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Utah ski fanatics brought out their gear early this season when the snow started falling in October. And, as the cliche phrase goes, there’s an app for that. Besides maps, directions and weather reports, however, what else could skiers possibly want in an app? Lots of things it turns out. The perfect app for a ski fanatic can record stats about their ski routes, lift statuses and even geotag their position on the mountain so they can later watch a satellite replay of their run.

But who, besides the skiing obsessed, care about this enough to make an app? It turns out that ski apps are made by six different industries or kinds of people:

1. Ski resorts or outdoor retailers
2. State tourist departments
3. Map makers
4. News stations or reporters
5. Performance fiends gathering statistics
6. Brands showcasing a lifestyle

Each different app-maker develops their app with a focus on how they think their audience will use the app. For example, Skullcandy, an ecommerce company specializing in headphones, has built an app around the lifestyle and culture it embraces in its branding: the laid-back hipster who loves any sort of boarding, skiing or otherwise. The Skullcandy app has a feature focusing on weather reports and maps for skiers and snowboarders alongside music, TV channels, surfing, skating and shopping features.

Ski apps by ski resorts or news/weather stations, on the other hand, tend to focus on a particular location and delivering up-to-the minute news, such as new snow fall, snow depth, number of lifts open, views through close-by webcams and local deals. The most interesting apps by far, though, are those that also include statistical features to record the distance the skier/boarder travels, how fast they go, the angle of the slope, the number of runs along with averages, highs and lows and any other relevant stats. Some of these apps can even be used off season while hiking or mountaineering.

To find apps that local ski hounds like, we asked around and also checked out those with the best reviews. Here is our list of some of the best offering several different features:

Geo-Lives allows you to record your own ski trail, see the average speed and distance you traveled in real time and then add points of interest like pictures and notes along the route. Then you can share it online for friends and family to see.

iTrailMap 3D lets you see the trail you skied on Google earth in 3D along with guides to various resorts.

Mammut Safety is all about avalanche detection. It assesses local avalanche risk using a clinometer to estimate slope angle and a compass to determine slope exposition.

Ski Tips is a ski-instruction app with video, text and audio. The app-makers wanted a skier to be able to listen to an audio loop while skiing after watching the instructional video to make it easier for the learner to remember the instructions.

Ski Tracks GPS records various stats and can geotag your runs allowing 3D playback later on Google earth.

These, of course, are just a few of the many available. We would love to hear about any of your favorite apps as well. What do you think is the most important feature for a ski app?

And if you have time, check out Snow Alert, a ski and snow report app we worked on. With it you can set alarms for your favorite snow conditions and never miss a good day on the slopes. Also, learn more about different apps genres and features in some of our previous posts including other Utah designed and developed apps.

Remember the uproar when Facebook incorporated facial recognition technology last June? They wanted to use it to automatically identify your friends and family in pictures when they were uploaded. Though this feature makes tagging your photos super easy, it also provides the opportunity for someone to identify you off of an anonymous street photo without your permission. But this post isn’t about Facebook’s privacy issues; rather, it’s about the new marketing trends that are using facial recognition technology.

Here are a few of the more interesting campaigns:

Coca Cola

In Israel Coca Cola is running a campaign using facial recognition tech called Face Look. If you look into the machines provided by Coca Cola around various theme parks, you can log into an app via facial recognition and then tell your friends about it online.

The Venetian, Las Vegas

Though just one of the many casinos in Vegas using facial recognition technology, The Venetian is not necessarily using it just to identify problem gamblers or security risks. It is incorporating it into digital advertising. As individuals walk past or stop to look at an ad, the sign determines if they are men or women and brings up an ad that will be more targeted to their demographic.

Scene Tap

A facial detection app, Scene Tap uses cameras with the software to scout bar scenes. Why, you may wonder? To check out the ratio of men to women and the average age of a crowd allowing you to make better choices in your barhopping that evening. The technology doesn’t identify specific individuals, but can still collect a range of data about the evening’s crowd.

