Amsterdam based agency TAB Worldmedia, known for their mobile augmented reality productions for Walt Disney, National Geographic, Canon and family park Efteling, launches a new generation of mobile apps aimed at the marketing and communication industry. These new generation apps, standard with integrated augmented reality technique, make them very natural to integrate as part of sales promotions, loyalty programmes and social media in combination with print campaigns.
We all know that Sergey Brin loves extreme sports and it is great to see that this particular hobby of his inspires Google to take huge steps in developing their consumer augmented reality Glass product. In one of the most impressive live on stage presentations yet he got a whole team of his buddies to demonstrate Googles’ augmented reality vision in a way to show that AR is not for tech minds only.
One of Google’s big plans for Glass was to help users capture and share the world as they see it, but that’s clearly not all. As we’ve seen in the concept video, it’s also about facilitating communication and putting more information — think navigation information, or a user’s current speed. The possibilities are certainly “incredible,” but why is Google showing it off? According to Brin, it was because of three things — Google thought it was amazing (it is), it’s very visually striking, and because they wanted to appeal to the developer community. As such, U.S. based developers will be able to pre-order a beta build only at I/O, for the low, low price of $1500.
Today Layar launched the Layar Creator, a self-service web application for activating print pages with digital content. By simplifying and demystifying previously complex AR technology, the Layar Creator makes it quick and easy to bring once static pages to life with videos, links and “Buy” buttons that readers can view with their smartphone.
In a matter of seconds, anyone can upload images or PDFs, drag-and-drop any of a number of digital buttons onto the pages and publish them on the Layar platform. When readers view activated pages with the Layar app, these buttons appear on top of the page.
And here it is: Layar Creator places the power of interactive print at everyone’s fingertips (official press release)
The video below explains it all:
And that it’s really easy proves that I created an augmented item on top of our title bar in just a few minutes.
Check it out by launching layar and aim it at the title bar on top of this page.
No it is not… 😉 This is just the 1st step to maturity of mobile augmented reality. This creation tool will help publishers to create the 1st level of editorial augmented layer on their magazines. We expect that this will create a demand for real creative and hyper interactive concepts on top of this service. Just imagine agencies like TAB Worldmedia using their years of experience as Layar augmented creation agency to create environments for gaming concepts, interactive real time connections with other services like the weather, integrating location based augmented reality and so on.
Due to the pre-launch of the layar creation tool at TAB Worldmedia we have seen an increase in requests from publishers to work with them to find the right balance between editorial augmented content, commercial augmented contend and content that has high entertainment value. And create fantastic augmented concepts for the brands that advertise in their magazines!
So Raimo, Claire, Maarten and the rest of the Layar team… congratulations and thanks for this great product that will help our mission to transform Augmented Reality to Augmented Media.
I stumbled upon this nice overview of creative media campaigns using augmented reality as an engagement tool. I found this article to be a nice complete overview that needs to be shared with as many people as possible.
Enjoy this overview and many thanks to the reporter David Moth for writing it.
Augmented reality ads are slowly making their way into the mainstream, with more and more brands using the technology to engage consumers with hidden digital content. We’ve reported on several major brands using AR for marketing campaigns, including Waitrose, Nestle, and Tesco. However, while marketers are all too keen to trumpet their AR trials, stats around consumer engagement are like hens’ teeth. But following on from our post highlighting six successful uses of QR codes, we have found one or two examples of successful AR campaigns.
This campaign dates back to last year’s Australian Open. Kia has sponsored the tournament for the past eight years and noted that 32% of the Australian TV audience used their smartphone while watching the broadcast. During the matches viewers were encouraged to download Kia’s bespoke AR app that linked them to digital content about the Aussie Open and the Kia Optima.
The AR app recorded 12,630 downloads and there was an increase in Optima searches of 58%. The largest recorded search volume for the Optima was January 22, the day app went live. As a result, Kia said that it achieved 57% more sales than expected of the new Optima in January.
In a January edition of the weekly lads mag Nuts, readers could scan over 20 pieces of editorial content using Blippar. Publisher IPC Media said that more than 15,000 unique users generated more than 200,000 interactions on their smartphones.Without anything to benchmark against it is difficult to say if this warrants a successful trial, however Blippar heralded it as an unprecedented level of interaction for a single campaign using its app.
