GPS navigation is boring - the Sunshine Aquarium in Tokyo, Japan has employed an army of penguins to guide visitors who need directions. That’s right – penguins – in Tokyo! Only, these penguins are virtual penguins that are only visible on your smartphone. Using Augmented Reality (AR), which is the blending of virtual objects with the real world, the Penguin NAVI app lets you follow a group of adorable computer-generated penguins waddling through the streets of Tokyo all the way to the aquarium simply by looking at your device’s camera view. It’s an engaging, fun and immersive experience, purposely designed that way despite being inefficient as a true navigation solution, that draws curious visitors to the aquarium who just can’t resist these wonderful creatures that look and move exactly like their real-world counterparts.

Emerging technologies like Augmented Reality and the Internet of Things (IoT) are transforming the way intelligent retailers are marketing to their target audiences. This new generation of marketers has figured out that the traditional style of marketing techniques, such as banner ads at the bottom of your mobile device screen, are largely ignored and disliked. Such techniques are uninvited, similar to pop-up ads and junk mail, which on mobile has a much more exaggerated effect than non-mobile platforms. Mobile devices are very personal, and uninvited advertisements are perceived as interruptive and annoying, which may result in the exact opposite reaction to a retailer’s brand than intended. Rather, today’s retailers market on the mobile platform using engaging and immersive app experiences that provide a benefit to the user.

With Augmented Reality, consumers can shop and virtually try on outfits and jewelry, or apply virtual makeup to see what the actual product would look like. Ikea’s app lets users see what a furniture item would look like in a given space – you just place the virtual item in your room using your device camera and screen and voila! It’s as if that item was actually there…you can walk around it to see it from all angles and everything. Retailers are increasingly using AR to let customers engage with their brand and products from anywhere, and this non-markety way of marketing is paying off with increased foot-traffic and higher conversion rates.

The Internet of Things is also providing actionable insights in real-time about how customers are engaging with retailers; empowering savvy marketing executives to increase revenues by leveraging knowledge of consumer activity patterns. Been to Disney Parks lately? They have an RFID MagicBand for your wrist that allows guests theme park and hotel room access, and also serves as a convenient payment mechanism for food and merchandise. Disney collects this data to better understand how and where guests are spending their time, information that helps them better understand how their services are being used.

Retailers can use IoT to connect in-store technology with their mobile apps. One popular example is Bluetooth low energy beacons, which can locate nearby smartphones to within a few inches. This microlocation technology can be used to generate heat maps that show how customers move around stores.

In the future, retailers will take advantage of the IoT with smart price tags which can change the price of an item based on demand, smart shelves that can detect when inventory is low, and even contactless payment by scanning all products as the customer is walking out of the store and charging a default saved credit card. Furthermore, IoT can be married to AR to create smart mirrors that allow you to see what you would look like in a certain outfit without actually trying it on. Or perhaps you want to see what you would look like in a different color.

The experiences made possible by technologies like AR and IoT would have seemed like science fiction even a few years back, but these experiences are quickly becoming reality and transforming the way retailers are able to engage with customers – in a more personal and helpful way. Like a trusted friend who knows you and makes your life a little bit easier by always being there at the right time. The historic relationship between the retailer and the consumer has been perceived as having a fundamental conflict of interest – similar to the hungry wolf and the naive sheep. However, these mobile technologies are redefining the consumer perception of that relationship as more of an alliance; and as such, the retail experience is undergoing an astonishing transformation right before our eyes.