shapes and bright colours are different ways 3D equalised can dissever where the point is.
I also had to track the points that came off and on the video when the camera moved. This meant I needed to keep the same point tracked (here is was 18th point) and continue tracking once it came back on to the scene. Not make a new point 19.
In the 3D equaliser parameter adjuster you can optimise focal length and lens distortion parameters.
When the points are in I can use the sequence rotomation to view the points in a 3 dimensional space. This is very useful to make sure that the depth of field is correct. Shows you how the programme has calculated your points so that you can change any if there was a point that seemed way out of place, it could be then deleted.
Now having finished tracking the background, I focused on tracking different points on the mans face to that the Iron mask can pick up and detect the different between where his face is and the background. This is difficult as his face moves around/changes a lot more.
Here we were told to split the screen so that we were able to two different viewpoints of the mans face and also the mask. We would have to roughly guess where the track points meet on the mask so that the mask rotates accordingly. I found this part much more difficult that the tracking as its hard to fit the face in exactly where the mask is. I messed up this bit as I had selected the wrong points on this mask which meant It wasn’t tracking on the face correctly. I couldn’t fix the problem so I just had to listen to the rest of the lecture and return to it another time.
I found this lesson a lot easier than the last one as I had the programme working and was able to follow. This was a relief as catching up with no sound to the video was very time consuming. I think that once you understand how to make points that are tracked well, this is what sets you up to be a good matchmover and rotamater.