Kraft & Adidas

Both of these brands are planning on installing digital signage into their stores to try and create custom ads built around your personal profile.

The London Design Festival

And just for fun, how about a chandelier using facial recognition technology to detect your mood at the end of a long day?† It may not be a marketing strategy, but it certainly could help set a personalized atmosphere for consumers.

Overall, the end-goal in each marketing campaign seems to be mass-customization. Marketers appear to be adopting the theory that if they can personally target you with the products and experience most appealing to you, it will improve sales. Japanese businesses are certainly banking on this theory because facial recognition technology is already being used widely in that country. What do you think? Is facial recognition technology the future of marketing?

Read about other marketing trends in our previous post about augmented reality.

† http://dontbeahayter.com/2011/11/07/a-chandelier-that-knows-your-face-prestige-in-a-retail-environment/

Word of mouth referrals from friends and family have always been a tried and true resource for anyone seeking out a service or product. Now the ability to share our recommendations online has expanded each customer’s potential influence and prompted businesses to reconsider their approach to mass target marketing; customers are beginning to turn first to their own networks and invest more in them. This change in the business of influence is a dominating topic in the current marketing world where: “Businesses are struggling to varying degrees in dealing effectively with the new empowered customer/prospect.”†

Influencer Marketing Basics

Specifically, influencer marketing is placing emphasis on key individuals rather than on a celebrity or expert that has mass appeal to a broad target market. The more persuasive factor in sales now is the less well-known, but perhaps more respected, stand-out individual in a certain industry or niche. Key factors like these define an influencer:

• They are passionate about their specialty
• They are recognized in their industry niche
• They have a unique style
• They are interested in one-on-one and community relationships
• They facilitate conversations
• They confidently express their opinions
• They motivate someone to take action

For marketers the most important characteristic of an influencer is, obviously, that they can motivate their followers to take action of some sort. So, building a relationship between a brand/business and an influencer is now tantamount in the new marketing ecosystem. The next step for a marketer then is identifying industry- and niche-specific influencers.

Finding the Right Influencer

High traffic and follower numbers do not necessarily a worthwhile influencer make.

Before beginning your search for the right influencer, first determine your objectives. Do you want to aid your content marketing, increase awareness of your brand/business or build credibility and close sales? Having a plan will make building a relationship with the influencers you find easier to manage. Once you’ve settled on an endgame you can then begin your search with methods like these:

• Use influence measurement tools (Klout, PeerIndex, SocialChiefs)
• Research individuals who are covering your market/niche
• Search via keywords related to your brand/business and see who is talking about similar things
• Access online forums and conduct other platform searches (Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn)
• Search a blog directory like Technorati, or join a service like HARO that seeks to build connections between reporters and bloggers

Each of these methods is a good gateway to finding an influencer that would make a fantastic partner in helping you achieve your objective. It may take some time, but marketing is evolving and brands and businesses need to evolve with it. Besides, who wouldn’t want a great partner and brand advocate? Now is the time to tap into the increasingly personalized business of influence.

To read more about marketing influencers and how to find them, see our previous post on Google+ Ripples.

† http://influencermarketingreview.com/2011/11/17/michael-fauscette-influence-and-business/

“60 million consumers will shop via mobile over Thanksgiving weekend.” —InMobi via Mobile Commerce Daily†

Retailers have been preparing, as usual, for the Black/Friday through Cyber Monday frenzy with more attention in 2011 to all things mobile: price and product comparison, coupons, geo-location, barcode/QR code scanning, social sharing and apps. Though these features have been available in the past, the exploding number of smartphones and tablets continues to alter the retail experience. So, what features do consumers need/use when shopping with their devices? InMobi predicts (from a study they conducted) that they will use their devices in these ways:

• 31% will receive updates on sales and promotions
• 27% will search local store hours and directions
• 26% will take product photos
• 18% will view official retailer apps
• 17% will access customer support†

With this list of requirements (receiving sales and promotions, search and product identification from photos, app viewing and customer support access), it’s not surprising that there is no completely perfect app to do the ultimate holiday shopping job. Here, however, is an idea of what the ideal shopping app should contain and a few apps that may come close to the mark.

