Brief:

• Samsung offered a look at smart home technology with an exhibit that combines the animated show "Family Guy" with augmented reality (AR) at IFA Berlin, the trade show for home appliances. The "Doorways" interactive platform let conference attendees immerse themselves in a Samsung Intelligent Home and explore how devices work, according to agency BBH London.
• Attendees use a Samsung device to enter the space, where a "Family Guy" game is overlaid on the location using AR. Players can walk and look around as they would in real life with their phones acting as a lens into the house of the show's Griffin family. The exhibit shows how Samsung's digital assistant Bixby can respond to voice commands. They also can see how to connect Samsung's refrigerators, TVs, ovens and washing machines to work seamlessly.
• BBH London created the exhibit, which relies on Google's ARCore platform for the immersive features. Little Black Book reports that the Doorways platform will be showcased at other major tech events and in cities like New York and London, with the "Family Guy" game the first in a series of entertainment industry collaborations.

Insight:

Samsung's "Doorways" is a clever way to demonstrate how smart home technology can work with its voice-enabled assistant Bixby and mobile devices to make daily living more seamless and convenient for tech-savvy consumers. Featuring humorous characters from "Family Guy" could help the exhibit appeal to a target group of millennial consumers who are typically more comfortable with mobile or new technology and may also be setting up their own households.

Using AR to demonstrate products at a trade show is also innovative because the exhibit doesn't require the shipping and physical installation of bulky appliances in a convention center. The company can easily move the space to another location and set up the AR game to show off its products in any setting in the future, such as malls or big-box electronics stores. Potentially, Samsung can also reprogram the experience to showcase new products and services down the road, such as its recently announced collaboration with Spotify.

Samsung is well positioned to be a leader in the smart home space — which is forecast to grow 26.8% this year to 549.5 million shipments — given its wide selection of home appliances and its status as the No. 1 maker of smartphones globally. The company has lagged behind rivals like Amazon, Apple and Google when it comes to voice-enabled digital assistants, but continued improvements to Bixby may help to boost adoption of its platform if it's easier to integrate with the company's full range of appliances that consumers are already familiar with. Samsung in Q2 2018 remained the leader in the worldwide smartphone market despite a 10.4% decline in shipments from the prior year, per the International Data Corporation.