Created for Island Records/Universal Music Italy, the official app where augmented reality and music come together is released today in support of the launch of Guè Pequeno’s album, MR. FINI – The Experience. The app will take users inside the hotel room featured on the album cover to discover, in a fun and interactive way, exclusive content and previews from the artist’s new work.
The AR app, MR. FINI – The Experience, is entirely unconventional: the reason… will be revealed at the end of the post! Here’s some behind-the-scenes information:
- The challenge
- The benefits
- The solution
- Why
The challenge: attention and social closeness
Now more than ever, we live in an era of information overload, making it increasingly difficult to capture attention. Now more than ever, despite social distancing, there is a need for closeness and proximity. That’s why Island Records/Universal Music Italy have considered immersive technologies as a tool to exponentially increase the emotional impact of Guè Pequeno’s new album, MR. FINI.
The benefits: fan engagement and heightened emotion
We will see the real numbers in a few days, but the AR mobile app, MR. FINI – The Experience, has all the potential to celebrate the fusion of music and augmented reality. The application uses augmented reality to transport the user inside the hotel room depicted on the album cover. But that’s not all. It offers a genuine user engagement journey where, through gamification mechanisms, additional content, rewards, and benefits will be revealed during the first week of the release. The expected benefits are inevitable for all stakeholders of the project: the artist, producers, distributors, and fans.
#1 – Visibility: extending the album’s launch period through the gradual release of content conveyed through the app.
#2 – Engagement: the artist, fans, app, and social media form a quadrilateral through which the relationship between Guè and the audience can strengthen, creating a shared story together.
#3 – Emotion: immersive technologies bring users inside the album. Users enter the album cover, and interact with objects and content. Memorability and emotional impact are guaranteed.
HOW DOES THE AUGMENTED REALITY APPLICATION WORK
Once the creative and marketing concept was devised, the application was developed using 3D graphics created with Blender and Substance Painter, rendered in real-time through the Unity engine. The logic of the app and the augmented reality experience was implemented using C# code and the ARKit (Apple) and ARCore (Google) SDKs.
After downloading the app, available on the Apple Store and Google Play at this link, simply point the camera at the floor of the environment you are in to enter the virtual world of MR. FINI. Through videos and iconic objects related to the artist’s journey, users can discover exclusive content linked to the new album, unlocking them gradually as rewards obtained through gameplay or codes communicated on the artist’s social networks (@therealgue) and Spotify Italy. It is also possible to pre-order the album in both physical and digital versions and share photographs taken in Guè Pequeno’s virtual world on social media profiles.
Why it’s a special AR app
Certainly, it is an unconventional use of immersive technologies. There are two aspects we would like to highlight.
#1 – Gradual release: Only by fully experiencing the application will all the content be revealed, currently kept secret. [Editor’s Note: We will update the post in a few days with further details! Stay tuned on Instagram and Linkedin for daily updates.]
#2 – xR + gamification: The application is entirely unconventional because it goes beyond simply “displaying” multimedia content by recognizing and supporting a real gaming dynamic using augmented reality, strengthening the bond between the artist and the fans.
A special thanks go to Island Records and Universal Music Italy, as commented by Fabio Mosca – “they wanted to innovate to enhance the emotional dimension of their support for artists.”
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