Navigating XR with We Are PHASE2’s Samantha Wolfe

Alan – and XRIgnite — isn’t the only XR shepherding game in town! Samantha Wolfe — who co-authored Marketing New Realities with previous XR for Business guest Cathy Hackl — drops by to share her own insights on how best to help brands, businesses, and campaigns venture into the XR minefield, and come out the other end unscathed.

Alan: Today’s guest is Samantha
Wolfe, managing partner at we are PHASE2. Samantha is a marketing and
branding strategist, focused on making “never done before”
a reality. Sam is a co-author of the book “Marketing New
Realities: An Introduction to Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality
Marketing, Branding, and Communications,” and is a contributing
author to Charlie Fink’s book “Convergence: How the World Will
Be Painted With Data,” with a chapter focused on augmented
reality for brands. She also runs the largest marketing and branding
Facebook group focused on VR, AR, and MR, which has over 2,500
members. She’s a board member of the New York VR Expo and South by
Southwest Pitch, and has been on the judging panel for the Games of
Change Festival and the AWE Auggie Awards. To learn more about
Samantha, you can visit samanthagwolfe.com or wearephase2.com.

Samantha, welcome to the show.

Samantha: Hi, Alan. Good to be
here.

Alan: It’s so amazing to have
you on the show. We’ve known each other for a few years now, and we
keep seeing each other at different conferences, and it’s always fun.
I think the last time was AWE, but before that was CES. This year we
got to hang out in a glass booth; almost like a fishbowl in the
middle of CES.

Samantha: I think our picture
went up on Fox News or something like that.

Alan: Oh, did it really?

Samantha: Like, the two people
in the middle of the glass booth for VR Voice. And we had such a fun
conversation. I think Bob Fine was a little taken aback about how
excited the two of us got together. So I’m excited for this
conversation!

Alan: [laughs] This is gonna be
a great conversation. And for those of you who don’t know, Bob Fine
runs a wonderful podcast called VR Voice, so you can check that out
as well. Samantha, you’re the managing partner at we are PHASE2. So,
talk to us a bit about what is we are PHASE2, and what are you guys
doing? And then we’ll just have a conversation around the wonderful
marketing opportunities that virtual and augmented reality afford.

Samantha: Absolutely. The way I
like to talk about we are PHASE2 is that we are about marketing with
and for emerging technologies. We help companies who are in the
emerging tech space be able to market and communicate what they’re
doing, but we also have companies who want to market to and with
those emerging technologies. So if you’re an advertising agency or a
brand who says, you know, “we want to do something really
innovative,” and want to integrate — whether it be AR, VR, AI,
IoT — into what you’re doing, that you could come to us and we’ll
help you through that process. Or if you’re like, “You know
what? We need some developers to help work on this campaign that
we’re doing.” We’ll work with you as well. The other thing I’ve
said is marketing emerging technologies and emerging technology
marketing.

Alan: Emerging technology
marketing. I get it. So–

Samantha: It’s both ways.

[laughs]

Alan: Are you talking about
virtual/augmented/mixed reality, or are you guys also diving into
artificial intelligence and machine learning and IoT sensors and that
kind of stu

Alan – and XRIgnite — isn’t the only XR shepherding game in town! Samantha Wolfe — who co-authored Marketing New Realities with previous XR for Business guest Cathy Hackl — drops by to share her own insights on how best to help brands, businesses, and campaigns venture into the XR minefield, and come out the other end unscathed.

Alan: Today’s guest is Samantha
Wolfe, managing partner at we are PHASE2. Samantha is a marketing and
branding strategist, focused on making “never done before”
a reality. Sam is a co-author of the book “Marketing New
Realities: An Introduction to Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality
Marketing, Branding, and Communications,” and is a contributing
author to Charlie Fink’s book “Convergence: How the World Will
Be Painted With Data,” with a chapter focused on augmented
reality for brands. She also runs the largest marketing and branding
Facebook group focused on VR, AR, and MR, which has over 2,500
members. She’s a board member of the New York VR Expo and South by
Southwest Pitch, and has been on the judging panel for the Games of
Change Festival and the AWE Auggie Awards. To learn more about
Samantha, you can visit samanthagwolfe.com or wearephase2.com.

Samantha, welcome to the show.

Samantha: Hi, Alan. Good to be
here.

