Local company gives marketing a “reality” check with AR campaigns
At InceptionU, we love a good career transition story and Alisha and Joel Olandesca certainly have one. The husband and wife team, co founders of SOS Web AR, soon to be Simpl.AR,, have overcome a number of hardships, including the pandemic, to launch their web-based augmented reality company.
“We are really excited to build a team, start hiring people and contribute to the local economy. To build something brand new! We’re so emotionally invested in this business that has, literally, been ten years in the making,” says Alisha.
Simpl.AR is one of InceptionU’s newest “Startups in Residence", a program that sees a local company visit the InceptionU learning space one day a week to connect, learn and mentor the Evolve full stack developer participants.
Alisha says they love coming to the Library once a week for a variety of reasons, but mainly to connect with new junior developers.
“We are perfectly positioned to bring newcomers into our company who have basic skills. So we thought, could we take underrepresented people in tech and be a stepping stone for them before they go off and work for some big tech company? The InceptionU learners show desirable traits - a willingness to work on the long game, build something new, willing to fail - these are the people that we want!”
“It is so incredibly valuable for people stepping into the tech sector to connect with and be exposed to the wide variety of companies and technologies they can work with. Having Alisha and Joel in the space sharing their insights, offering different perspectives on how to understand your client and their needs along with how to build the tech solution has been such an effective addition to the learning environment. We even saw AR very successfully integrated into a team’s project which is outside of the stack they learn in the program and yet accessible to them through project-based learning and amazing supports like Alisha and Joel.”
It’s been a journey for the couple to get here. Alisha was a stay-at-home and Joel was working in tech sales when the two of them decided to launch their first business, an event rental company called SOS Charging Solutions.
They provided mobile charging stations at big events like conferences and trade shows. The company took off as brands realized they could use the charging stations to build brand awareness and reputation, and event producers could leverage the offering as a sponsorship opportunity
Then…the pandemic. Within 36 hours, their business virtually dried up. No live events translated to zero revenue for exactly two years and two weeks. Professionally, they’d hit a seemingly insurmountable obstacle.
But, with a resilient spirit and incredible vision, Alisha and Joel got to work figuring out the next evolution of SOS Charging Solutions.
They tested the marketplace and offered their Augmented Reality as an Experiential Marketing tool. As they built this new offering, they learned along the way and garnered some recognition.
Previously, users had to download a separate app to access Augmented Reality features, but the SOS team began coding the AR into a web-based form, meaning anyone at an event could simply scan a QR code and experience AR. It also drastically reduced the cost of incorporating AR into marketing campaigns and experiential marketing activations.
Why AR? The Olandescas say the research speaks for itself. When you communicate content through AR, research shows:
a 45% increase in engagement
70% increase in memory encoding
60% increase in emotional intensity
Over the past 2 years, they’ve worked\ with a number of notable clients including Shell, Nascar, RBC, ConnectFirst Credit Union, WestJet, and the Calgary Zoo.
Check out this video to experience how Dinny the Dinosaur experiences Calgary and his view of the city’s skyline. This activation has been a huge hit with young visitors to the Zoo and has brought new life to Dinny, who’s been around since 1939. Now, this 84-year-old statue is a key figure at the Zoo increasing enjoyment and engagement among all ages.
Olandesca is excited about the company’s future and is convinced that AR is not just a fad, but is here to stay as a viable business. When AR is combined with experiential marketing, the results, she says, are way more cost-effective and environmentally friendly. Consider the cost of all that company swag which eventually ends up in a landfill. Replace that with an AR experience, and you will see far more qualified sales leads come from your event budget.
SOS Web AR (soon to be Simpl.AR) works directly with brands, marketing professionals and agencies to create compelling AR campaigns. You can view more of them here: https://vimeo.com/user95425735
With a pre-seed funding round underway and a couple of new investors, the SOS Web AR team will be one to watch. We’re thrilled to have them at InceptionU, interacting with our learners, and showing all of us that grit, determination and innovation can augment our own vision of reality and what is possible.