In order to promote its new S60 model Volvo created an AR experience that allowed users to drive a virtual car. It was activated by scanning a YouTube video, and the user could then drive the car round a track by tilting their smartphone left and right.
Volvo said the results were “outstanding”, with a 9.6% interaction rate, 192,319 clicks on the masthead ad and a traffic increase of 293% to volvocars.com.
Readers could access a range of digital content in the December edition of Top Gear Magazine using Aurasma’s AR app. It included videos of the presenters embedded in the editorial content and a highlights reel of 2011 best cars on the front cover.
The tie in resulted in tens of thousands of video views and Top Gear Magazine has integrated AR into subsequent editions.
Greek chocolate brand Lacta ran this neat AR campaign in December. Following on from an existing marketing campaign that encouraged consumers to write love messages on Lacta chocolate bar wrappers, the AR app brought to life virtual love notes. Consumers were able to write a love message on a wrapper within the app and then forward it onto a loved one who could only read it by scanning a Lacta bar.
The campaign was a clever way to introduce a digital element to existing offline marketing and engage consumers with the brand.
It would be interesting to see Nestle to run a similar campaign with Rolos in the UK, as we have already seen them use Blippar with a number of their products.
Clothing e-tailer ASOS used Blippar to bring its consumer magazine to life.
The AR presented readers with click-to-buy icons so they could purchase the items straight off the page through their smartphone.
The use of AR fits perfectly with ASOS’s brand image and caters to its target demographic of 18-25 year olds.
We don’t have stats on how many people ‘blipped’ the magazine, but from a strategic point of view this would appear to be the perfect place to trial AR.
VW used AR to launch the new 2012 Beetle in Canada – the idea was to make the advertising “as impressive as the car”.
By scanning posters on bus shelters and billboards users could access fun digital content of cars bursting out from the wall and doing tricks off ramps.
This is definitely an impressive use of AR, however it used a bespoke AR app called VWJuicedUp that was only available on iOS. The use of custom made AR apps is potentially the only thing preventing the technology from really catching on with consumers.
Today you will find the TAB Worldmedia peeps walking around the office with a huge smile on their faces. One of our Augmented Media cases got nominated at the Mobile Marketing & Media Awards in the category: “Best Mobile Advertising Campaign”.
The description is in Dutch but here’s the official link.
This week we hosted a special interest evening for agencies, publishers, marketeers and developers who are interested in getting into creating augmented reality apps and concepts.
Especially for this event we created a presentation that is a bit different from the presentations that we normally give during our keynote speeches and workshops. Below you will find the short version of the presentation deck that we used and we hope that it is helpful for those of you who are interested in creating augmented reality or as we like to call it “augmented media” experiences.
Please understand that we can not share actual figurs in the case results but we’ve tried to formulate relevant conclusions for you.
We want to give a special thanks to our friends and clients who support us in our journey to turn technique into media and marketing tools. Hence the title: “From augmented reality to augmented media”.
Enjoy and feel free to share your comments and remarks with us.
A great new initiative by our parters from Layar to set the standar for magazine augmented reality in the Dutch market. We are really exited that Layar as a Dutch innovation company has taken it upon it self to boost the demand for mobile augmented reality concepts with publishers and advertisers. After a great experiment with another Sanoma magazine LINDA now VT Wonen takes its first steps to explore how mobile augmented reality can trigger mobile commerce. The magazines allows its readers to instantaneously buy its products just by simply holding up their phone over the inspirational page, as the magazines’ editor is calling it.
At TAB Worldmedia we think it is great that Layar is really giving it their all to stir things up and create more demand for mobile augmented reality enabled media concepts and advertising. We are already on the bandwagon for creating more interactive sales driven concepts on top of their basic commerce features that the publisher in the video is showing us.
Dutch celebrity Froukje de Both came by our office because she is making an educational program on how to go digital. This weeks episode was about Mobile web and apps and she asked us if we wanted to explain it to her audience on camera. For those of you who don’t speak Dutch I will explain briefly what you can see in the filmclip below.