Alan: It’s so amazing to have
you on the show. We’ve known each other for a few years now, and we
keep seeing each other at different conferences, and it’s always fun.
I think the last time was AWE, but before that was CES. This year we
got to hang out in a glass booth; almost like a fishbowl in the
middle of CES.

Samantha: I think our picture
went up on Fox News or something like that.

Alan: Oh, did it really?

Samantha: Like, the two people
in the middle of the glass booth for VR Voice. And we had such a fun
conversation. I think Bob Fine was a little taken aback about how
excited the two of us got together. So I’m excited for this
conversation!

Alan: [laughs] This is gonna be
a great conversation. And for those of you who don’t know, Bob Fine
runs a wonderful podcast called VR Voice, so you can check that out
as well. Samantha, you’re the managing partner at we are PHASE2. So,
talk to us a bit about what is we are PHASE2, and what are you guys
doing? And then we’ll just have a conversation around the wonderful
marketing opportunities that virtual and augmented reality afford.

Samantha: Absolutely. The way I
like to talk about we are PHASE2 is that we are about marketing with
and for emerging technologies. We help companies who are in the
emerging tech space be able to market and communicate what they’re
doing, but we also have companies who want to market to and with
those emerging technologies. So if you’re an advertising agency or a
brand who says, you know, “we want to do something really
innovative,” and want to integrate — whether it be AR, VR, AI,
IoT — into what you’re doing, that you could come to us and we’ll
help you through that process. Or if you’re like, “You know
what? We need some developers to help work on this campaign that
we’re doing.” We’ll work with you as well. The other thing I’ve
said is marketing emerging technologies and emerging technology
marketing.

Alan: Emerging technology
marketing. I get it. So–

Samantha: It’s both ways.

[laughs]

Alan: Are you talking about
virtual/augmented/mixed reality, or are you guys also diving into
artificial intelligence and machine learning and IoT sensors and that
kind of stuff?

Samantha: Yes. It’s basically
anything that touches emerging tech in marketing. I end up being more
of the subject matter expert when it comes to VR and AR. But Jennifer
Usdan McBride — who’s one of the three managing partners in the
group — she has hit quite a number of more technologies beyond that.
She used to run Digital and Innovation for J. Walter Thompson, has
won Cannes Lions and has a super-impressive résumé, by far. I end
up talking about AR and VR and the technologies that are related to
it — which is, as you know, you end up getting into AI and machine
learning under that umbrella.

Alan: You can’t really have XR
without computer vision, machine learning–

Samantha: No…

Alan: Doesn’t really work
anymore. So we’re entering a new phase of technology.

Samantha: The general idea was
the fact that, it’s based on this idea that sometimes people have
that phase 1 of — whether it be an idea or a technology — then
phase 3 is success or lots of money. And then sometimes, they end up
forgetting the phase 2 in-between; of how to build it, grow it,
market it. And then we work with companies to figure that out.

Alan: We just recently launched
— as you know — the XR Ignite program as a community hub and
connector for startup studios and developers to connect with
corporate clients, and really prepare them for doing business with
these corporate clients. And it sounds like that’s similar to what
you guys are doing, on a one-off basis. So maybe there’s some great
synergies; we can feed each other some content.

Samantha: Absolutely. I’ve
learned in working this industry; I’m not just a connector. I think
you are someone in this [field], but a bit of a super connector. So
it’s just sort of like, “oh, you should meet this person and
that person, then do this and do that, and these are the ideas we can
bring in,” and it just ends up being ten ideas coming at you at
once, which — I think — you and I are similar in that respect.

Alan: Yeah, it’s a bit of a
problem, because you talk to a client and say, “hey, there’s
your problem. Here’s ten different ways to solve it.”

Samantha: Right.

Alan: That overwhelms people. So
I’ve had to have a buffer now in-between. When I meet with a
customer, I’m not allowed to tell them anything; I just listen. And
then I come back, I say to my team, “here’s a dozen ways to solve
the problem. Here’s all the ways we can service them. Here’s all the
different price points.” And then my team breaks it down into a
more palatable, easy-to-deliver [form], and then gives them a
good/better/best scenario, versus good/better/best/beyond/this and
that/everything.

Samantha: [laughs] It ends up
being similar, but I end up sort of doing it myself, because I’ve
found I’m a good editor. I end up just throwing everything down on a
page, and then editing it back, and then finding a pattern within
that, saying, “it’s ultimately about these three things.” I
just need to put it down, and then a day to back to revise and edit
it.