The Good

Including such features as a search bar, categorized navigation, barcode scanners and, in some, voice input and mapping/geolocation, these apps were continuously recommended for the serious shopper:

• Target
• PriceCheck by Amazon
• Google Shopper
• PriceGrabber
• RedLaser
• ShopSavvy

Of course, for the perfect shopping experience, the Amazon app, when set to the 1-click purchasing option, has an extremely simple navigation completely via buttons—no typing. With a mobile screen this is obviously an ideal feature. Other ideal features in a shopping app might include one that saves any input information, follows standard user interface designs (so that the user is not confused when navigating the app) and maybe even has an augmented reality feature. The ultimate shopping app would, of course, combine these features in a branded experience.

The Branded

For the holiday season 50 percent of all retailers invested in mobile-optimized websites and one in five created a tablet or other shopping app.‡ A brief list of these includes:

• Walmart
• Macy’s
• Toys R Us
• Best Buy
• JCPenny
• Disney
• Zappos

As you can see, retailers are getting serious about providing a mobile experience and trying to entice shoppers to their own apps for a completely in-brand experience. A few local-to-Utah apps by Utah app makers are also taking this approach.

The Local

The three large Utah-based companies that have launched their own shopping apps are O.co, SkullCandy and BackCountry. Each is known particularly in the ecommerce world, and in the case of SkullCandy, that experience is incorporated into a larger app inclusive of a music, skating and boarding culture. Of these SkullCandy is hugely popular as indicated by their over 10 million iTunes store ratings. Perhaps this is in part due to the all-inclusive lifestyle experience their brand embraces.

In sum, the best shopping apps range between those that are easily navigable and well organized and an app like SkullCandy, which immerses the user in a life-styled brand. What are your favorite shopping apps? And which ones will you be counting on to get you through the holidays?

† http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/2011/11/17/60-million-consumers-plan-to-use-shop-via-mobile-over-thanksgiving-weekend-inmobi
‡ http://www.azcentral.com/business/articles/2011/11/09/20111109retailers-offer-new-apps-holiday-shopping.html

Launched on October 27, Google+ Ripples introduces a method for looking at the way popular, public posts spread throughout the Google+ community. Google ad guy Christian Oestlien said, in a presentation at New York ad:tech, that Google wants to make positive changes in five issues they see marketers facing:

1. Fragmented Marketing
2. Recommendations that lack staying power
3. Comments, not conversations
4. Impersonal messages
5. Limited insights‡

Ripples, Google+ and +1 buttons are part of the solution crafted by Google to promote a direct connection between marketers and their customers. They allow users to see recommendations from friends and people they follow alongside anything they search for. Google+ Ripples adds to (+1’s?) this by presenting a graphical interface that can chart shared public posts and how far they have spread.

Mario Aguilar for Gizmodo writes that: “Google has a long history of making data public…Google says the data belongs to you…because Google believes open data spurs profitable innovation.”† More specifically, this kind of data is invaluable for bloggers, marketers and social media junkies (just to cite a few) who are searching for insight into the structure of social relations because:

• It pinpoints influencers in various genres.
• It offers insight into sharing patterns.
• It shows the time of the share, reach and comments.

Metrics like these are very similar to those tracked by tools like Google Analytics with the exception that these are specifically for social reach. In the wild west of social media, where strategies to extend influence are as varied and subjective as the brains behind them, this kind of data can help marketers and business owners find good contacts to build relationships within a specific genre about a specific piece of content eventually reaching those targeted users who are interested in their product or service.

Other Influence-Measurement Tools

Other influence-measuring tools out there include Klout and Peer Index, both of which offer data like how many users an individual influences on a regular basis and who, how active they are and an estimate of their online authority. Klout has proved controversial because not all users agree with its algorithm that determines top influencers and topics they are influential about. But brands are very attracted to it, particularly as a way of releasing exclusive samples of upcoming products and using Klout-determined influencers to promote them.

