Everyone has a favorite barista or retail associate who knows how to make the perfect recommendation. These essential workers we meet in our everyday lives are attentive to our needs and work with us to find the best solution. 

But while traditional advertising strives to anticipate how consumers are feeling, the one-size-fits makes it difficult to truly offer that level of helpfulness at scale. So, what if you could converse with an ad just like you would with a person? With AdLingo, you can.

Always-On Conversations at Scale

Developed in Area 120, Google’s in-house incubator, AdLingo enables brands to embed conversational assistants (like chatbots) within display ads. These ads are distributed on Google partner inventory by Google Display and Video 360, reaching users across the web and within web apps. The conversational platform offers brands a simple way to adopt an “always-on” customer acquisition model that engages users while they browse online, ready to meet their needs wherever your audience may find a display ad.

Quick to implement, they offer personalization at scale by asking users directly about their needs and preferences and dynamically providing relevant information based on the user’s inputs—making AdLingo a great way to qualify leads and gain insights on your target audience. This level of personalization also makes the format more engaging, with users spending about one minute and 17 seconds on average in conversation with the bot, according to January/December 2020 average results from AdLingo.

Continuously Improve Charisma—and Effectiveness

AdLingo ads are relatively quick to produce and scale up, going from idea to launch in only four to six weeks. But it’s important to understand that AdLingo campaigns are most effective when optimized over time, continuously enhancing the user experience. By measuring conversation, engagement, depth of outcome and more, brands can A/B test on the fly to identify how different copy or logic variations perform. Constant iteration makes it easier for users to find the best solution for their needs and take the intended action, like visiting a landing page or converting.

Best Practices for Your First AdLingo Experience

Because an AdLingo campaign should be continuously optimized to better meet consumers’ needs over time, it’s ideal to let one run for two or three months at minimum. This is critical to ensure your campaign has enough time (and engagement volume) to accurately assess performance and optimize. And due to the format’s always-on acquisition model, AdLingo should ideally support a larger campaign than stand on its own; apply measurable insights from AdLingo conversations to optimize the broader campaign.

As for the user experience, start the conversation off with a compelling hook that engages the user. Focus on empowering questions rather than taking a negative tone, and make it clear that the user is talking to a virtual assistant, not a real person. And while open dialogue is supported by the format, pre-written responses help direct the consumer and make it easier for users to answer quickly.

How Nespresso Brewed a High-Performance Bot

When Nespresso wanted to convince customers to consider Nespresso as a one-stop destination for holiday-season gifts, the coffee brand partnered with AdLingo and MediaMonks to build a display ad that would help consumers in the US and the UK discover the perfect gift. Much like a personality quiz, the chatbot asked users a series of questions that identified the best gift for their chosen recipient and budget, boosting the perception of Nespresso as a premium gifting option.

The brand lift study ran in the UK showed a 119% significant lift in ad recall and a 75% lift in brand consideration compared to top three competitors¹. 0.43% of impressions led to engaged conversations² in the UK, and 15% of engaged users across both countries answered all six criteria questions to receive their personalized recommendation. “The new AdLingo Ads proved a powerful solution to connect in a personalized way and at scale with consumers and position Nespresso as a great gifting option,” says Paulo R. Dias, Nespresso Global Brand Campaigns Manager. “Our global AdLingo pilot developed with MediaMonks has demonstrated strong results and impact on brand perception, that go beyond our existing channels.”

With AdLingo, brands can achieve great results from simple yet highly engaging experiences. By offering personalized and attentive service anytime, anywhere, the scalable format helps users quickly find the product or info they need—leaving them better equipped to convert. Likewise, AdLingo serves as another channel brands can draw from to capture insights that help them better understand their audience’s needs.

¹ Brand Lift Study run on mobile app among people who engaged with the ad.

² Users that engaged in the chat for 1+interaction

All sources; internal data AdLingo and Nespresso.

Get ready for an upgrade: in early December, Google revealed its Depth API, a new functionality coming to ARCore that allows virtual objects and real-world environments to play nicer together, allowing for more convincing and immersive mixed reality experiences. A demonstrable way that Depth API achieves this is by enabling occlusion, or the illusion of virtual objects’ becoming obstructed behind real-world ones.

