Knauf Insulation at Ecobuild 2011

Augmented Reality

Knauf, the UK's leading insulation company, were looking for a new method to engage clients and attract new business. They wanted to make a major impact at the construction industry expo Ecobuild 2011. Knauf’s marketing bosses engaged the Hidden Creative team and together they came up with an augmented reality campaign that would draw attention to their products, increase the audience dwell time at their stand and allow the company to extend the campaign to their website.

Knauf Insulation wanted to clearly communicate and demonstrate the USP’s of a variety of their products. They also wanted this message to work equally across a range of construction sectors on all professional levels, from engineer to CEO. The second challenge faced was due to the nature of insulation products as they are typically concealed or layered, making the physical application process difficult to demonstrate.

Hidden designed the augmented reality experiences so they could also be used by Knauf’s sales team on a laptop or PC. The sales team was equipped with a comprehensive and immersive product portfolio to take with them wherever they went.

One of the key features included in the augmentations, done in an effort to simplify the demonstration of the products, was to automatically program the augmentations to animate the interactive elements as the marker was rotated. The augmentations responded depending on the direction they were facing, pleasantly surprising the audience.

The augmentations were presented on three 58” LCD screens through HD cameras. This allowed the audience to observe and to interact with the AR up close, providing a very engaging experience.

Augmented reality has equipped Knauf Insulation with another robust and flexible method of demonstrating and ultimately, selling their product.