Advantages of a Graphical Interface

One of the beauties of Google+ Ripples is its graphical interface. After selecting a public post, click on the drop down menu to the right of it and choose the Ripples option at the bottom of the menu. Now you can see a data visualization of the sharing process coordinated both by number of shares and influence/circle size of users who shared it. These types of graphics simplify the process of tracking share patterns and make the spread of data visually easier to understand.

Though Google+ Ripples is purely an experimental form of social data tracking at the moment, Oestlien presented some compelling facts for this experiment and how it affects search:

• 77 percent of brand-centered content is being shared by users and not brands.
• Clickthrough rates on a search result actually go up when users can see their friends’ faces next to a search result.
• Google+ circles allow brands to target specified people.

And Google+ Ripples allows brands to see which people to contact for the most influential share. As Gini Dietrich writes about the future of Google+: “Google is less concerned about having a social network and more concerned about improving search and giving us, as individuals, customized information.”§

‡ http://www.amegy.sbresources.com/SBR_template.cfm?Document=smallbiznews.cfm&article=2410
† http://gizmodo.com/google-ripples/
§ http://www.spinsucks.com/social-media/the-future-of-google-social-network-or-search-enhancer/

As you may recall, last month I attended an event in our area called the Social Commerce Exchange (Conversations About Social Commerce). The founders and sponsors of this group are looking to make this event a regular happening, and this month’s gathering focused on video, particularly the viral kind. Here is a quick review of the take-aways.

Viral Video in Brief

Based on the concept of word-of-mouth marketing, where the most spectacular, funny, and/or outrageous become rapidly shared in a community, viral video (though it existed before) was really impacted by the creation of YouTube in 2005 and other social networking sites. There have been soooooo many analytical case studies trying to determine exactly what makes a viral video, and the verdict is an answer in the “Who knows?” sphere. No matter how much you study virality, as Ricky Ray Butler from Plaid Social Labs had to say last night, the outcome is never quite what you think it will be. (He is also the culprit responsible for the “Viral is so 2005” comment.) Here are a few other things the experts had to say.

Commerce and Video

From Zagg, the creators of device accessories of all kinds, the videos you make may not be a hit. It could, in fact, be hated—but that’s not always a bad thing. Zagg made a video called Real iPhone 5 Unboxing? tapping into the hype surrounding Apple’s October announcement. The video was so virulently hated that it attracted a lot of viewers, some of which watched a few of Zagg’s other videos and made some purchases.

From Plaid Social Labs, Butler touted the campaigns his company coordinated for a number of clients by wining and dining YouTube celebrities. Partnering with these celebs allowed the clients to tap into the celeb followers who in turn would promote the clients’ products as well in their own reviews or videos (having to buy the product first, of course, before reviewing it).

From Orabrush, maker of the tongue-cleaning device:

“What kind of party are you throwing with your channel?” —Austin Craig

Are you targeting a certain audience? What are you encouraging your viewers to do? Orabrush works to post videos consistently sometimes employing parodies of icons or getting unusual characters involved (giant tongue anyone?) and has also spread their message with the help of YouTube ads. Use your YouTube or other video channel strategically and know your objective before creating your videos.

Guidelines for Video Marketing Success

• Be consistent in your postings.
• Court YouTube celebrities and partner with them in your video marketing campaign.
• Make a controversial statement in your video.
• Focus on either building a community or generating sales, don’t do both.
• Know your medium and your demographic (if you are going to post on YouTube, devote your personal TV/media time to YouTube).
• Strategize about where you want to lead your viewer: to a social share, a Facebook application or maybe offline to a product purchase.
• Tap into a hot trend.
• Consider platforms other than YouTube.

As you can see, the evening was rich in ideas thanks to the representatives from Zagg, Orabrush, Plaid Social Labs, Blendtec and BlueGlass Interactive. Video marketing is a must-have for all businesses today because it resonates so well with audiences of all ages and persuasions. So, do you think the concept of viral video is out of date? Let us know, and continue the Social Commerce Exchange conversation.

