Missouri Governor’s Conference on Tourism Speaking Engagement & Facebook AR Lens (2018)

CASE STUDY

CLIENT:
Missouri Governor’s Conference on Tourism

AGENCY:
n/a – direct with client

DELIVERABLES:
• Speaking Engagement & Presentation
• Facebook AR Lens for the Event

TECHNOLOGY:
• Spark AR
• Spark AR Player for iOS & Android
• Image Recognition
• Blender
• Adobe Creative Cloud
• PowerPoint

OBJECTIVE:
ShowMeVirtual was asked to give a talk about augmented and virtual reality and it’s use in the tourism industry at the Missouri Governor’s Conference on Tourism. Attendees of the conference, both Missouri-based destinations and tourism companies, should walk away with an understanding of how this technology is being used today, and how they can utilize it in their own businesses to engage tourists through immersive media campaigns.

SOLUTION:
ShowMeVirtual’s founder, Ian Renz, gave a multimedia presentation detailing how AR, VR, 360° videos and other emerging technologies are already being used as both a marketing tool and an on-site experience in promoting tourism. The three-day Missouri Governor’s Conference on Tourism was full of attendees from across the state, ranging from marketing companies, to travel agencies, to actual tourist destinations like wineries, distilleries, and historic landmark organizations. While most of the attendees in Ian’s session had at least heard of augmented or virtual reality, only a few people in the room had already actively employed this technology in their own campaigns. Ian detailed everything from 101-level explanations of each technology, to past and current campaigns, to where this technology is headed next for the tourism industry.

To help the attendees better understand how to use this technology for themselves, ShowMeVirtual created a Facebook AR Lens for the event that was also presented during the AR/VR session. Based on the Facebook AR Lens’ metrics, a majority of the conference attendees scanned and tried the Lens. In addition to serving as a technology showcase for the attendees, the Lens also received a significant amount of views via being shared on social media through posts and stories, which ultimately served as promotion for the event itself.