Alan: So, can you talk to us
about some of the companies you’re either working with, or some of
the projects you’ve done recently? Or… let’s talk about some
specifics here. What are some of the specific things that you and
your team are working on, or doing, or excited about?

Samantha: Well, the thing that’s
been interesting is that… I’ve signed so many NDAs recently, so I
end up having to talk a little bit more in generalities. Often
because — you know — you work with an emerging tech company, and
they don’t necessarily want everybody to know what they’re doing,
until they’re ready to explain it. So there’s some on both…
actually, there’s so many… we’ve worked with some companies to —
say, they are doing amazing technological breakthroughs, and yet
people on the other side of the desk that they’re pitching to, or in
the universe — the social media universe — they just aren’t getting
the recognition that they should. So we work with them to just say,
“What is it that makes you unique? And what is it that your
customers want to hear from you?” So we sort of break that down
into easy bite-size pieces, for them to communicate, and hat we’re
repping [them]. One of those projects that — we’ve done it a few
times over now, also, working with a couple different companies that
are larger, you would know them — name brands that are wanting to
work with VR and AR developers to actually create a platform and a
community for themselves. I wish I could say their names, but I can’t
say. We’ve also worked with a healthcare company that wanted to
prototype something, to be able to communicate better with the
doctors that are their customers. And then we’ve worked with some
agencies, too, who are trying to sort of articulate what it is that
they want to be selling to their clients, and their customers, to be
more innovative and on the cutting-edge.

Alan: Let’s talk about
specifics. There’s got to be some specifics here. What are the things
that are really moving the needle for customers?

Samantha: Well, I think that a
lot of companies go in wanting to have the biggest, best, more
fanciest technologies. And sometimes, it ends up being more about a
question of what their audience really wants, and what their budget
allows. We were talking about it at Augmented World Expo. Like right
now, in the state of innovation, when it comes to VR and AR, it is
really about managing both immersion versus reach. We can’t — right
now — do both. It’s sort of one or the other. You can have a highly,
highly immersive, high-end VR experience; but then, you’re not really
going to get that distribution that you’re looking for, unless you
already have a event that you can showcase that, or you’ve sort of
built in a certain distribution part of your campaign. But in terms
of reach, you can partner or do something with a Snapchat or
Facebook, which is going to get you that reach; but the immersion
levels aren’t quite there. So, you have to have either one or the
other, or build into your budget, both.

Alan: Interesting. So, you
mentioned Snapchat, and Snapchat is by far the largest augmented
reality platform — and they don’t even mention the word AR or
augmented reality in anything they do; it’s just a lens, right? So
you’re either looking at a lens and seeing yourself, or you’re
looking at a lens and seeing the world. What are some of the
experiences — because right now — it used to be if you wanted to
make a face filter and add a pair of sunglasses, this was tens of
thousands of dollars, and it would take six months, and blah blah
blah. You can build a face filter now in 15 minutes using their lens
studio. So, how has that changed the landscape?

Samantha: Basically, it allowed
so many more developers to be able to have access, to be able to have
these tools. Then, it becomes a bit more ubiquitous in terms of what
is possible. And then it becomes this sort of, “who’s the best
out there,” in terms of creating the actual assets. And that’s
where having that sort of networking filter, because you could –
literally — a lot of the innovation teams that I’ve talked to, who
are working with brands, are working with agencies, will say, “oh,
yeah, I have all these companies come in and talk to me about what’s
possible,” but it becomes about, what are the best opportunities
for the technology? What are the best interactions? What are the best
uses? How to get the word out to allow people to use it?

It’s becoming harder and harder to
break through with just a face filter, or an emoji, or an animoji. It
goes back to the basics of marketing and advertising again; it’s not
about tech for tech’s sake, right? I mean, that’s where you need to
have the teams that have been doing it a while, to understand where
you’re going, to get the value out of it; the purpose for doing it.

Alan: If we were to break it
down for people — let’s assume we’re talking to a marketing
department — they want to start using these technologies. How would
they get started?

Samantha: Well, I think the one
thing that people have to do, is to try it first. If you try
it, you start playing with it. I mean, that’s sort of how I got
started with it; you just sort of start downloading things. You start
realizing that there’s a lot of out there, where you sort of go, “why
did they make this?” Or, “why do I need to come back and
use it again?” And I think that that’s almost the first step in
all the process.