The State of Government Apps

Since the launch of the app zeitgeist, the government, both federal and state, have taken interest in the possibilities of communication via apps. By August of this year federal agencies had launched more than 80 mobile apps. The reasoning for this government foray into the app market includes the recognition that lower income people who can’t afford computers are buying smartphones through which they gain internet access as well.

Commentary on the government’s mobile app releases has ranged from enthusiastic to serious questioning as to how many downloads the apps are getting. Nextgov.com, a journalistic website covering government IT, had three different experts evaluate a set of the government’s current apps and offer ratings, advice and opinions (these experts are all members of companies selling and marketing mobile apps, such as Shazam). Below are the best and the worst of the federal government apps, according to them.‡

Federal Apps

The top two government apps, as voted by the Nextgov.com experts, are PTSD Coach and Baby Name Playroom. Each of them has a specific use and demographic appeal.

PTSD Coach: Devised for veterans, this app helps lead them through the calming practices they have learned in therapy to deal with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) attacks. The comments by the experts noted that the app is easy and convenient to use and works quickly.

Baby Name Playroom: Based on social security records, this app compiles more than 130 years of names for expecting parents to explore. It also reminds parents to register their children for their social security number and links to webpages with advice on child-raising. Expert comments note that this app is a great use of data in a fun and easy way.

The least successful government apps include the IRS app for checking up on the status of your tax refund and one called Fuel Economy.gov that measures an individual’s carbon footprint. Comments about these apps note their limited use and features that don’t bring anything new to the market.

Apps like these by the federal government can provide important services and appeal to a broad demographic as shown by the more successful apps. As Joseph Marks writes: “Many of the biggest innovations in the government apps sphere, though, are happening at the state level.”†

Utah Government Apps

Utah’s government has apps ranging from a driver’s license practice test to parks and state field guides and crime reporting. The capital city, Salt Lake, just released an app called Salt Lake City 311 to deal with city administration issues. With the app users can report issues, such as illegal signs, construction violations and abandoned/inoperable vehicles with more options to come.

This particular app differs from others launched by nearby cities Draper and Herriman because it communicates directly with the city work order system. The report by the user, submitted with an image, is geo-tagged and automatically routed to the person or team responsible for that area. The app developers in this case are the city’s land-use management software providers, Accela, and Salt Lake City’s chief information officer, Bill Haight, says that the feedback to date has been overwhelmingly positive.

The other city apps iDraper and iHerriman differ in that they attempt to tap into local business and city news by offering news feeds and navigational maps around the surrounding locale. The possibilities of a tourist-style apps for local promotion are excellent, but they must be done with care. As with the federal government apps, these should not be limited in usefulness and specifically target an audience if they are to be successful.

Recommendations for the App Maker, Government or Otherwise

So what are those government app review experts recommending for app makers, government or otherwise for a successful app?

• It needs to hook the user (a successful app has about 30 seconds to sell the user as to why they should make room for it).
• It should respond to a need.
• It must have a no-nonsense interface (both more and less than a mobile website).
• It must have compelling content.§

Keeping these guidelines in mind, it’s clear that government apps at the federal and state level can be immensely useful. The potential for making data available, collecting information from citizens via apps and organizing day-to-day work orders are some of the obvious advantages to continuing app development. What apps would you like to see the government release?

‡ http://www.nextgov.com/top-mobile-apps/
† http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20110819_2942.php
§ http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20111003_5868.php

“By 2015 companies will generate 50 percent of web sales via social presences on mobile applications.”†

Facebook commerce, or f-commerce, is the new e-commerce, or so researchers like Gartner Inc. predict. They write that by 2016 social technologies will be fully integrated with business applications.‡ In other words social platforms like Facebook will be a seamless extension of the e-commerce world.

But questions and conversations about f-commerce continue. Though it is a practice applied very successfully by large brands, such as Coke, Lady Gaga and Pampers (to name just a few), f-commerce is still in its experimental phase, and demonstrable ROI varies from brand to brand. In addition businesses recognize that Facebook itself is not making any profit from its free hosting of brand page’s social sales leaving observers to wonder how Facebook will try to cash in on a bigger piece of the pie in the future.

