Once limited to playful examples shared by developers on YouTube, Augmented Reality is becoming a marketing tool for major brands. Companies including Papa John's, the U.S. Postal Service, and GE are using Augmented Reality to reach customers.
In the U.S., the technology is available to the estimated 20 percent of computer owners who have webcams. Most new laptops include web cams as a standard feature, and as new mobile devices are introduced with software that allows their built-in cameras to recognize markers and QR-codes, more and more Americans will be able to view and interact with augmented reality content on their touch-screen mobile phones.
Augmented Reality
Augmented Reality (AR) combines real and computer-generated data in order to allow users to interact with hologram-like images. Many examples of AR involve augmenting live video with computer-generated graphics or animation.
The most commonly referenced examples come from televised sports. Digital advertising is commonly super-imposed over the raw video image to make it appear as if sponsors logos are on the field when in reality they are not. The "first-down" line that is digitally inserted into the video image of televised football games is also an example of augmented reality. The first-down line provides a layer of enhanced information, over and above the original video, that improves the viewer's experience by providing them additional information.
Augmented Reality can be taken much further, and can be designed to provide much more interaction between the user and the content. The integration of heads-up displays in car, train, or airplane windshields is one example. Researchers are also experimenting with Augmented Reality goggles to help technicians diagnose problems and repair equipment.
Marketing and advertising are being explored as well. Marketers are producing markers, visual keys that, when held up to a user's webcam, unlock 3D, interactive content. This relatively new technique can produce simple, 3D images, but developers are pushing the boundaries of what they can do more and more every day.
There are a growing number of examples in the marketplace, from Topps playing cards to Papa John's pizza boxes, where marketers are putting AR markers on mass-produced packaging. This is introducing AR to a much broader audience than ever before. And while AR technology is not particularly new, as it becomes more mainstream the technology is likely to be pushed farther and farther.
To learn more about Augmented Reality as a consumer marketing tool you can read this article in the Wall Street Journal, which featured our augmented reality work on behalf of Papa John's.