• by Steve Smith , Staff Writer @popeyesm, August 8, 2013

Last year IKEA wowed us with an AR-enhanced catalog that allowed smartphone users to poise their device over select pages to get richer media engagements. It was a cut above the usual AR tricks and triggers in that the device view could peek inside furniture and overlay different coverings and choices.

This was among the smartest uses of augmented reality on a large scale we had seen from a major brand. And the company made no secret of the fact that it was radically rethinking a catalog that had been coming to people’s homes since 1951.

The problem with such an act is that it begs to be followed. And so the 2014 IKEA catalog has to up its AR game. Looks like they did it. The new catalog (available later this month) will become an AR signal that helps the smartphone position and size sample furniture in your house.

This novel feature to the IKEA app instructs the user to put the catalog down in the room where they want to trial a piece of furniture and the camera uses the print book to gauge room size, camera distance and positions to put a properly scaled overlay of the item into the room for testing.

That is good enough. But what really makes the program charming is how IKEA invites you to goof with the technology. Try putting couches on people’s heads. Assemble the family to create chair+body sculptures. Get everyone’s device into the action and redecorate an entire room one second screen at a time.

This is brilliant. It offers a truly functional and useful feature set and then uses it to turn both the catalog and the app into an entertainment experience and opportunity for self-expression. And all the while it keeps the customer fully engaged with the IKEA products. On a deeper level it shows how marketers need to imagine campaigns that segue into how people actually use and enjoy their technologies, and also know when to stop.

A refreshing part of this is that there is no cloying suggestion that you “share” your most creative AR creations on Facebook if you “like” IKEA -- or at least so far as I could see. We already like IKEA. They just gave us a creative experience we weren’t expecting. Why ruin it with a self-serving blue thumb?