For 2013, IKEA will launch its first augmented-reality catalogue

While many companies still think about the value of Augmented Reality (AR) applications, IKEA is already using it to their advantage. In their new catalogue for 2013, IKEA embraces the opportunities to use AR to illustrate the right context for their products and to give some inspiration to customers how our homes might look like when we buy their furniture and accessoires. The catalogue will come out on July 30th and the IKEA CATALOGUE App will follow on July 31st in the app shops. The new catalogues sets a standard for all retailers offering catalogues in my eyes.

How IKEA sees their customer and how they use their solutions, can be seen from the following statement…

“For instance, we’ve stopped dividing life at home into rooms. Bedrooms, for example – they’re as varied as the ways people sleep. We’ve taken away our notions of what defined a ‘bedroom’ and replaced them with the idea ‘sleeping.’ We know that some homes don’t have ‘bedrooms’ – they have one 24-hour room where people live and sleep. Life is about activities; not the walls that define where they unfold.”

PS: I am desperately waiting to see their catalogue. Although I fear my wife might like it and then drag me along to their shops.

What do you think about the new catalogue and the concept behind it?