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GSK “Isolation” AR Effect: A Conference Booth Portrait of Life With Chronic Hepatitis B

GSK

Turning a Booth Visit Into Empathy

For GSK’s APASL 2025 project, the goal went beyond attracting a crowd: it was to help healthcare professionals feel what living with chronic hepatitis B (CHB) can be like. Working alongside GSK’s agency, our team built “Isolation,” a real-time augmented reality effect that redraws anyone who steps in front of the camera as a black-and-white charcoal sketch.

As a pharma experiential marketing agency, we aim for experiences where the technology serves the message. Isolation is a good example: a visitor sees themselves transformed on screen, and that single image carries the story.

The Brief: Make Isolation Visible

The brief called for a custom real-time effect, built on Microsoft Azure Kinect technology, that would represent the isolation patients with CHB experience. It also had to highlight the social, physical and emotional impact of the disease.

The experience carries GSK’s own framing throughout. Its headline notes that 296 million people live with CHB globally, and every frame includes GSK’s footer stating the material is intended for healthcare professionals only. A statistic like that is easy to scan past. Seeing yourself redrawn in charcoal is much harder to ignore.

The Concept: One Figure in Charcoal

The creative concept fits in a single frame: a man drawn as a loose charcoal sketch, arms folded, while the colleagues around him stay in full color. He is in the room, yet clearly set apart.

The finished experience carries that visual language into live interaction. A visitor’s portrait is redrawn as a high-contrast ink illustration with fine hatching, while the real room behind them stays recognizable. The contrast between the sketched figure and the world around it is what communicates isolation, without a single line of explanation.

How the Experience Works

Visitors move through five simple steps at a portrait-format touchscreen:

  1. Step up. A visitor stands in front of an interactive kiosk whose headline asks, “What does it feel like to live with CHB?” The live camera view already shows them as a charcoal sketch.
  2. Choose a feeling. Three buttons let them select Physical, Social or Emotional impact. Each reveals a first-person quote from someone living with CHB and a survey result: 66% of people living with CHB said the physical impact is a challenge, 55% said the same of the social impact, and 49% of the emotional impact. The screen cites a 2023 study in the Journal of Patient Experience as the source.
  3. Capture. A short countdown runs, then the camera captures the portrait.
  4. See the finished frame. The sketch portrait appears inside a branded frame with GSK’s global headline and reference footer.
  5. Take it home. The visitor scans a QR code with an iPhone or Android camera, or with WeChat, to retrieve their photo.

That last step works like a custom photo booth, except the keepsake is a portrait that carries the campaign’s message back to the visitor’s own phone.

Inside the Tech: Azure Kinect and On-Site Controls

Isolation runs on Microsoft Azure Kinect, a depth-sensing camera, which lets the effect treat the visitor differently from the room behind them. Seeing yourself transformed live on screen is the same principle behind our augmented reality mirror experiences.

Booth conditions vary, so we added a control panel, opened from the top right of the screen, for tuning the effect before the event:

  • Blur background: an on/off toggle that softens the room behind the visitor.
  • FX distance: sets how far from the camera the effect reaches. The panel also shows a live distance readout in meters.
  • Brightness: balances the effect against the lighting on the show floor.

A few setup details we documented for the team: the camera mounts at the top of the touchscreen, test captures were taken with the Kinect at a 62-inch height, and we provided training manuals and walkthroughs. For dim halls, small 4″ x 5″ LED lights, powered by battery or USB, can be added to the kiosk.

Lessons for Pharma Brands at Conferences

Four choices made Isolation work, and each applies to other healthcare activations:

  • Lead with feeling, then data. Visitors pick an emotion first, and the quote and statistic follow. The numbers land harder because they arrive after a personal reaction.
  • Make the take-home personal. QR retrieval, with WeChat support alongside native phone cameras, puts the portrait on the visitor’s phone and carries the message beyond the booth.
  • Build compliance into every frame. The reference footer and the healthcare-professional notice are part of the design, not an afterthought.
  • Plan for the show floor. On-site controls and training materials let the team adjust the effect to the venue’s lighting instead of relying on the setup that worked in testing.

For more ideas, see our guide to pharmaceutical experiential marketing engagement strategies.

Planning a Healthcare Conference Activation?

If you want a booth experience that makes a complex patient story felt rather than just read, we would like to hear about it. Get in touch with our team to explore augmented reality concepts built for your audience, your venue and your compliance requirements.