Cathy Hackl — who’s at Magic Leap —
and I wrote about Marketing New Realities about a year and a half
ago. That was to allow marketers to start understanding that, once
you get over all the acronyms and some spatial thinking or whatever,
that it’s really back to the basics of the marketing and branding and
positioning and communication. After that… I mean, for me, it ends
up being like, “who are your users? What do they do? What are
they doing now? How have you already been engaging with your
customers? What are they expecting of you?” And then, how can you
use AR and VR or maybe a new technology to be able to augment that,
and supplement that, and complement that? So it’s not just creating
technology because you’re like, “oh, we should do this VR; we
saw our competitors did this VR experience.” But it becomes,
“how are we engaging with our target audience in a deeper, more
meaningful way? And an ongoing way.”

I think that that’s where a lot of
companies get tripped up; whether it be a tech company [that] gets
tripped up, or outside of tech company, is that they tend to go,
“we’re going to create this one thing; it’s going to be great,”
and then you just sort of forget it after launch. What some of the
companies in the space are starting to be able to realize is that, it
becomes an ongoing relationship. AR is sort of an ongoing
relationship. VR might be a very deep and intimate one in a very
short period of time — at least where it stands now — but AR is
sort of ongoing, in the sense that social media is ongoing; a website
is ongoing. AR can be ongoing, and needs sort of updates and new
experiences over time. So, you have to start thinking in that way of
the supplement/complement. You can have something where you are
launching something that is new and exciting for AR. But to do it
just once, with a very short engagement, is really doing the
technology a disservice, and doing the company a disservice as well.

Alan: I think we’ve seen a lot
of really cool one-offs. One of the VR ones that I’ve seen was the
Jack Ryan launch, where they put you in VR and — I think it was
launched at South by Southwest this year — and send you down a zip
line in virtual reality. Like, you’re wearing VR on a physical zip
line, zipping down. Like, that’s insane. That probably cost a million
bucks; but it was a one-off.

But I think one of the things that was
underestimated, especially in the early days a couple of years ago —
now, not so much, because there’s a lot more of it — but the earned
media around using VR for these things. Topshop did a VR slide where
you’re in the store, you put the VR and you slide down a slide
like… it’s so gimmicky and dumb. Yet, they got world-renowned
experiences out of it. And back in the day four years ago, Marriott
did this thing in Times Square, where they had a transporter pod; you
stood in this pod, put on a headset, and you’re transported somewhere
else in the world. And all they were doing is was showing 360 video.
And that was enough to garner them massive global media attention.
They got hundreds of millions of media impressions out of that, and
they’re still getting media impressions out of it.

But I think the bar is being set really
high now. I mean, that Jack Ryan thing set the bar even higher. And
we’re starting to see the creative agencies dive into this. And the
creative agencies are going, “okay, well, we’ve tried this. What
about this?” And one of the things that I saw in AR that just
blew my mind — I think it blew everybody’s mind — was the Burger
King thing where you take your phone, you point it at any of their
competitors’ branding, and it catches on fire and says “flame
broiled is better; here’s a free Whopper.” I think technology
for the technology’s sake is not enough anymore. It used to be. But
now we’re into that point where people are demanding really cool
things. The question I have is, what are some of the cool things
you’ve seen that has made you go, “wow, that’s amazing”?

Samantha: What you were just
talking about is a little bit of what we used to say, “AR or VR
just for PR,” right? I mean, there’s always the cool and
exciting thing for launch, but–

Alan: Well, some of it is making
fun of VR, like the Chick-Fil-A thing where they put VR on cows. I
mean, that’s not even real VR, but it’s funny as hell.

Samantha: [laughs] Yeah, I know
the team that worked on it. I did an event where I had them come and
talk, so I think–

Alan: Well, a question I have
is; what were they showing the cows?

Samantha: [laughs] Exactly. I
think that there’s so much… VR and AR started getting you sort of
questioning about your own personal understanding of what the world
is and what’s possible. I think that there tends to be a bit of that
anthropomorphizing of, like, putting headsets on different animals
because you’re like, “well, what would they think? What would
they do?”

Alan: “Chicken VR! I’m free
range now!”

