Your company has access to AR technology. Great! …now what? Have you thought about how to effectively implement that technology to solve a problem? Or are you just planning to develop a neat digital gizmo, release it to the world, and hope folks will use it? Zappar CEO Caspar Thykier joins Alan to discuss his personal Three Cs for Success in AR, and how to think critically when developing AR solutions.

Alan: Today's guest is Caspar Thykier, CEO of Zappar. Caspar has an extensive background in advertising and marketing, and has been lucky enough to work with some of the most successful companies with the biggest blue chip brands, surrounded by the best people. Now he's spending all of his time in the new world of spatial storytelling -- or augmented reality, as some call it. He's helped so many companies get to market, but the one that he's working on now that is at the forefront of all this technology is Zappar. Zappar is an augmented reality platform, and a creative studio, all rolled into one, and they've been doing augmented reality since 2011. Zappar are really specialists in augmented, virtual, and mixed reality and they've been leading the way for over seven years. They work with some of the biggest brands in the world, to meet their marketing and commercial objectives by adding a layer of interactive digital content to their products, packaging, point-of-sale places, and physical marketing collateral. Basically, they turn all passive print into always-on media channels that brand owners can control, which is pretty incredible and amazing stuff. You can learn more about Zappar by visiting them at Zappar.com. “Zed”-A-P-P-A-R dot com. Or, if you're American, “Zee”-A-P-P-A-R dot com. 

I want to welcome Caspar to the show. Welcome to the show, Caspar!

Caspar: Thank you so much, and thanks for that introduction. Especially making a difference between the US and the UK pronunciation of “Zee” and “Zed”.

Alan: Well, I'm Canadian, so we share the “Zed.”

Caspar: There you go.

Alan: Well, thank you so much for joining me, I've been really excited about this podcast interview. You are literally a pioneer -- not only a pioneer but a leading pioneer --  in this industry. Zappar, you guys have done work with Wal-Mart, you've done work with 7-Eleven, with tons of alcohol brands, with packaging brands, with consumer packaged goods. Let's just list off a few of the ones -- the highlights -- that you guys have done recently, and then we'll dig into what this technology does for a brand, how they can use it, and how they can get really involved.

Caspar: Absolutely. Yeah, that'll be great. Maybe to preface that, I think how we've come to be working with such a diverse range of clients and partners really stems back to where we started. 

As you said, it seems a long time ago now, back in 2011, because we were a company that was self-funded then. When you think back then, you had to explain pretty hard to people what AR was, and we had to make sure that any of the projects we worked on were clearly revenue-driving, revenue-generating for the business. So at that time, we looked pretty horizontal and shallow across lots of different industries. I guess we looked into other black folks of contacts to see where we could fish first. That meant that we ended up exploring the opportunities for AR across entertainment – we did a lot of work with the Hollywood studios at that time, with Warner Brothers and others, both for theatrical marketing and consumer products -- but then into retail. Working with retailers across the world, be it here in the UK with Asda, Wal-Mart in the states and 7-Eleven, or Woolworth's in Australia, et cetera. 

Then into connected packaging, and that'