Convincing occlusion has historically been difficult to achieve, though Google has put together a video portraying demos of the new API that show off its features. One of those demos, which challenges the user to a virtual food fight against a levitating robot chef, was developed in collaboration with MediaMonks.

What’s exciting about Depth API is its ability to understand the user’s surroundings at an unprecedented speed and ease. “The API’s depth map is updated in real time, allowing AR apps to be aware of surfaces without complex scanning steps,” says Samuel Snider-Held, Creative Technologist at MediaMonks. This enables not only occlusion as mentioned above, but also the mimicry of real-time physics. For our virtual food fight against the AR-rendered robot, missing is part of the fun; users can take delight in the digital splatters of food on the objects around them without worrying about cleanup.

The Building Blocks to More Immersive AR

How does Depth API work, and what sets it apart from other methods of occlusion? “The Depth API uses an approach called ‘depth from motion,’ in which ARCore determines distances to objects by detecting variances between image frames while the camera is moving,” says Snider-Held. “The result is a high-resolution depth map that is updated in real time, allowing the device to better understand where objects are in relation to one another and how far away they are from the user.”

Depth API is software-based, requiring no new hardware for users with ARCore-enabled devices once it releases publicly. While sufficient occlusion significantly increases the verisimilitude of virtual objects, it follows a series of incremental updates that build on one another to allow for more realistic immersive experiences. Just last year—the same year ARCore debuted—Google released its Lighting Estimation API, which lights virtual objects to match the existing lighting conditions in the real-world setting, including light reflections, shadows, shading and more.

Since then, a feature called Cloud Anchors allows multiple users to view the same virtual objects anchored in a specific environment. It’s the key feature powering the multiplayer mode of Pharos AR, an augmented reality experience we made in collaboration with Childish Gambino, Wolf + Rothstein, Google and Unity—which itself served as a de facto demo of what Cloud Anchors are capable of in activating entirely new mixed reality experiences.

“We have the creative and technical know-how to use these new technologies, understand why they’re important and why they’re awesome,” says Snider-Held. “We’re not scared to take on tech that’s still in its infancy, and we can do it with a quick turnaround with the backing of our creative team.”

A Streamlined Way to Map Depth

Depth API wasn’t the first time that MediaMonks got to experiment with occlusion or spatial awareness with augmented reality. Previously, we got to experiment with other contemporary solutions for occlusion, like 6D.ai, which creates an invisible 3D mesh of an environment. The result of this method is similar to what’s achieved with Depth API, but the execution is different; translating an environment into a 3D mesh with 6D.ai is fastest with multiple cameras, whereas Depth API simply measures depth in real time without the need of scanning and reconstructing an entire environment.

Similarly, Tango—Google’s skunkworks project which was a sort of precursor to ARCore—enabled special awareness through point clouds “When we had Tango from before, it used something similar to a Kinect depth sensor,” says Snider-Held. “You’d take the point clouds you’d get from that and reconstruct the depth, but the new Depth API uses just a single camera.”

In essence, achieving occlusion with a single camera scanning the environment in real time offers a leap in user-friendliness, and makes it widely available to users on their current mobile device. “If we can occlude correctly, it makes it feel more cemented to the real world. The way that they’re doing it is interesting, with a single camera,” says Snider-Held.

Adding Depth to Creative Experiences

Depth API is currently opening invitations to collaborators and isn’t yet ready for a public release, but it serves as a great step in rendering more believable scenes in real time. “It’s another stepping stone to reach the types of AR experiences that we’re imagining,” says Snider-Held. “We can make these projects without caveats.”

For example, a consistent challenge in rendering scenes in AR is that many users simply don’t have large enough living spaces to render large objects or expansive virtual spaces. Creative teams would get around this by rendering objects in miniature—perhaps just contained to a tabletop. “With Depth API, we can choose to only render objects within the available space,” says Snider-Held. “It lets us and our clients feel more comfortable in making these more immersive experiences.”