Samantha: [laughs] Exactly. What
was really fun; I partnered with Augmented World Expo this year. They
were doing their first marketing track, and I was really able to sort
of dig into what’s going on there; what are the best-in-class
examples, what is possible with the technology? I mean, I think about
it every day. The fun thing about the Facebook group — that’s the
VR/AR/MR marketing and branding — is that I literally am thinking
about these things all day long. [laughs] But I had a couple of
people on my panel, that I thought, their companies; I’d reach out to
them — hadn’t met them before — but reached out to them, because I
thought that they were doing some amazing things. And one with the
Zappar with 7-Eleven. And the other was the team that did the Sleep
Number. And the Zappar 7-Eleven, I thought was really fun because
they had created this sort of ecosystem within 7-Eleven, where you
had a reason to go back and continually engage with their app. I
haven’t seen that. I mean, Snapchat has done that a little bit.
They’ve done some Nike things, which are really neat, which are
geolocated experiences.

Alan: Did you see the LeBron
James poster? I believe it was Trigger Global, who did that one.

Samantha: I mean, these are some
of the coolest companies out there, for sure. But I think it’s just a
little bit of a tipping point of what’s possible. Whereas some of the
decision makers are still seeing the QR codes that launch a video.
And that’s not quite enough.

Alan: Although – although,
I will preface this — I have seen activations where a newspaper —
and their target audience is families and maybe some elderly people
as well — and they created AR experiences built into the newspaper.
And you would see senior citizens pull their phone out and kind of go
like a scavenger hunt through the newspaper. They would look for the
little AR symbol, and it would bring them enriched content locked to
the page, and it was like bringing the page together. And they’re
seeing really, really good numbers; excellent uptake from the users,
and their advertisers like it, because now you’re able to add some
additional content. But they focused on just enhancing the digital
print first. And I thought that was not something that every magazine
in the world will do. But I thought it was a good use case. And the
newspaper itself has expanded to, I think, 88 different newspapers,
so… it’s successful.

Samantha: From a print and
magazine [perspective], I think that AR is a great thing to be able
to supplement campaigns. I think it’s just that if it’s only, “you
launch a video and there’s just a video,” I tend to want to push
the boundaries of things and see, you know, “is there a way to
make it interactive? Is there a way to make it updated? Is there a
way to connect it to other parts of the campaign?” I guess
that’s where I come from, because I feel like if you’re just going
into a room and then you have a few trigger points and all they’re
doing is launching videos, you have to sort of go, “would you
want to do that? What’s going to make you download something?” I
remember one of the panels at a debut there was the woman from PGA.
So she’s in an interesting situation, because AR would be amazing if
it could be able to track where the ball is and give more information
to the technology. But she said on site, you can’t get somebody to
download an app because there’s just not enough. So that’s where
entering a 5G is possible.

Alan: I know Trigger Global,
they were putting sensors in hockey players, and then in the puck. I
think that’s really cool where you can recreate the entire hockey
arena on your coffee table. It’s not going to replace watching the
sport. People are like, “oh, you know, I can put AR and watch it
in AR.” You’re not going to hold your phone up, even if it’s in
glasses. You’re going to want to watch the sports as they appear on
your 4K television. But, how cool would it be to put the game on the
table, and see the replay in augmented reality? That’s interesting.
Or maybe play a game with some other people, while you’re in the
middle of the game.

Samantha: Well, I think that
it’s also that you end up taking that in and you take something
that– what, like Eye Candy Lab does in terms of the video
recognition. If you do the connecting of multiple technologies, so if
you end up doing something where you have a Trigger, you have an Eye
Candy Lab, if you have sort of multiple– you have a Snapchat, you
go, “how do all of these connect together and how do they create
a sort of cohesive campaign?” It’s changing the way I’ve done a
lot of integrated marketing campaigns. And it used to be that you go,
“okay, here’s the radio campaign, here’s the print campaign,
here’s the TV campaign, we’re gonna have some events.” Now it’s
so much more complicated than that, because not only can you do that,
but then you also go, what’s your stack of technological
capabilities, and how does that help your overall campaign over time?

Alan: Absolutely. So what are
some of the metrics that you’re seeing? How are people measuring the
success of this campaign?

Samantha: Well, the thing that I
keep on saying is that when it comes to AR and VR, it’s really about
the word “engagement.” I actually wrote a post once saying,
“engagement used to be further defined and quantified.” It
does end up varying based on company and based on campaign. Like,
what does engagement mean to you? And you sort of have to define that
success metric for yourself. Is it that you want people to go out and
talk about a product, recommend a product, repost something? Is it
that you want to get more inbound leads if you’re more of a B2B
situation that you want? I personally end up dealing with more of the
tech companies, whereas my partners end up dealing a little bit more
with the brands and agencies. But a lot of companies come to me,
they’re like, “I need to be able to talk on panels and be
considered a thought leader and have a article in a trade magazine.”
What is it that you’re trying to accomplish? And then how do we
figure out how to get you there and what’s the path to to get you
there?

