*Boy, that's some kinda "branded creative" rhetoric in this press release from a new London AR startup. I'm cross-filing this one with "Web Semantics."
"Introducing Blippar™: The exciting smart phone platform with the power to digitise any real-world creative and convert it into an interactive, virtual brand engagement
"Imagine holding your phone up to a film poster at a bus stop. Blipp: the trailer plays and cinema times and directions appear on the phone’s screen; Holding a phone up to a cereal box Blipp: Play with the virtual monkey that dances off it and onto your screen. Hovering your phone over your oyster card. Blipp: immediate tube service update. Or up to an advert for a restaurant or snack-food. Blipp download an e-coupon or directions to the nearest outlet.
"Imagine no longer. (((Oh good, because that gets so tiring.))) Blippar is the soon-to-launch universal platform application that will enable any smart-phone-owning consumer to interact with and pull content from any physical ad creative whether outdoor, on pack, on page or in-store. Through one, unobtrusive ‘b’ graphic on the advert or pack (facebook ‘f’-style), the consumer will know to power up the app-based platform to view whatever content the brand is promoting –perhaps a simple web link to further product information, an interactive game or competition, m-voucher, sign-up mechanic, or facebook ‘like’. (((Well, so much for the great idea that there would be one grand Augmented Reality Consortium AR+ logo to indicate augmented content. Let the Balkanization begin.)))
"By harnessing sophisticated image recognition technology, literally any physical creative can be used as the trigger for customer action and engagement, effectively making ugly QR barcodes and expensive bespoke application development defunct. (((That's such a great contemporary sentence that I just read it three times.)))
"Moreover, it comes without the 6 figure price fee that might be expected of such sophisticated technology. The entry cost to the platform is minimal with a small cost-per-interaction performance model in contrast to heavy upfront development costs. The platform activity can be tracked by volume and dwell time, by creative and by location – enabling the success of above-the-line campaigning to be accurately measured for the first time. (((Imagine novels "tracked by volume and dwell time." "It took me forever to read this book." Oh wait that's usually not all that great.))) It can also play a key connector-role in driving cross-media campaign traffic to web and social-media sites or to purchase conversion, via couponing or virtual product trial. (((I'd like to meet the British copywriter who cooked this thing up... He could give lessons.)))
Blippar CEO and co-founder, Ambarish Mitra believes this to be a hugely disruptive and game-changing technology for the advertising industry.
“Above all, Blippar will result in a new, entrenched phone-user behaviour of holding phones up to physical creatives to ‘pull’ information or fun interactions out of them– the viral affect of which will be huge. ((("Huge viral fun entrenchment," only in 2011 ladies and gentlemen.))) Whether at bus stops, in the street, on public transport or in waiting rooms with newspapers and magazines, this will represent a tangible and visible real world collision with the digital. The implications are huge and the possible creative applications unlimited... limited only by a brand’s imagination.”
"We'll be launching in London Uk in next 3 weeks and we have engagements with quite a few global brands to launch with the platform...."
