Reality. Augmented

Aurasma authorAnnie Weinberger, worldwide head of HP Aurasma, looks at how augmented reality can be used to deliver immersive digital experiences.

The augmented reality market continues to heat up as software and hardware innovations allow companies and individuals to create and deliver specialized content on mobile devices. Augmented reality, or AR, is the layering of digital content on physical materials. It is powerful technology that ‘brings print to life’ when scanned with a mobile device. Note that AR is not to be confused with virtual reality, or VR, which is delivered through headsets or specialized hardware to completely take over a person’s visual perspective, bringing them into a completely digital environment.

It’s exciting to be at the forefront of this industry at Aurasma. We’re the world’s leading augmented reality platform with over 200,000 customers using the technology to make print interactive. Our customers are using Aurasma for marketing, training, and educational purposes across different verticals, use cases, and age groups. Our users include world-renowned commercial brands, as well as primary school-age classrooms and educators. In addition to an app available on the Apple App Store and Google Play, Aurasma includes an intuitive, drag-and-drop AR creation studio. We are laser-focused on ease of creation, and users with no formal technical training can build, launch, share, and track their own augmented reality campaigns.

Tremendous results
Brands and agencies looking to engage with their customers and activate mobile usage are harnessing the power of Aurasma augmented reality with tremendous results. Each company has its own target audience, goal, and strategy when it comes to enhancing their marketing strategy with augmented reality. Companies use the Aurasma studio to create augmented reality content, and end users access AR campaigns through the existing Aurasma app or branded apps embedded with Aurasma technology.

Many companies looking to launch an AR campaign quickly without the time to develop and release a mobile app will opt to use the existing Aurasma app that is available on the market today. For instance, Construguide magazine, which focuses on the construction sector, is bringing its pages to life with exclusive digital video through the Aurasma app.

This helps to bring the construction community together with interactive learning and discovery. The magazine is enhancing its 85,000 issues in monthly circulation and updating content regularly to keep the reading experience as dynamic as possible. Using augmented reality allows the magazine to “create a memorable and unforgettable experience for our business customers and gives them the opportunity to incorporate additional information in more than just a printed page” says Construguide director, Marco de la Paz.

White-label app
Other companies who seek to retain their branding throughout the mobile app and AR experience can have Aurasma build them a white-label app or use the Aurasma SDK to embed AR into their existing app. Mohawk Paper, a long-time Aurasma customer, offers interactive print newsletters that launch AR through the Mohawk Live app.

In a recent announcement, Mohawk’s senior vice president of marketing Bart Robinson declared: “Aurasmas augmented reality technology has enabled readers of the Mohawk Maker Quarterly an opportunity to go beyond the printed story to enjoy a multidimensional experience with bonus content. We feel the technology is enhancing the print experience, to make consuming printed materials more relevant than ever.” Mohawk readers can look forward to seeing the experience within the branded app on a regular basis, scanning the printed pages to discover actionable digital surprises.

We’re thrilled to be bringing even more to our community of AR users with the recent release of Aurasma 5.0, which included a brand new Aurasma app, as well as some fantastic feature updates to Aurasma studio. We believe AR is not a far-off concept; it’s for today and it’s for everyone and so we’ve made it easier for marketers to create AR experiences with pre-loaded templates based on our top AR use cases in Aurasma studio. Brands and agencies can use the templates to tie in interactive augmented reality to their existing marketing channels – enhancing print ads, direct mail, in-store signage, and more. We’ve also updated our analytics with a visual scorecard that tracks all aspects of your AR campaign. Be sure to check them out and let us know what you think.

This sponsored article first appeared in the June 2016 print edition of Mobile Marketing. You can read the whole issue here.