Eoghan O Sullivan

CEO Von Bismark

10 years working in 3D Visualisation

Static AR to visualise buildings, medical

devices and marketing campaigns

Worked with a lot of blue chips

Didn't learn what product market fit was

Did a lot of 'cool' work with no success barometers

On third company - Von Bismark

Trying to find product market fit with an AR product

Augmented Reality is becoming a dirty word

AR is starting to be seen as a gimmick

‘Cheap parlor tricks’ for one off engagements

Expensive campaigns with low returns

Where is AR going?

There has to be a use case other than ‘cool’

Cool ends up with a lot of effort with very little reward

Searching for a Use Case

Google Glass - great example of PR buzz destroying an experiment

The experience didn't match the hype

A Solution Looking for a Problem?

A solution looking for a problem?

Managing the Hype Cycle

Avoiding Vanity Metrics

Avoiding Vanity Metrics

To get past the “Through of Disillusionment” we need to be

defining success and measuring the outcome

Fran & Jane

We measured engagements, age, gender

But not any impact on sales. Pointless

Finding Scale

Successful metrics will allow us to search for scale

Will a person use it once?

Will they come back - why would the use it again

Finding Scale

Is your product easy to access from an existing daily user journey

Are you building it because it’s cool or useful?

Cool - Extremely! / Useful - Absolutely not!!

Speaking from Experience

Von Bismark's DOOH adventures

Ran a number of campaigns to test the market - results were

positive

• 1 in 5 passers by engaging for 38 seconds

• 1 in 4 users sharing their pictures

10x the engagement of a touch screen advert campaign

Product Market Fit?

On the surface this works!

Yes it works for one off campaigns but it is very labour intensive.

However - engagement rates off the charts compared to a

normal digital billboard campaign of 3 seconds per impression

Digging Deeper – Before we run out of money

What are the technical barriers and commercial barriers?

High cap ex

We would need content management software to deploy on a

network

The Fragmented Landscape

Commercially for each campaign you would need buy in from;

The client, the creative agency, the media buying agency, the

outdoor agency, the physical location & the end user

Hmmmmm – maybe high user metrics don't look like enough to

build a scalable business

Barriers to Entry

The Point!

The point is - all of the market factors had

nothing to do with augmented reality

Just because you build it they will not come!!

Kevin Costner would be a terrible

businessman!

Mass Market Adoption – Key ingredients

• Is it easy and cost effective to reach millions of users? • Is the marketplace full of barriers to entry -e.g. gatekeepers • Is it easier to use than the solution it replaces? • Is it better than the solution it replaces? • Why would the audience alter their habits to seek our your

product?

• Whatsapp – great example of something slightly easier and

slightly better taking over the market

In Practice

Got a deal with Microsoft to deploy on Xbox One - i.e. one

gatekeeper + millions of customers

Hardware is already in place - 10 year life cycle

Demographic spends $2 billion a year already on Xbox Live

Our experience has to be easier and better than your tablet,

laptop.

Thank You

Eoghan O Sullivan

eoghan@vonbismark.com

@thevonbismark

www.vonbismark.com