Froukje de Both explains that nowadays you can do anything with apps. Book a restaurant, shopping etc. but now there is something new that is game changing… augmented reality. Then she walks up to me and I explain to her that by using augmented reality you could for example just point the camera of your phone at a house that is for sale and you can identify that house, see what it costs, see what it looks like on the inside etc. (example on Layar) Then she asks how augmented reality can help her and her website etc. Then I causally suggests that she can come with me to the office to view an example that we’ve prepared for her… (please don’t judge me by my acting skills). At the TAB Worldmedia office I show Froukje an example of how we can magically make a billboard interactive with augmented reality (examples on Aurasma).
After our explanation of mobile augmented reality the program continues with visits to SAMSUNG Netherlands and ICE Mobile. If you speak Dutch please view these interviews as they are very interesting.
All of this was created and produced for Argeweb
Just last week another Dutch newspaper (Wegener) has declared that they are going to stop publishing one of their newspapers. People tend to turn to mobile media for their daily news instead of their trusted traditional media. However… it is not said that traditional media will lose their right of existence in future but the mobile threat is there.
In my view publishers of traditional media can do two things to save their business:
1. Revisite their business model, kill the traditional media and turn to mobile.
2. Find a way to let both media co-exist and use mobile as a second screen to the traditional media.
There are several news media that are already advancing on this part. Take CNN as an example, but for TV news the threat is less urgent then for printed media. Mobile augmented reality could be one of the tools that can help bridge the gap between traditional media and the mobile second screen because it allows people to functionally use their mobile-device to almost fiscally interact with the traditional media. Dutch newspaper de Telegraaf is already experimenting with redactional content by using augmented realty as a tool to enhance their news. (ref. article 24/12/2011)
Dutch magazine Linda took their first step by experimenting with augmented reality to enhance a full edition of their magazine.
(Video is in Dutch)
Also the German publishing industry is taking augmented reality as a new commercial tool very seriously. For example magazine “Welt der Wunder” (World of Wonders) is using augmented reality to enhance their commercial ads. And yes I know… enhancing ads is one thing, enhancing editorial content is another but it is a start.
View this youtube video.
There are more initiatives out there so I am very curious to learn about them and start an overview including your thoughts on this subject. The augmented reality platforms that are used in the examples I am using above are.
Telegraaf: Aurasma
Linda: Layar
Welt der Wunder: Metaio/Junaio
Please feel free to share them with us below in the comments, via email or on Quora.
With just one week to go to the Mobile World Congress 2012 in Barcelona we at TAB Worldmedia have already drawn up our schedules for Monday, planned a “secret” meeting on Tuesday and are still contemplating if we have time to add just a extra day on Wednesday.
Last year we were approached by GSMA, the company behind the Mobile World Congress, to participate in a creative pitch for the sponsor contract of the MWC 2012 augmented marketing campaign. The campaign theme “Redefining Mobile” immediately caught our attention and put our creative brains to work. The concept that we came up with was to inspire people about what redefining mobile, and especially mobile browsing, could have installed in near future.
We presented a strategic approach to use a mobile website that would launch two types of augmented browsing experiences. However… as we all know at this point augmented reality is not yet integrated in mobile browsers so we asked junaio to team up with us and use their advanced platform to jumpstart the augmented reality experiences from the mobile website, like you would use Flash for interacting with a rich media website.
1. For the first experience we created a multi interactive 360 degree world that allows you to stroll around and explore what the MWC 2012 conference by looking through your smartphone as if it was a virtual lens.
When you open the 360 browser you will find yourself at the entrence right outside the Mobile World Conference area. When looking around you can see the different pavilions and zones that you can attend. For example: App Planet, mPowered Brands, the exhibition area or the Conference hall. When entering the conference hall you will find the speakers on stage and we’ve used our Tweeps Around service to project live Twitter messages from all over the World that use the #MWC2012 and #MWC12 in their messages.
2. For the second experience we’ve collaborated with junaio and their fantastic team to create a fully animated and interactive augmented 3D model of the campaign visual. When visitors point the viewer of their junaio app at the print advertisement that was featured in TIME Magazine or at the conference brochure they will experience the 3D EYE come to life and they can navigate by clicking on the augmented buttons that will appear.
I’ve posted the demo video of the augmented print experience below so you can see it if you don’t have your phone and the print ad ready.
Exclusive Demo Video
Instructions to launch ether or both experiences can be found on the MWC campaign website or on the Mobile MWC campaign website. (m.mobileworldcongress.com)
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