With a number of smart eyewear offerings
expected to launch in the coming months — from souped up glasses for checking
email to sophisticated augmented reality (AR) devices — the question is:
Can manufacturers avoid the missteps that sank Google Glass?
The failure of Google Glass has marketers
appropriately skeptical of a new crop of high-tech eyewear. But where Google
Glass was nerdy, supercharged with search skills and expensive at $1,500,
something like Snapchat Spectacles are simple, stylish and affordable, with a
$130 price tag. Spectacles' strong early reception among consumers and
brands is encouraging a number of other companies like Vuzix, ODG, Vue and
Solos to plan smart eyewear releases for this year, with the goal of helping
wearers accomplish tasks like checking emails, watching and shooting video,
navigating the real world and integrating with fitness apps.
Another battle is shaping up in AR glasses
that are bigger than traditional eyeglasses but smaller than VR headsets. On
this front, Microsoft's HoloLens is likely to soon go up against offerings from
Magic Leap, Apple and Facebook, with the goal of making immersive computing
technology commonplace for a variety of activities throughout the day.
The recent interest in smart eyewear comes
as smartphone sales growth is stagnating, with the tech industry eyeing glasses
as having the potential to propel a shift in consumers’ relationships to their
phones.
“I hope we are [going] to a place where we
are not carrying our phones around as much and, as technology gets stronger and
stronger, it becomes less intrusive,” said Ned Lampert, creative director at
digital advertising agency space150. “Specs is a step
in that direction. Not having to pull your phone out at the moment of capture
is a big step.”
Better consumer
experiences
Even in the short time Snapchat Spectacles have
been available, they’ve gone a long way toward reversing the bad
reputation Google Glass gave smart eyewear. Reactions have been overwhelmingly positive,
with kudos especially raining down on the Snapchat Spectacles rollout as an
example of how to drive excitement and demand through pop-up locations and limited
availability.
Sales prognoses bear out Lampert’s
bullishness about the space. Mediakix predicts Snapchat Spectacles will gross
over $5 billion in sales by 2020,
when it’s figured Snapchat will have 280 million global users.
“They’ve made the experience fun in a way
that other technologies like Google Glass failed to do,” said Liz Gottbrecht,
director of marketing at influencer marketing platform Mavrck.
“They really did have the consumer in mind with the design and functionality of
them.”
Turning to the broader augmented reality
and virtual reality market, the International Data Corporation (IDC) projects
it will surge at a compound annual growth rate of 198% between 2015 and 2020 to
reach $143.3 billion in global revenues, up 97% from an estimated $13.9 billion
this year. Worldwide spending on hardware, software and services is expected to
total $6.2 billion in 2017, an increase of 130.5% from 2016.
A different perspective
For marketers, the experience with
Spectacles offers some insight into how they can start thinking about
leveraging smart eyewear if the hardware category takes off as expected. Some
early adopters from a brand perspective include Toyota, L'Oreal Paris and Hyatt.
Snap now calls itself a camera company and,
indeed, Spectacles are camera-equipped sunglasses, but the video camera they’re
built with doesn’t share the perspective of most video cameras.
“The glasses are literally seeing what
you're seeing," wrote Avery Hartmans in her
Business Insider review of the eyewear.
This first-person vantage point is a
differentiator for marketers looking to convey action or the energy of being
behind-the-scenes, putting viewers almost literally in the heads of people they
esteem.
In the influencer marketing field,
Gottbrecht considers Spectacles as heightening the benefits Snapchat already
offers as a platform to share unboxing or demo videos by allowing followers to
virtually peer through the eyes of the digital personalities they admire at the
products revealed. Beyond the unboxing and demo videos, marketers can connect
with the micro-influencer population wielding Snapchat Spectacles to amplify
messaging in communities they might not have previously entertained.
“When brands think about leveraging
Spectacles, the question is: How do you leverage consumer-generated content in
a way that’s valuable for your brand?” said Gottbrecht. “These people are
sharing the most intimate details of their lives. The intimacy level on
Snapchat and the way brands can tap into that is really powerful.”
Point-of-view storytelling
The Minnesota Wild, the first professional
sports team to get a hold of Snapchat Spectacles, employed them to give
firsthand glimpses into the locker room, a pre-game skate, a Zamboni ride and
even a game from high up at the Xcel Energy Center.
“Point of view video is the next frontier
when it comes to digital storytelling,” said Phil Ervin, digital managing
editor and content strategist for the Minnesota Wild. “We are
selling our fans on the Minnesota Wild experience and the more immersive you
can make it, the better.
"Snapchat Spectacles are a really good
lead-in to where everything is going, and there will be more tools to do that
in the AR/VR world," he added.
Space150, which collaborated with the
Minnesota Wild on its Snapchat Spectacles footage, furnished fencer Miles Chamley-Watson
with a pair to document his swiftness.
“It was all about making use of a
hands-free social capture tool and showing the types of things you would never
be able to do with a phone,” said Lampert. “[With Snapchat Spectacles] you can
stay in the moment, but also capture a memory at the same time. You are able to
be at a concert or hit a golf shot and get that perspective without missing out
on the moment of being part of that.”
Challenges persist
To produce Snapchat Spectacles content that
resonates with Snapchat’s millennial and Gen Z users, Max Goldberg, president
of consultancy Max Goldberg & Associates, advised marketers to steer clear
of getting too slick.
“[Users] don’t want to see canned
selling presentations,” he said. “What they want is authenticity. They want
what’s current, what’s happening now. It isn’t Instagram. It’s Snapchat.”
In the short term, whether or not the buzz
around Spectacles is a strong enough foundation to support a broader smart
eyewear market remains to be seen. Thomas Husson, vice president and
principal analyst at Forrester, doesn’t anticipate advanced eyewear moving the
needle much in most marketing budgets.
“The main challenge [of] smart eyewear
for marketers is the niche adoption and the privacy concerns such devices can
raise among consumers," he said. "As of today and for the next
couple of years, only a very small subset of consumers will own and use smart
glasses.
"Snap's spectacles were better
positioned than Google's glasses, but I think we're still years away from any
meaningful advertising investments from B2C brands," he said.
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