Having made it abroad, Indonesia’s AR Group sets its sights on its home market

• Seventy percent of AR Group’s augmented reality projects are deployed in international markets
• The company has implemented more than 500 projects in 20 countries

INDONESIA’S AR Group, which focuses on augmented reality (AR) has come home after spending seven years making a name for itself abroad and winning international awards.

AR Group is a part of the WIR Group that also owns a brand digital engagement firm as well as a brand strategy and consulting firm. WIR, in this case, stands for ‘We Indonesians Rock!’

AR Group was established in 2009 with 20 people who were also its investors. The company now has 300 employees.

“We did not raise money from external investors at that time. The founding team pumped their own money in. External investments came in slowly and includes funds from some of our clients who had seen what our products could do and believed in us,” its chief executive officer Daniel Surya (pic above) told Digital News Asia (DNA) in Jakarta.

AR Group now wants to make a name for itself at home.

“We believe in the future. That is why we started the AR Group in 2009, when AR was still unknown in the market. This is also why our first few clients were not from Indonesia, but from Barcelona and the United States,” Daniel said.

To date, the company has implemented more than 500 projects in 20 countries across various industries, such as, consumer goods, consumer electronics, media, education, medical, military and tourism.

AR Group recently re-launched itself in Indonesia, in the hopes that with international recognition, the push for augmented reality projects in the country will accelerate.

“Thanks to Pokemon Go, Indonesians now kind of know how AR works, even if they don’t completely understand it. Our strategy in the market is to give people the real AR experience without having to explain all about AR technology.

“The best test for AR technology is having users use it intuitively while slowly make it a part of their life, as has already happened with the television, internet and smartphone,” Daniel explained.

For a start, AR Group’s subsidiary DAV (Digital Avatar) will collaborate with Indonesian retailer PT Sumber Alfaria Trijaya to provide an AR in-store promotion device in AlfaMart, its physical retail store.

When the DAV device (pic above) is deployed, customers can wave a product in front of it and the device will interactively display product information and promotions as well as trivia and even quizzes.

“Right now, when we talk about where marketing campaign dollars go, a big chunk of it still goes to TV stations for ads and that is still relevant as the TV culture in Indonesia is big. However, sooner or later, the engagement will change to AR. We are here to pave the way for AR campaigns by doing it slowly while preparing the market,” he added.

The deployment of such DAV devices, Daniel believes, will expedite the transition for brands and marketers from the old way of connecting with an audience to the AR experience of engaging.

“The good news for us is that Indonesians love to work with companies who have already made their name on the international stage. Although we are a local company, clients look at our international achievements and this will definitely smoothen our path in the local market,” Daniel added, saying that international experience coupled with deep local understanding is the best way to penetrate the Indonesian market.

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