Another question in the f-commerce conversation involves consumer reach: is anyone buying? A Forrester Research study reported that the conversion rate for a Facebook store is equal to that of a standard e-commerce store—between two and four percent. It also attracts traffic between one to 10 percent of the total fan base.§ These facts would suggest that retailers and marketers should consider a way of integrating their products into a Facebook storefront or strategy of some kind.

Actionable F-Commerce Tactics

Since f-commerce is still in the experimental stage, there are a great many recommendations on how businesses should implement it. Here are a few ideas to consider for your venture:

• Build up your fan base through promotions and content posting.
• Create an app or use an existing app to enhance your Facebook page, like the Twitter app, a video app or a gaming app.
• Make your Facebook page exclusive with giveaways and promotions for fans only.
• Use Facebook to trial new products or Facebook fan-only products.
• Build a Facebook storefront (options include the app Payvment or iFrames tabs), and market selective products that are different from those offered on your other channels.

Besides these ideas, it’s always good to see what your competitors are doing as well.

Finally, the entire concept of social commerce hinges on one main principle: making the right offer to the right person. The sheer amount of social data inherent in the network that is Facebook offers a chance for businesses to do exactly that. In this regard social commerce is the future, because it is a perfecting of target marketing that will allow businesses to communicate with their consumers directly, person to person, brand to fan.

To read about previous social commerce conversations, check out our blog post Conversations About Social Commerce.

† http://www.allfacebook.com/facebook-commerce-201-2011-11
‡ http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1454221
§ http://www.simplyzesty.com/social-media/social-commerce-were-all-talking-but-is-anyone-buying/

How many trending text (SMS) marketing campaigns have you heard of lately? Hardly any have been mentioned in highly visible advertising news, but texting is such a vital part of our culture, not to mention a direct line of influence to a large audience, that marketers should not forget about this method of mobile marketing.

Who Uses Text Messaging Campaigns?

Text messaging campaigns are used consistently by entities like these:

• Large product companies Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Dell, MillerCoors
• Service industry businesses Southwest Airlines, RedBox, Pei Wei restaurant, Schwan’s online grocery
• Small franchises and local businesses Iceberg, DF Dance Studio, Dr. Jerry F. Maymi & Associates Family & Cosmetic Dentistry†

From this list it’s clear that any size business can use SMS to communicate with its consumers.

What Are The Most Recent Text Messaging Campaigns?

1. In February Pei Wei restaurants introduced a new entree Caramel Chicken with in-store signs and online promotions inviting guests to join the restaurant’s email list via text, web and on social media sites. Opt-in customers could receive a buy-one, get-one free coupon. The results included nearly 20,000 new email subscribers in two weeks—the SMS campaign accounted for nearly a third of all new email registrations. Fact: 95 percent of SMS messages are opened or read as opposed to an average of 20 percent of email messages.‡

2. During this last spring, Redbox and Signal had a “10 Days of Deals” campaign where consumers were offered anywhere from 10 cents to $1.50 off movie rentals when they texted DEALS to a shortcode. The campaign pulled in 1.5 million texts in 10 days and added 200,000 unique subscribers to the Redbox text club. The coupon redemption rate was nearly 20 percent. Fact: redemption rates of text-delivered coupons average 20–70 percent whereas redemption rates for print, direct mail and email fall between 1.5–10 percent.

3. Pepsi ran a September/October campaign promoting The X Factor. Participants could text pictures of any Pepsi product branded with The X Factor to a shortcode for a chance to win prizes. ”By using SMS and email, Pepsi is able to build up its database to better target campaigns and products to consumers.” Fact: more people use SMS than have access to a QR code reader.§

4. Coca-Cola is about to launch the ‘Arctic Home’ campaign to help aid arctic preservation with donations to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Because the polar bear has been a Coca-Cola icon since 1922, they feel strongly about helping preserve it. The company will be changing their branding by releasing white cans this holiday season, something they have never done before. With each text from purchasers to a shortcode, they can donate $1 to WWF that will be matched by Coca-Cola. Fact: The Red Cross raised five million dollars for Haiti in part using an SMS campaign, becoming a top viral funding initiative.

