Campaign Summary

Build.com offered shoppers an AR feature that allowed them to remotely experience the e-commerce brand’s home improvement materials.

Strategy

Objective and Context:

Build.com sells its home-improvement materials exclusively online, enabling it to offer virtually unlimited SKUs for light fixtures and faucets, with as many different finish options and configurations as the manufacturer produces. Consumers who enjoyed the benefit of this vast selection offered by Build.com traditionally had to accept the inconvenience of having to make their purchases without handling the products they were buying. To minimize this disadvantage, Build.com developed a mobile feature that allowed users to visualize and interact with its products.

Target Audience:

There were two archetypal Build.com users whom the brand sought to serve as it designed its AR feature:

• The middle-aged homeowner with minimal tech savvy who browses the app with the intention of making an improvement to his or her home
• The professional interior designer or contractor who uses the app on an ongoing basis to find suitable products on behalf of his or her clients

Creative Strategy:

To help its e-commerce customers, Build.com sought to capitalize on AR technology to offer them a way to not only view products from their remote locations, but to see how those products responded to different environmental factors in the home, ranging from different lighting to different faucet spray-patterns.

Execution

Overall Campaign Execution:

Build.com took eCommerce AR to the next level by enabling users to not only visualize how a given product would look in their home, but to interact with the product in various life-like scenarios by rotating and repositioning it, viewing it with different finishes, turning the surrounding lighting on and off, and turning the water on and off with different spray patterns and temperatures.

On the feature’s latest release, Build.com added over 300 products, including ceiling fans, bathroom accessories, toilets, sinks, and bathtubs.

To help users find the AR feature, Build.com gave it top billing on the Build.com app’s home screen, where the brand displayed new promotions and features.

Mobile Execution:

Build.com made its In-Home Preview available exclusively on mobile devices, since the iOS AR implementation was only available on iPhones and iPads at the time.

Results (including context, evaluation, and market impact)

Build.com observed a:

• 400 percent increase in In-App Revenue for products that were AR-enabled
• 25 percent increase in sessions begun by users who accessed the AR feature
• 61 percent increase in the average value of orders placed by users who accessed the AR feature