Mobile marketing is real, but what about augmented reality?
Written by Betsy
Thursday, 02 September 2010 16:43
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Trends for 2010 had mobile marketing at the forefront, with Moxie Interactive, Millennial Media, 1020 Placecast and the Mobile Marketing Association among those predicting a significant increase in mobile Web and application advertising, including the usage of augmented reality (AR), which merges a view of the physical world with enhanced data or imagery that is computer generated. The technology ombines the mobile phone's camera, compass and GPS data to identify the user's location and field of view, retrieve data based on those geographical coordinates, and overlay that data over the camera view.
 
Unquestionably, mobile marketing has gained ground across CPG and retailing categories and the ability to personalize messages allows advertisers to speak to their target in a manner unprecedented by other media. TrendSpotting forecasted in its 2010 report that by 2015 a greater number of consumers will access the Internet through their phones than through a PC/laptop. This lends momentum to technology developments by leading AR developer Layar. The Layar Reality Browser "displays real time digital information on top of the real world as seen through the camera of your mobile phone". While the degree to which companies will put money behind newer concepts such as AR remains in question, first movers including Conde Nast (several AR applications for iPhone) are betting that tech-savvy consumers will jump on the experiential aspect of the technology. Moreover, earlier in the summer LG announced that it would pre-load Layar on Android devices. Combined with partnerships with Samsung, Verizon and Sprint, this means that Layar will be pre-loaded on nearly one third of all smartphones by the end of 2010 (http://www.mobilemarketingandtechnology.com/tag/augmented-reality/). Seemingly, Millennial-friendly companies would join the iPhone partners as first movers, but is this overly optimistic? Questions clearly remain, including whether AR has a clear target consumer at this time, and if not, how can the ROI be calculated? The consumer perspective awaits...
Last Updated on Wednesday, 02 February 2011 12:42