Madame Tussauds - Digital transformation through augmented reality

Objective: Work with Madame Tussauds to digitally transform their business and enhance the customer experience with AR. Increase perceived ticket value and drive the purchase of ancillary products.

Solution: We are bringing the waxworks to life. Myself and the team have built a bespoke app (using facial recognition, artificial intelligence and face tracked animation) to make every celebrity a living, breathing, AR enhanced gamified collectable. As visitors move through the experience, their phones will now recognise the celebs, animated AR will appear on the waxworks as they start blinking, winking and smiling. Watch as they transform into some of their most famous characters and see what you have in common as AR displays height, star signs and unique facts. As users progress through Tussauds their phone will also become a new tool, helping to discover information about historical figures, detecting clues to solve crimes and even protecting them from an alien attack. The more celebs you interact with and collect, the higher the redeemable offers.

Results: New campaign. This will develop and change through the calendar year. Meaning customers now get an incredible physical and digital experience that changes with every visit.

BEMO - Positive social network and AR creation tool for young adults

Objective: Social networks are increasingly being linked to high levels of anxiety and depression in young adults. We wanted to create a social network and content creation tool based around light hearted fun to encourage more positive mental health. A place where young adults could explore their creativity and make each other laugh and move the focus away from physical appearance and lifestyle.

Solution: BEMO users can add augmentations into their environments to create funny and unique content. It’s easy to then comment and share their creativity to start conversations whether in BEMO or on other social channels. It has a very simple UX flow, uniquely designed but intuitive UI and light touch on-boarding to get people straight into the fun. Nothing is filtered and no faces are enhanced.

Results: Myself and a small team created the BEMO brand in just over a month. We didn’t have budget to market or PR the product, so we quietly released it onto the app store 10 months ago. It has captured our target demographics imagination and so far has been featured by iTunes in 98 countries including the UK, USA, Australia and Russia and has had over 106,000 downloads.

Kelloggs - Education and gamification AR campaign

Objective: Engage and educate children in the school holidays (ages 6-10) using a digital campaign that captures imagination, tests knowledge and increases brand engagement.

Solution: The Kelloggs Adventure Island, a place to learn, play and collect. We created an AR island that when viewed through a phone or tablet, magically grows out of the cereal box. It is packed with mini-games that test hand eye co-ordination, musical aptitude, maths and general knowledge. There are stars to collect and trade for more games, selfie masks and even winged coconuts that fly around the users for them to crack open and discover their secrets. We researched, user tested and built a simple UX with a bright and clear UI so young children quickly understand how to interact with the experience. We used engaging story telling and gamified elements to encourage longer dwell times and repeat usage and ensured plenty of rewards for correct answers and skilful play.

Results: Ongoing campaign. So far it is live in 17 countries and has had over 300,000 downloads with an average play time of 12.5 minutes. This is a new record for an AR campaign with 24x the engagement of a TV commercial. Kids are returning to play on average 4.5x a day. It’s been one of their most successful on-pack promotions in Kelloggs history.

Augmented reality navigation and gamification

We have pioneered augmented reality visual positioning, using AR to navigate spaces in a precise and dynamic way. Using this tool you can also entertain users, gamify the environments to enhance learning and even interact with virtual characters and objects.

We mapped our office with 3D software using our floor plans. We then constructed a virtual environment with proximity triggered content and numerous dynamic navigation options. In the below example, we have a new starter into the business called Sarah. Once she arrives and selects the new starter option the AR begins. It enables Sarah to orientate herself, understand the different departments and business functions as well as get an amazing, entertaining and personalised welcome. Everything in the video is captured in real time as a screen record with no post effects work.

Baby Circle - Experiential children's brand

Objective: Create a new kids and baby brand in South Korea. Help this brand stand out from competitors and offer customers a unique environment to shop and play in store.