How Can Small Business Marketers Use Text Message Marketing?

Small business marketers can use text messaging campaigns in a wide variety of ways to augment their other marketing efforts.

Like Southwest Airlines and Dr. Jerry F. Maymi and Associates Family & Cosmetic Dentistry, they could confirm important information about their services, such as flight and appointment information, directly with the consumer.

Like Pei Wei and Iceberg restaurants and Redbox, they can offer promotional coupons for a specific period of time to introduce new products, services, locations.

Like Schwan’s online grocery and food delivery service, they can advise a customer when they are 30 minutes away from making the delivery.

Like Coca-Cola, they can pair with a social cause to raise money for a community need.

All businesses can benefit from using a text message marketing campaign whether it be promoting their businesses directly to consumers or collecting information about their audience. Fact: SMS can offer an exclusivity and highly-participated in marketing channel for businesses of any size and in any industry.

For more information on mobile marketing see our recent post: Is Your Business Marketing on the Move? If Not, You Better Get Mobile.

† Businesses local to the Utah area
‡ Facts collected from the recently released Pew Research study Americans and Text Messaging http://www.slideshare.net/InSitesConsulting/americans-and-text-messaging-pew-research-center
§ http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/database-crm/11000.html

What do yogurt, bath and body products, jewelry and cars all have in common? Recent, very successful marketing campaigns are drawing attention to them via augmented reality.

Augmented reality or AR has been around since, reportedly, 1968, but the term itself was coined by Tom Caudell and David Mizell in 1992. If it’s been around for the last 30 years then, what has changed to make it a viable marketing technique? Three things:

1. Faster mobile processors
2. Higher-quality cameras
3. Improving wireless network speeds

Together all of these things allow a reality overlaid with computer-generated imagery triggered by viewing a print symbol or ad through the lens of a smartphone. Here are the four campaigns for yogurt, bath and body products, jewelry and cars marketed via AR.

Greek4Good

Yoplait has launched its Greek4Good campaign to not just sell its yogurt product, but also contribute to Feeding America® member food bank, the nation’s leading domestic hunger-relief campaign. With every message decoded through the Greek4Good’s app that allows viewers to watch Greek letters translate themselves into English and animated figures, one point is awarded to the food bank. The printed messages are found on billboards and postings throughout New York and Chicago; though, participants can also participate on Yoplait’s Facebook and Twitter pages.

iButterfly

In The Body Shop campaign launched this last September in Japan to celebrate the brand’s 35th birthday, customers could, via a downloaded app, catch butterflies seen through their phones’ camera. Once caught the butterflies could be redeemed at the cash register for discounts and prizes. The campaign saw almost 2,777 app downloads and more than 115,683 butterflies caught.

DeBeers

DeBeers’ campaign has a customer download printed symbols, which when viewed by a webcam allow the user to envision a specific piece of jewelry on themselves. “It’s as if the person is looking at a mirror and wearing the product,” says Anthony DeMarco. In a technical feat, the jewelry even moves.

Volkswagen

Teaser ads for the 2012 Volkswagen Beetle have been out for awhile, but the newest campaign launch offers more interaction than before with the un-lockable AR via the company’s app. Launch the app, aim your device at the billboard and see the newest VW Beetle come to life.

The Takeaways

So what, exactly are the takeaways from the AR marketing trend and these four campaigns that have the advantage of big budgets and a large clientele?

• Besides marketing, AR offers impressive opportunities for eduction, technical instruction and language services
• And, though AR is a method activated via apps and/or webcam and print symbols, the methodology behind it—storytelling and using the sense of touch—can be applied by marketers anytime.

Creativity combined with augmented reality offer not just fluttering, showy applications, but real-life, actionable conversions of users and non-comital clients alike. Think outside the app, and see a future overlaid with the possibilities of AR.