As brands anticipate how they might use some of the newest features of fast-evolving mixed reality technology, they stand to benefit from creative and production partner that can bring ideas to the table, quickly implementing them with awareness of the current opportunities and challenges. “We bring creative thinking to the technology, with what we can do given our technical expertise but also with things like concept art, animation and more,” says Snider-Held. “We don’t shy away from new tech, and not only do we understand it, but we can truly make something fun and inventive to demonstrate why people would want it.”

Earlier this summer, we released  Pharos AR, a mobile app that takes Childish Gambino fans on a virtual, hallucinogenic journey through the cosmos starting from wherever they stand in the real world. Fans and press alike were impressed by the artist’s bold foray into virtual space.

VentureBeat was excited by the long-term value of the app, for example: “Between the cool visual effects and Glover’s music—which the app will apparently update with new songs over time—there’s certainly enough here to merit a download for fans.” Variety, meanwhile, applauded how well it integrated within the larger Childish Gambino universe: “The whole thing is very spacey, and stays true to Childish Gamibo’s other ‘Pharos’ projects” that have expanded across performances.”

As we see interest build in augmented and mixed reality over the interim, we’re looking back on the project’s development and how multiple parties and team members came together to employ best practices in UI and design, helping everyday users ease into a mysterious–and perhaps technologically overwhelming–new interface without limiting space for play and exploration.

Made in collaboration with Google Zoo, Unity and MediaMonks, it’s the world’s first shared augmented musical experience, allowing multiple users to enjoy a unique, artistic experience together. “This app is a breakthrough for AR,” says Thomas Prevot, Sr. Producer at MediaMonks. “It serves as another outlet for Childish Gambino’s creativity, letting him update his fans with future song releases over the cloud,” says Prevot, explaining how the app fits within the larger Childish Gambino brand.

Pharos AR also showcases the power of the ARCore platform and how it can enable immersive, social storytelling experiences. In particular, it shows off the capabilities of Cloud Anchors, which lets multiple users interact in a shared virtual space–which also makes it fairly unique among AR experiences. The tech’s newness can be intimidating, though: how can apps cultivate an interactive, exploratory experience for those new to AR?

Integrate Brand Familiarity & Digital Ecosystems

Childish Gambino fans will recognize Pharos AR’s light-particle silhouette from a Pixel 3 TV ad, and scenes projected within an enigmatic pair of monoliths at this year’s Coachella festival. These elements are purposefully and artfully executed across touchpoints, and this integration with a pre-existing digital ecosystem helps to make the process of designing for emerging tech more intuitive.

From the Pharos Festival to a TV spot to Coachella and beyond, you’ll find the same trademark, psychedelic motifs true to the nature of the artist. This goes to show the potential of AR as a powerful channel to not only engage audiences in an immersive way, but to bridge together the Childish Gambino gospel as well.

Get Intuitive

With AR still being fairly new to some, developers must think carefully about onboarding new users. “Experiences like Pharos AR provide an exciting opportunity for us to help make AR and VR more accessible to wider audiences,” explains Justina Sung, UX Designer at MediaMonks. “If people habitually use their phones a certain way, how do we break out of that to teach them new behaviors for emerging tech like AR?”

Inspired by Childish Gambino’s spirit of ambiguity and minimalism, the app integrates a sensory communication method, instead of verbal directions, to onboard. “Most app tutorials task the user with swiping through instructional cards, but we made it feel like the title sequence of a movie,” says Alex Otto, Associate Creative Director at MediaMonks. When users first open the app, for example, a pink laser beam dynamically snakes through space and into icons that illustrate next steps. “It’s designed to give off a mysterious feeling that builds up layers of suspense,” says Otto.

Direct Users Through Environmental Storytelling

Because AR rewards users through exploration, designing for it requires a careful balance between providing freedom versus direction. “It’s important that the design gives fans room to explore on their own to find meaning, using subtle environmental cues that nudge users in the right direction,” says Sung.

In Pharos AR, the scene gradually dims as users discover hidden glyphs on the cave walls. This nudges them to shift their focus to the altar, which lights up as users discover more paintings—a bit like a progress bar. Other cues include haptic feedback and the gradual, sonic buildup to Childish Gambino’s song “Algorythm,” which released through the app.

