Big week for augmented reality, judging from my posts the last few days. And a big week for Burger King, what with its seven-patty Microsoft 7 Whopper sandwich (with extra cheese).
Now, there's this inventive little augmented reality banner. Instead of printing out an AR symbol, you just hold a dollar bill up to your webcam to see what a buck will buy you at BK.
Now, it's augmented reality, with a series of AR symbols featured throughout the pub. When held up to a webcam, or presumably some camera phones, scenes from fashion spreads come to life. According to today's Wall Street Journal, "A fashion spread about dressing in layers, for example, shows actor
Jeremy Renner shedding a coat and sweater as the weather turns from
rainy to sunny. Turning the magazine triggers a snow flurry, and Mr.
Renner puts on more clothes and throws snowballs."
Apparently the issue's edition of "Funny Joke from a Beautiful Woman" features Gillian Jacobs, who, once activated using the AR symbol, says she'll tell a second, "'dirtier' joke should readers return after midnight." Which would indicate something is built in the symbol to check the time on our computer when you scan it.
Could be a lot of fun, or cheese. No word yet if any advertisers are participating - though I think it's better when advertisers use AR symbols on their own (they don't need the magazine's help to do it), rather than participate in a "special issue" where the actual usefulness of the experience is an afterthought.
You'll also be able to see how a growing number of marketers are using augmented reality, in my new book, THE ON-DEMAND BRAND (Amacom/McGraw-Hill), which hits stores this next spring. Find out more, here.
I was in Santa Monica this week to participate in a panel discussion on games as an advertising and marketing platform for entertainment and consumer products brands.
It was a lively discussion with executives from several of the online and mobile gaming outfits, and hosted by James Green, CEO of Giant Realm. Great group of people, and an interesting debate.
Some really intelligent (and funny) people aboard - which made it feel like a game show.
Been a crazy month: Spoke at the Global Retail Executive Council event at CTIA in San Diego, then this last week, at the DTC Fall event in New Jersey. This week: a panel on gaming as an advertising platform at Digital Hollywood at the Loews Santa Monica Hotel in Santa Monica.
DTC's is having a decidedly tough year, what with the economy, reform measures like the "Just Say No To Drug Ads Act" and other reform measures, and new FTC rulings of search engine marketing and social networking.
So on Thursday, I'm going to be addressing the second day of the Fall DTC conference on ways to leverage the power of digital to reach consumers in amazing new (and highly ethical) ways.
This is the second time the conference has asked me to speak, and if it's anything like last time, it should be a lot of fun.
Read more about the conference, here.
Forgot to mention that during my speaking engagement at the Global Retail Executive Council at CTIA this week, I was able to share the first glimpse of the cover art for my new book, THE ON-DEMAND BRAND (Amacom/McGraw-Hill, Spring, 2009). Be sure to read all about the book, here.
Well if it can't come soon enough, you're going to love this interactive storefront window from Wieden + Kennedy New York, which lets you play an interactive, gesture-recognizing touch screen game of virtual catch with footballs thrown by an onscreen virtual quarterback.
You even get yardage meters the chance to compete with others, and commentary about your catches, fumbles and more from ESPN talent.
Get in touch with your inner football player - and see footage of this experience - here (via Creativity).
In my book BRANDING UNBOUND, I write about how the late Michael Dertouzos, head of MIT's Laboratory for Computer Sciences, once explained to me that the future of mobile will very likely evolve to augmented or mixed reality experienced through tricked-out glasses.
We'll check email and exchange personal contact information and even multimedia with our friends and colleagues while on the go, locate friends in relation to our physical location, place transactions without ever reaching for a wallet or purse, and more, he told me.
At the time, it seemed far fetched that mobile would move from a handset to a headset, so to speak.
But Nokia released a video today that shows its vision for mixed reality is a lot like Dertouzos's. At least, the parts that don't remind some YouTube commentators of stalkers and sound effects from "Resident Evil."