Alan: Let’s talk about the
difference between VR, AR, and MR; virtual reality, mixed reality,
augmented reality. Where do you see them fitting into different
marketing campaigns?

Samantha: You know, I get asked
this question a lot. I mean, AR is almost that must-do. You have to
figure it out. It’s a little bit of when people were launching
websites and people were like, “oh, I don’t need to launch a
website.” And now it’s like, “okay, what’s your AR
strategy” needs to be just sort of a basic campaign, basic
discussion you need to have internally. Mixed reality, I feel like
people are using that a little bit less. I mean, I think that that’s
almost under the AR umbrella. I think when it comes to, if you have a
B2B launch where you’re going to have some sales, people are going in
and talking to your customers directly and they can bring a headset,
that that’s where you can bring in mixed reality, at least at this
juncture.

VR…and I think that that is a little
bit – again — thinking almost first of “where are you going
to be? Where is this going to be?” Eventually, if the goal is to
create branded content that is going to reach a higher-end,
forward-thinking design audience, and you want to have it in a film
festival or sort of overlapping with a film festival audience, then
you go, “okay, maybe we need to do VR,” or, you know you’re
going to have a series of events nationwide or globally, and then you
go, “okay, now we need to integrate VR into what you’re doing.”
I think what’s going to be fun is seeing even post-holiday shopping,
and what the Quest is going to do for distribution. And then you can
start thinking immersion versus reach; sort of pull in one direction
versus the other is going to be less of a pull? It’s going to be,
“you can get immersion and reach,” when VR is even further
distributed.

Alan: So, Samantha, you wrote
the book Marketing New Realities. How can people get a copy that
book?

Samantha: Amazon!

Alan: Oh, perfect.

Samantha: Yeah, if you just do
“Marketing New Realities” on Amazon, you can find that and
get either a digital copy or a hard copy. And then obviously Charlie
Fink’s book–

Alan: “Convergence.”

Samantha: I wrote the
advertising chapter in that. And that is a must-read for anybody
inside or outside the business. From a marketing standpoint
especially. You know, even people outside of marketing have said that
they’ve found that our Marketing New Realities book to be really
helpful as well.

Alan: Yeah. I actually wrote a
piece in Charlie Fink’s “Convergence,” as well.

Samantha: Right! The chapters in
there with the XR Ignite. It’s such an amazing industry to be a part
of, with true innovators. And I mean, you’re a definitely a
powerhouse within that, Alan, for sure.

Alan: Thanks. I work really
hard.

Samantha: Yes, that is very
clear. For sure.

Alan: Since you brought up XR
Ignite, I will give it a plug. If there’s any studios, startups, or
developers that are looking for help connecting with brands and
corporations — in marketing or training or anything in any industry
— you can go to XRignite.com and sign up there. We’re building a
community that connects the best startup studios and developers with
the best corporations in the world, and really creating that open
dialogue community where they can learn about the technology, how to
deploy it. And this podcast is kind of part of that holistic approach
to really mentoring the industry on how to grow. So it’s been an
exciting part. As of today, I think we’ve had 140 or 135 applications
for XR Ignite.

And, as of this morning, the XR for
Business Podcast actually reached 10,000 listeners.

Samantha: Congratulations. I’m
sure that just the beginning.

Alan: It’s just the beginning.
We’ve only been doing it for 30 days, so…

Samantha: [laughs].

Alan: 10,000 listeners in the
last 30 days, which is pretty impressive.

Samantha: That’s great.

Alan: Hopefully that grows to
hundreds of thousands and we can inspire everybody.

So my last question, Samantha: what is
one problem in the world that you want to see solved using XR
technologies?

Samantha: One problem in the
world. Oh, my goodness. There are so many problems with the world
that I would love to solve. I think that AR and VR is ultimately
about connection. It’s about connecting people to each other, sort of
through augmented reality; connecting people to the world; connecting
people to brands, to marketers, to other people’s experiences. It
really just creates a whole new level of engagement and connection,
that it’s just inspiring. And people haven’t tried or played with AR
and VR, there’s so much to do and experience that, it’s really quite
awesome, and everyone just needs to start working on it.

[…]

Alan: Oh no, I just… I just
did the whole outro, and was on mute! [both laugh]