One platform in the emerging media space I get asked about daily at Clout is Augmented Reality (AR). AR is an emerging media platform that allows us to use your phone’s camera or webcam to showcase our clients goods and services in amazing ways.
For those who unfamiliar with AR, software on a computer or handheld device can determine what it is looking at and superimpose data on the screen you are viewing. Most commonly, you can take a camera phone or web camera and, when aimed at a special barcode called a "glyph," render a 3D animation. The other common use for AR with mobile devices is to overlay data about a location, product or person that you are viewing on your camera’s phone.
The impact that this technology is having with media publishing and gaming, marketing and promotions, travel and tourism is huge. Soon, AR will be integrated in most of today’s interactive innovations and those yet to come.
Commonly, the augmentation of your environment happens in real-time and in the context of your surroundings. This is similar to seeing the sports scores or an athlete’s information on your television during a live match. With more advanced AR technology, such as where a computer can recognize a physical object, the media generated becomes interactively useful. All of this data, about an environment or object, can be stored and called as a "layer" atop the real world perspective.
Companies like Clout are pioneering new means for marketing-communications professionals to capitalize on the platform; with the technology already in use by iPhone and Android users, there are already numerous ways to bolster and expand a consumer’s experience. In the future, head-mounted displays, holography and virtual retinal displays will help consumers to visualize an augmented perspective.
Our products, services, commercial and public spaces will all be tailored to create controlled environments that are rich with sensors, actuators or simple AR glyphs. For marketers, this means having to re-consider what it means to create movie posters, packaging, outdoor: virtually every conventional, traditional form of advertising will soon be AR-integrated.
There are dozens of channels that we are creating for our clients to monetize this new platform. AR technology is accessible to anyone with a webcam, camera phone or the like.
AR has already been used by broadcasters for several years and, in 2008, started appearing in the marketing landscape: that year, Nissan showcased it’s Cube vehicle in 3D using AR-enabled glyphs on their brochures; a year later, Best Buy ran their circulars with AR glyphs that enabled anyone with a webcam to interact with 3D models of their products. Since, its use has taken off throughout the industry.
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