What it all means to media and marketing remains to be seen. Hopefully it won't mean ads popping up based on our location, but rather, the ability to respond to commercial messages we see in other media, right at the point of impression. My new book, THE ON-DEMAND BRAND, takes it all a step further with new forms of mixed reality like this one.
One thing's for sure. Things are going to change over the next few years - at least if Nokia has anything to say about it.
Sure could have used this back in high school. (Well, okay, I could use it now, too.)
BMW, which has been working the augmented reality angle for marketing campaigns for some time, has come up with a brilliant idea to offer AR as a service a well.
In this case, we're talking about a pair of glasses that assist tehir own mechanics in performing maintenance on the company's cars. According to Popular Science, the glasses read the field of view, point out the part that needs fixing or replacement - and tells you what to do, complete with audio track.
But as PopSci points out, the real potential lies in bringing this to home mechanics who want to tone those bad boy Beemers but don't have a clue how to do it.
Legos have put the building blocks of augmented reality into play.
The brand's "Bionicle" - think toys and a TV show centered on robots - will now be the focus of an online augmented reality experience, according to Media in Canada.
the experience will be activated via webcam and flash animation that brings the online and real world together as part of a game called "Bionicle Glatorial Legends." I assume they meant something around gladiators ("Gladiatorian"?). The fun begins Augst 31 and will be available for six weeks.
Personally, I think it'd be cool to use Legos as the AR markers or symbols and enable people to actually go into or interact with, their own Lego creations.
Reggae star Sean Kingston wants to give you a little taste of "Tomorrow" today.
That CD booklet for that new album, coming September 22, will feature an AR icon that will instantly launch an 3D, holographic karaoke session with Kingston via his official website.
As Prinz Pinakatt, head of interactive marketing for Coca-Cola Europe, tells me in my new book,THE ON-DEMAND BRAND (hitting bookstores this next spring), that most major brands will add some kind of AR effort to their marketing initiatives over the next year.
I think it's safe to say that will definitely be the case for entertainment brands hoping to make the most of the technology, whatever "Tomorrow" may bring.
I'm intrigued by the new movie "District 9," which tells the story of alien encounters not from the "what will they do to us" perspective, but "what will we do to them."
As part of the campaign for the film, which opens nationally today, several online components are available from the official movie website, including an game based on the film, math tests based on the idea of combining human and alien DNA to enhance performance, and an augmented reality training course for managing our captives.
Peter Jackson's behind the film, so you knew it was going to be cool, right?
Augmented reality? There's an app for that - or at least there will be many such apps, starting this September.
Adweek says augmented reality will be bigger than Twitter, YouTube and Second Life - combined.
And Coca-Cola's Prinz Pinakatt tells me that within a year, every major brand will have an augmented reality campaign.
And beginning next month, Apple will supercharge the trend by enabling developers to start creating iPhone AR apps that make it so consumers can point their camera phone at a QR code or other symbol to engage in a 3D, holographic interaction with your brand.
In my new book THE ON-DEMAND BRAND, I look at the trend, and how companies like Coca-Cola, BMW, Doritos and many others are already capitalizing on AR to astonishing effect.
Whether AR lives up to the hype remains to be seen (as an aside, I just wish many of these cool AR experiences worked on Apple computers, let alone iPhones). But it's clear that it will be Topic A in 2010.
From Europe, an AR experience for Wrigley 5 gum that lets you mix music on the move as part of the brand's "Stimulate Your Senses" campaign.
I love AR in general, but I'm not completely clear on the connective tissue between Wrigley and this experience. Then again, I haven't seen the rest of the campaign, and I may be forever branded by the old "Two, two, two times the flavor" ads of yore.
Now even Best Buy's getting in on augmented reality, with "Best Buy in 3D."
The popular big box store is making it so you can hold up your weekly Best Buy weekly ad in front of your web cam and see the advertised product in 3D right before your eyes.
