Augmented Reality (AR) brings a new dimension to internal communications at Donbasenergo

Eight issues of "Our Generation", the corporate newspaper at Donbasenergo, one of the players in the segment of thermal generation of electricity in Ukraine, have been already printed, and enhanced with augmented reality. The Department of Internal Communications of Donbasenergo managed to rethink the classic version of corporate media via the combination of the printed edition and adding digital content through involving dozens of employees in the process of creating AR content. Thanks to the innovative format and the convenience of creative tools, professional journalists and employees are able to create the content for the newspaper.

In 2019, the creative team of Donbasenergo looked for a solution to create a virtual museum of the company. Through their research, they discovered genARate from Konica Minolta.



genARate is an augmented reality (AR) solution, which helps to add interactive digital experience to existing static content, enabling interaction and enhancing engagement with a brand or product.
 
Donbasenergo’s corporate newspaper, "Our Generation" was created 8 years ago, and has a reader base of over 2,000 employees from 8 business units, including their relatives and company’s partners. The internal communication department were looking for new methods to keep the attention of the readers and find innovative ways of engaging with them. They quickly realized that genARate would help to achieve these goals.
 
Augmented reality in the corporate media provides the possibilities to publish more content, whilst making it more relevant, dynamic and diverse.

Our Generation is a newspaper that has come to life.
geneARate has turned a classic corporate newspaper into a modern interactive media product that attracts the attention even of those who are not an active user of digital communication platforms.
 

How augmented reality solution genARate has refreshed the corporate newspaper of Donbasenergo

“The number of pages and columns limits the newspaper. Augmented reality allows creating more content related to a specific topic and changing it when it is necessary or when the topic is updated. This is especially important if the corporate media is printed, for example, once a month,” - says Olha Sakhno, Communications Project Manager of Donbasenergo. "Moreover, we adapt the content and make it interesting for each reader. We distribute the information through different ways making it convenient for different audiences. We create more graphics, more movies, and involve more employee as speakers, characters or creators of augmented content.”



Anna Borysenko, Internal Communications Specialist, works as a journalist and editor, so she knows the strengths of both print and digital media. “When I learned about genARate, I realised how cool it would be to combine these two types of media and upgrade our traditional newspaper, adding the digital elements and gamification. In addition to fun, the application helps us to engage employees of all departments of the company to create something together. They are often located in remote offices in different cities and genARate unites them in one virtual place”.
 
Donbasenergo's employees create the augmented content on their own, except for the main cover: they shoot, edit and animate. This is the principal position of the company to involve the staff in creating a corporate product by providing the possibility to develop these skills.



Vitaliy Lobanov works for the Department of Labour Protection. He started to create AR content on his own initiative: “All created augmented reality content by me was related to my job responsibilities, it means labour protection. For example, one of the movies was about the fight against coronavirus: children drew pictures on this topic, we animated them, put together and made the following video”.
 
Levan Chichinadze from the External Communications Department had joined the process of corporate newspaper creation before the company started to use the genARate solution. He says, "there was not any shortage of experiments; nevertheless, it was interesting to try augmented reality". Levan shoots and edits videos about the daily work of manufacture departments. Levan also suggested a new format, which is short answers of engineers to non-standard questions about their job. "We have already recorded several mini-interviews. Our colleagues are usually willing to get in touch; they are interested in participating in the project." This also provides the opportunity for Donbasenergo to capture knowledge from its team and promote best-practices.



Quality content for genARate can be created without the involvement of professionals. The genARate studio provides the convenient and intuitive content management tools and analytics, with no need of any complicated "desktop" software. The created content is saved securely through a "cloud" storage. The solution also offers the ability to create your own branded version of the genARate application.
 
Konica Minolta supports companies in their digital transformation journey, and the Donbasenergo case is no exception. "geneARate has turned a classic corporate newspaper into a modern interactive media product that attract the attention even of those who are not an active user of digital communication platforms," adds Iryna Hodovaniuk, Head of Marketing and Communications at Konica Minolta Ukraine. "I think, companies becoming digital showcase transformation of their corporate culture, thinking and habits of each employee. Therefore, "Donbasenergo” has chosen the right way, and their "Our Generation" newspaper significantly influences the process of digital transformation of this corporation."



Companies following and implementing leading edge trends clearly showcase their innovative thinking, and leadership. This results in strengthening the business further, whilst enhancing its brand, image, and company culture.