Twenty years on, similar experiences are starting to become possible with the latest series of smartphones in the palm of your hand.  Over the last 12 months, a range of mobile augmented reality services and campaigns have been launched and are all part of the bigger and emerging trend around real time geolocation based services.

What is mobile augmented reality?

Wikipedia defines Augmented Reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical world environment whose elements are augmented by virtual computer-generated imagery.

As smartphones have become cheaper to produce, more complex technologies have been included such as Device GPS, Accelerometer, Camera and Compass.  These four components are the key ingredients which enable mobile augmented reality in the latest series of smarthpones like the iPhone 3GS and a range of Google Android series devices to name a few.

Keeping it simple – it’s the ‘camera view’

As a real time mobile platform company, Insqribe has had a fair share of meetings, discussions and kicked off a range of real time mobile projects with many organisations both locally and internationally.  The most common theme has been people’s perception of augmented reality as a little gimmicky.  It’s fair to say, that with many campaigns to date, this is true and unfortunately has been seen as another fad going through the motions.

In addition, most media attention has positioned AR as a product when in reality it is a feature of a mobile application.  In simple terms, the way I like to explain to anyone I speak with is that it is the camera view of the same content you would typically consume in either list or map views within an iPhone app.  In camera view, you hold up the smartphone in any direction and it will present content like closest restaurants, amenities and how far away the closest train station might be.

Why mobile augmented reality?

It’s fair to say that we’re all different and experience the world from a different perspective to everyone else.  What we see and share with others is sometimes not the same as what the person right next to you is feeling or experiencing.  The common example is people’s orientation with maps and getting from location A to location B.  Simple question – how many of us know people who take forever to get oriented to where they are when using a UBD street directory or even a Navman in the car?  No comment.

For this reason, providing greater choice to people who are mobile and on the go with your location based content is a must when looking at launching or releasing a new version of your mobile applications.  To date, when it comes to location based content, most people think of presenting this content in either List view e.g. all the Thai restaurants in Surry Hills one below the other in tabular format or Maps view e.g. 10 pins on a Google Map of Surry Hills.

Now, the third view being the Camera view is seen as a more compelling user experience as it presents this content in view of the real world you are seeing right in front of you.  For a lot of people I speak with are finding this is a their ‘wow’ moment, similar to what experienced twenty years ago in front of the TV screen.

I’m seeing this first hand with the recently launched property iPhone app called ‘housefinder’ together with St George bank.  With property hunting being such a time consuming experience for many people, a property tool which assists consumers to both saving time and making better informed decisions while out searching for properties to buy or rent was a compelling opportunity.  It’s fair to say that there are other apps in the market but none that focused on the visual Camera view as it’s focal point.

Functional value is key to driving usage

In addition to present a compelling visual experience with location based content, another key factor in using mobile augmented reality is making sure that it’s use is on context of what the person is looking at doing at that point in time.  For example, Pizza Hut Australia recently launched their iPhone app and focused on making the pizza ordering process simple, easy and fun with a GPS Store Locator using the Camera view.

If you are going to a friends place to watch the football on a Friday night and have the task of ordering the pizzas, you could simply pan the Pizza Hut iPhone app around the area you are in and see where the closest store is, and click on the store’s details to go to the next step in ordering your pizzas!  The functional approach with the Camera view is what makes Pizza Hut’s use of mobile augmented reality a great example of good functional use with a focus on the consumer on the go.

5 ways brands or publishers should be using mobile augmented reality

Despite the hype surrounding mobile augmented reality, there are several practial ways to applying this technology to enrich your consumers’ experience with your brand and content while on the go.  Here they are:

(1) Provider greater choice – enable the Camera view as another option to presenting your location based content to your mobile app’s users.

(2) Focus on functional value – by focusing on the context you will find that mobile augmented reality does become a core part of the mix of functionality you deliver with your mobile apps.

(3) Present more content – you can present more content in Camera View vs. a pin on a Map because of the depth and perspective you get with using the Camera view.  By being able to present more content up front to your mobile app’s users, you are assisting them in make better choices and completing their task sooner.

(4) Default with Camera View – make the Camera View the default results view as a key differentiator when designing and looking at releasing a new version of your mobile apps.

(5) Track and measure interactions – understand how, when and what your mobile app users are doing with your mobile apps via the Camera view in order to deliver more deeper and interactive visual experiences like real time local store promotions, mystery adventures, etc.

To find out more about how to explore this further with your organisation you can contact me via email: nick@insqribe.com or connect on Linkedin: http://au.linkedin.com/in/nickgonios

Watch Housefinder in action:

Housefinder is an Augmented Reality real estate application for iPhone. it shows you all the houses currently for sale through the camera view of your iPhone providing you with all the information you need at a glance and in context to what you are looking at.

As well as this Housefinder provides you with details property Market information such as recent sales prices and suburb median to ensure you’re paying the right price. all this for FREE!

Housefinder was an idea hatched by us, Insqribe, and our awesome Solution Partner Original Digital. Real estate is an obvious subject for Augmented Reality apps and what better way to show off our real time mobile platform than with a great user experience and enterprise web service integration.