Still, while I'm all for AR, while it's nifty to see this Dell computer in 3D, it's not like the Ray-Ban AR experience, where you can "try on" sunglasses before you make a purchase.
With "Best Buy in 3D," it's unclear that you can even make a purchase, let alone do anything else but see a product in 3D.
Ray-Ban's hoping the future of augmented reality's so bright, you'll want to buy some shades.
The brand's web site has a Virtual Mirror that uses your webcam to virtually put sunglasses on your face. The experience is smooth enough to let you move your head to check out all the angles before you place a purchase.
I'm not sure if Zugara's behind the feature, but it seems similar to its offering for online retailers. It may even help Ray-Ban reclaim some cool for today's generation.
It appears to be hit with middle-aged computer geeks already.
Now you can 'try on' clothes from your favorite shopping sites, without actually trying them on.
MarketingVox is reporting that Zugara has finally reached the alpha stage for its Webcam Social Shopper app, which combines augmented reality and motion capture technology.
It's tricky: You have to print out an AR symbol and hold in front of you so the solution, which I guess would be be deployed by e-tailers, not necessarily something shoppers need to download, processes the information. Then, you can select pictures of clothes and images of the clothes will be superimposed over your own image, so you can see how it looks. You can even solicit input by sharing the video across your social networks.
I can see issues with that, but fun ones as people get caught, literally, with their pants down.
But hey, if you're going to invite people into your dressing room, what do you expect!
It should also be noted that Zugara is an interactive marketing and advertising agency. As such, its offering up a perfect example, ala Fallon's Skimmer social networking app, of an agency putting its capabilities where its mouth is.
See the demo above for more.
And to see how physical retailers are using this kind of social shopping technology to transform the retail shopping experience, check out my new book, THE ON-DEMAND BRAND (coming next spring).
The Gray Lady is looking a little hipper these days.
The New York Times ran a piece yesterday about augmented reality and touches on some of the exciting applications I talk about in BRANDING UNBOUND the book, and more extensively, in my upcoming book THE ON-DEMAND BRAND.
The piece looks at wearable computing (for what I call "Body Nets" in the book), automobile-based geo-tagged information, physical world annotation and gaming. The article fails to point at some of the cooler early AR games out there, and how they combine the physical and virtual worlds in fun new ways.
“The real world is way too boring for many people,” Daniel Sánchez-Crespo, a project leader at Novarama, a game developer based in Barcelona, tells the Times. “By making the real world a playground for the
virtual world, we can make the real world much more interesting.”
The one arena the Times doesn't address much is how augmented reality will effect marketing and branding. It does mention branded applications such as ING's augmented reality ATM finder and possible ad-supported solutions such as Layer.
But it's important to note that many marketers are using augmented reality for promotional purposes - most notably, perhaps, BMW, Doritos and Papa John's on the old school Internet, and Ford Ka and Fanta in the mobile space.
My new book, THE ON-DEMAND BRAND (out next spring) takes a look at how marketers - perhaps as much as gaming companies - will lead in the adoption of these kinds of experiences.
To be fair, many AR marketing initiatives are based on games, but with a specific purpose - to pitch products - in mind. But many are not based on games, and are definitely ready for the spotlight.
Pretty cool. Hold your bag of Doritos Late Night Tacos or what not to your webcam and onscreen, the bag explodes and out comes Blink 182, floating before your eyes. My understanding is that the band will even do an encore based on how loud you and those around your computer get.
My upcoming book THE ON-DEMAND BRAND looks how Goodby's using augmented reality for brands like Doritos and GE, and how brands like Coca-Cola, Fanta and even Ford are turning to this amazing (if a little glitchy) technology is engaging consumers like nothing before it. And I talk to Derek Robson, managing partner of Goodby, Silverstein and Partners about how Goodby transformed itself from a shop best known for eye-popping TV commercials to a kick-ass digital marketing machine.
Click on the link below for a sneak peak (be sure to sign up for free previews and updates while you're there.
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