AR is a powerful platform for brands to tell their stories and engage directly with key audiences. In the case of Pharos AR, the technology provides users a chance to embark on a wild, immersive journey that encapsulates Childish Gambino’s message of enlightenment. As the first interactive, shared musical experience in AR, the experience truly pushes the limits on what can be achieved—inspiring brands and artists alike to consider what’s possible.

Eager to experiment with easily approachable AR?

Side projects and hobbies are hardly child’s play. On the contrary, they can be vital for gaining new skills and sniffing out new collaborative partners.

Recently MediaMonks’ very own Animation and Art Director Fran Marquez gave a talk at the KIKK Festival on how a passion project paved the path to one of the biggest creative canvases on the internet: Google’s home page. Discussing Deep Thoughts—a web animation series developed by Marquez and his colleagues that offers several short clips in different styles per episode—Marquez explained the key role it played in the development of Google’s 20th anniversary doodle.

Learn Something New

You might be wondering: if the nature of my work is creative, what would a passion project provide that my professional work wouldn’t? Side projects allow you to spread your wings a little bit beyond the everyday humdrum; even if you tackle a variety of work throughout the week, side projects provide an opportunity to experiment in different roles or gain a more sophisticated understanding of a project’s scope. “You discover the real amount of work behind certain styles and formats,” Marquez said in his talk. “It also works to open your mind and to make you understand a little more about the industry itself.”

How that benefits an individual creative is obvious: more experience means the potential for better work. But for whole teams or agencies, such an approach can make up for dwindling time or budgets for R&D. Over the past few years, many agencies have answered this need by hosting short hackathons to spur creative ideas and camaraderie, though side projects allow for a sustained opportunity to extend outside of the comfort zone beyond a 24-hour blitz.

And the benefits to cultivating such a habit stick with you. Marquez says the side projects his team worked on helped some of his colleagues view animation beyond just the scope of traditional cartoons. Having more autonomy and working together on their own project allowed them to adopt a design-focused view on how animation could be used as a tool.

One big change from this shift is that you may be valued more as a strategic asset by colleagues or prospective collaborators. Side projects can provide heightened business and industry understanding, which places more trust in your ability to make decisions or play a bigger role in the concept stage of a collaborative project. “Clients do want creative partners,” Marquez said, but they can be cautious about who they hand over the reins to. Honing strategic acumen by stepping outside of your daily role with side projects is a great way to build that level of trust.

Expand Your Portfolio

So how do you prove yourself through your side projects? By working on them little-by-little, you develop not just some extra skills, but also a detailed portfolio to share them. The Deep Thoughts project, for example, showed off several features: a diverse array of styles, subtle storytelling and quick transitions from one clip to the next. These qualities exhibited the team’s creative output as well as their production capability and speed—all things that aligned perfectly with Google’s need for a remarkable Birthday Doodle to celebrate its 20-year milestone. And the parade of whimsical clips portrayed in Deep Thoughts seemed like a convenient extension of their style.

Of course, not everyone’s side project translates so closely to new collaborations and opportunities. But it’s important to remember that they don’t exist in a vacuum, either: every side project you complete provides a new opportunity to develop new skills and capabilities.

Make Work Fun Again

Side projects do more than just expand skillsets and help you prove your worth. They can also boost morale, whether you’re tackling an individual passion project or working on a team. If you are tinkering at a passion project within a group, there’s the added benefit of enhanced teamwork and visibility of each member’s skills and backgrounds.

Whether you want to nurture a culture of side projects for your team or simply begin a project yourself, start by taking stock of strengths and weaknesses. What are things you do particularly well, and what opportunities would allow you to hone the skills you’re not so great at? Once you’ve set an objective, put aside time to dedicate to the project on a regular basis. The side project should be relatively low-pressure, but keeping to a timetable holds yourself accountable and ensures you stick to it.

Remember, a big part of working on passion projects is to have fun and learn while doing something you love. Anything that takes you and your colleagues away from the daily grind (and results in tangible evidence for the portfolio) should suffice. We Monks aren’t the fortune-telling type, but we know one thing for certain: “If you put effort and trust into something,” Marquez said, “it will come back to you in a positive form.”