St.George Bank Managing Director, Southern NSW and ACT, Andrew Moore, had this to say, “Housefinder is an innovative new mobile tool that arms homebuyers and renters with vital property information, right at their fingertips, for free,”

Check out St.Georges website for more information: http://stgeorge.com.au/housefinder

For the full press release see here: http://www.stgeorge.com.au/media/news/archive.asp?id=448

Download Housefinder now fom iTunes.
Australia only at the moment, sorry!

See how it works:

Augmented Reality uses the iPhone camera, GPS and compass, to display annotations, in situ, on top of the real-world view. In the case of the Pizza Hut application consumers can choose to order a pizza for pick-up and then use the real world Augmented Reality view in order to select the store they would like to pick the pizza up from. Moving the phone around will show all Pizza Hut stores in the area in their actual physical location, as well as the distance to the store. Holding the iPhone flat will bring up a map with all surrounding Pizza Hut stores allowing the user to get directions to the store.

The Augmented Reality technology is only available on iPhone 3GS.

Here is what Pizza Hut Australia Marketing Director, Valerie Kubizniak, said about Insqribes technology:

“Someone looking for a Pizza Hut outlet simply has to hold up their iPhone 3Gs, the camera opens and the screen shows not only what is in front of the user, but small tabs highlighting the direction and distance of Pizza Hut locations nearby. Point north, south east or west and the locations change before your eyes – everyone will love this feature and it’s so much fun to use.“

“We loved what Pizza Hut wanted to do with their iPhone app.  We were impressed with the fact that our platform is being used to deliver real value to consumers on the go.  The two are a perfect fit.“ said Danny Housseas, Insqribe Director and Co-Founder.

Insqribe currently license out the mobile engine technology to mobile app developers, brands and marketing agencies. The Insqribe platform allows complete real-time control of the Points of Interest displayed in the engine, as well as complete tracking and analytics.

About Insqribe
Insqribe is an Australian mobile platform company that enables brands, marketers and agencies to deliver mobile phone applications using Augmented Reality and proximity based functionality that are both engaging and measurable.

Greg from SET was out in Australia a few months ago.  Being huge fans of SET’s work we called him and met at a local cafe. We immediately struck a chord with him as we took him through Insqribe’s real-time marketing platform and he with us demonstrated SET’s unparalleled ability to morph QR Codes in new and exciting ways.  Right then and there we decided that we should work together and have now come to a formal Strategic Partnership.  Look out for more from this partnership in the coming months!

Read the Press Release for more information or download here.

INSQRIBE ANNOUNCES NEW STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP WITH CREATIVE AGENCY SET

Sydney mobile marketing firm Insqribe and creative production house SET, announce today their new strategic partnership

October 7th, 2009 SYDNEY – Insqribe and Tokyo creative agency SET, announce today their new strategic partnership.  With high demand for the two firm’s innovative mobile marketing solutions, they plan to join forces on multiple projects in the coming months.  The fusion of their complementary strengths will allow collaboration on strategies for mobile marketing campaigns worldwide including Australia and New Zealand.  The combination of Insqribe’s real-time proximity marketing platform that includes QR codes with SET’s talent for QR branding will foster a unique and dynamic approach to projects, and offer client’s an unrivaled and complete solution for their mobile marketing needs.

Specializing in real-time proximity marketing, Insqribe have successfully implemented print to mobile marketing campaigns with several clients and partners including premium print catalogue publisher letterboxdeals.com.au and PANPA (Pacific Area Newspaper Publisher Association) achieving better return on investment (ROI) and readership engagement than expected.

Danny Housseas, Insqribe’s Chief Product Officer states: ‘Insqribe is excited about this strategic partnership with SET.  We strive to raise the industry benchmark and jointly deliver innovative and premium value solutions for brands which are focused on building unique brand experiences together with real time engagement with their consumers wherever they are.’

Greg McMaster, SET’s Creative Planner said: ‘We are thrilled to have Insqribe as partners. We look forward to being able to offer a complete package with their ground-breaking work in proximity marketing and hope that current and future clients will see the difference our designer codes can make.’

SET is a creative agency based in central Tokyo.  Pioneers of the designer QR code, SET has produced groundbreaking mobile barcodes for clients such as Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs, Disney, vitaminwater and Phillip Morris.  More recently SET has used their innovative style to polish QR code campaigns in new markets including a campaign for Australian telecom giant Telstra.

SET’s move into the Australian marketplace with Insqribe allows the design team to introduce their cutting-edge concepts to projects in Australia and New Zealand.  Globally, SET and Insqribe are exploring several opportunities as part of both organisation’s international growth.

About Insqribe
Sydney based mobile marketing platform company Insqribe is a leading provider of real-time proximity and location aware mobile platform using QR Codes and Augmented Reality to present, track and measure mobile consumer behaviours.

About SET
Tokyo based creative agency SET specializes in unique marketing solutions that combine design and technology.