Solution: We created Baby Circle. A beautiful, bright and engaging brand that has digital experience woven throughout the shopper journey to surprise and delight customers. Following our ethnographic research, we invented a set of quirky and fun characters that would become synonymous with the brand. Each character is in charge of a specific department within the store so parents can quickly and easily orientate themselves in a fun way. There are multiple engaging digital installations placed throughout the space: A height and weight station where kids interact with the animated characters, whilst subtly being weighed and measured for the correct child seat and a digital centrepiece was constructed creating a unique play area. This tactile, conductive ink and projection mapped wall is a place for both kids and parents to explore and play. The wall has simpler games in the lower section for younger children, with puzzles and interactions becoming more complex higher up for the older kids and adults.

Results: The stores are a huge success in South Korea with the character range now being developed into merchandise lines and continued store roll outs. Sales are outperforming all other brands in the E-Mart’s retail portfolio.

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Here is an early scamp of mine for the conductive ink interactive retail wall, with initial thoughts on the world for the characters to inhabit.

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This is the set of characters I conceived that will help parents navigate and shop the online and offline space, as well as inform and reassure these new parents in unique and entertaining ways. All will have a set of Emoji's and can be used to communicate in online chat as well as being developed into toys and merchandise.

O2 - Service design and digital transformation

Objective: O2 challenged us by asking ‘with the rise of e-commerce, why would anyone visit a mobile phone store any more?’

Solution: We had to reimagine the entire customer experience. We looked at the brand positioning, customer journey and service design from every angle. We retrained the formerly pushy sales staff and took the cold corporate look out. We now wanted this to be a place for customers to have a great and relaxed experience, no longer a cold and intimidating store with complicated contracts and pressure to buy. We replaced the stark and empty windows with engaging, interactive displays that would showcase strategic brand partnerships relevant to their target demographic (Star Wars and Fitbit among them) These partnerships were supported inside by flexible and dynamic ‘inspire’ zones that would completely change to reflect the monthly campaign. Illustrated city skylines ran the length of the stores, containing animated, projection mapped characters that promoted offers, brand benefits and O2 social media feeds. Small scale projections displayed onto large central wooden tables, encouraged users to sit, play and discover. Past the inspire zones were Interactive areas, where customers accessed deeper insights into the monthly campaigns (e.g. talks with ex-olympians in association with Fitbit or life sized Star Wars packaging for customers to climb inside) generating high social media engagement and completely shifting the brand perception.  https://www.o2.co.uk/shop

Results: These stores had a 96% approval rating on exit polls, which is a first for the O2 brand and the highest number of positive social media impressions they have ever received. This store format is now being rolled out for all flagship locations.  

Primark - Large scale experiential design and brand repositioning

Objective: The brief was to create a true fashion theatre for Primark. A place that was an immersive fashion experience, elevated their credibility, drove social media impressions and was a jewel in the crown for the brand. 

Solution: We created a multi-award winning digital world first. We wanted a theatre of content to surround and immerse the customer as they entered this enormous space, travelling with them between floors and departments, all linked, all relevant. Content that would inspire the customer as well as help them navigate the store and link to social media. 11 interconnected transparent cinema sized screens were placed in a checkerboard pattern within the listed 360 degree atrium. Our initial storyboards were brought to life by international dancers and models. We shot these performers in Europe's largest green screen studio, working closely with editors and motion graphic designers to create incredible virtual environments to appear around them. This content was then displayed across a complex multi-screen layout ensuring it connected unobtrusively to the architecture. The final piece of the design was 360 degree audio. We worked with sound designers to co-compose 30 tracks of bespoke electronic music and sound to swoop and pan around the atrium. When brought together we created an incredible audio/visual cinematic journey for Primark customers.

Results: It took nearly a year of work and a great team of contacts to help bring it all together. The site now has the highest turnover of any Primark and the most social media traffic of any store in their portfolio. It has won multiple design awards around the world and they now can sell tickets to gain entry to the experience. 

Gallows Ghost - Song writing, art direction and video direction

One of my on-going passion projects. Gallows Ghost are a band I work with in my spare time. I have defined their image and branding as well as being composing most of their music. I have worked on all their videos from concept to grade, their live performances and staging and all photo shoots. They are in negotiations with major and independent labels.