Poland’s Puls Biznesu (in 2004) and Estonia’s Äripäev (in 2007) both designed by Jacek Utko, were named world’s best designed newspaper by the Society for News Design.  Jacek’s ideas spread far beyond creative design and layout, “the look”. Instead he looks towards creating a deeper attachment to the newspaper, by its design.

On discussing his success Jacek says “It was not about changing the look, it was about improving the product completely”.

I was lucky enough to meet Jacek when he came to view Insqribe’s technology, where he told me that this technology was the future for newspapers.  Seeing Jacek’s expression when I showed him Insqribe’s tracking and management capabilites was priceless.

In this video interview with PANPA he talks about Insqribe and our role in the future of newspapers.  There’s even a brief interview with me at the end!

Letterbox Deals is a new premium quality product coupon catalogue that has entered the Australian market.  See the product catalogue front page below.

Campaign Objective and Scope

The campaign objective was to build awareness of the Letterbox Deals brand with Sydney households by giving away Dell notebook computers.  The consumers in these households had the opportunity to enter a competition (see above) via 2 options:

1. Website; or
2. QR code (see image below)

Campaign results

• No of Households received Letterbox Deals Catalogue in Sydney – 1.3m
• No of competition entries – in the thousands (,000’s)
• % of entries submitted via QR code to mobile site submission – 25%
• % of consumers downloading QR code reader via Insqribe service to enter competition – 60%
• High % of the QR code scans occured within people’s homes (as tracked by Insqribe platform)
  

Campaign Insights (and misconceptions)

We have a huge announcement today. We are very proud to introduce Augmented Reality to the Insqribe real-time proximity marketing platform.

Augmented Reality is the combination of virtual geolocated information and the real-world. Using your mobile phones camera Insqribe overlays Augmented Reality “tags” onto whatever you’re looking at.

You can use the platform to:

1. Notify consumers of latest offers as they walk around your shopping district.
2. Provide interactive brand engagement using the real world.
3. Keep people informed about what is going on in their area.

The possibilities are endless.

Creating a tag is as easy as typing in an address. You can upload your logo, type in your tags information and change the tags colour to match. When a consumer clicks on your tags they are taken to a mobile experience that you can design and change easily with the Insqribe platform. No developers needed! You can edit all of this on-the-fly and changes will be reflected on consumers mobile phones in real-time.

Of course all consumer behaviour is monitored and tracked using Insqribes real-time proximity marketing platform.

Words don’t do this technology justice. Watch this video to see how you can use Insqribes Augmented Reality to engage consumers on a whole new level.

For more information head over to http://insqribe.com/augmented-reality

Here’s a summary of what we’ve covered in todays video:

1. General update
2. PANPA Future Forum – Newspaper of the Year Awards, and Retail Re-invention Seminar
3. What is the Insqribe Platform?
4. Industry Solutions (publishing, retail, ticketing)
5. Reseller Program Announcement
6. QR Codes in the wild

We hope you enjoy the video. Look forward to your feedback and comments.

Insqribe has been heavily supported by PANPA and so as their guests yesterday we spent the day talking to all the major newspapers in this region, showing them how they can extend their print newspaper and really bridge the gap between print and online. The newspaper fraternity were amazed at how easily and effectively the Insqribe technology allows print to give readers the same experience they receive online. Insqribe demonstrated its very powerful publishing capabilities wowing the crowds with features like emailing printed articles to friends, commenting on printed articles and of course the convenient and impulsive advertising opportunities.

Above and beyond all of this the newspaper folk fell in love with our real-time readership metrics and analytics capabilities. Seeing their readers respond to their publications in real-time on a map was touted on the day as the “killer-app” for newspaper publishing. One guest commented that the ability to see readers reactions to stories on the day they’re broken, and allow print readers to interact with one another was priceless, and something he never though possible in print.

PANPA CEO Mark Hollands requested an Insqribe 2D Barcode be placed on the menu for the Gala Dinner to showcase the best news photos of the year as selected by MediaWatch. Just before the prized “Newspaper of the Year” award he stopped to explain the Insqribe technology and the outcomes PANPA and Insqribe have been working together to achieve for the industry. The entire room, full of Newspaper executives, then scanned an Insqribe 2D Barcode. Lets just say we received a few more compliments

It was a fantastic event that focused on celebrating print newspapers, their importance in our every day lives, and of course the future of print publishing. Insqribe was honored to be a part.

Stay tuned for photos and videos of the event as they become available!

Jye is a Social Media Strategist helping companies from Canon to Harley Davidson reach a much wider audience through the use of Social Media. He also gives up a lot of his time speaking at conferences to help us all understand how to use Social Media effectively.

We spoke about the latest Social Media trends and of course Mobile and the inevitable convergence of the two.

The Insqribe toolset allows for real-time monitoring and engagement of a mobile phone user. The very fact that Insqribe is a “here and now” tool makes it a perfect fit for the Social world. It makes Social, well, more social.

Read Jye’s post here: http://switchedonmedia.com.au/2009/social-media/insqribe-a-part-of-the-social-mobile-future/