QR? AR? Or In Need of ER? Part Two

Following on from our look at QR and AR codes, we take a closer look at Augmented Reality in this second part.

In stark contrast, Augmented Reality has delivered a wealth of fun and engaging ideas. We’ve seen TV magician Dynamo come alive through a newspaper, Stella Artois directing us to our next pint and even Walkers Crisps acting as real-time weather men.

The beauty of AR, much like many new technologies, has been that once people have downloaded the relevant application they’re all the more likely to then scan for further content in chasing the “wow factor” of turning up a novel new effect.

Will it Have a Big Enough Reach?

With the issue of engaging content resolved, AR’s next obstacle is reach. Though much of this will come down to a waiting game of mobile users upgrading to smartphones, the clincher will be if the marketing world will be able to normalise advertising of this nature in the consumers mind.

The covers of magazines Cosmopolitan, Company and Harper’s Bazaar are all set to come alive via AR in December, and a quick check of Google confirms a world of plans afoot in 2012 for the technology.

It seems that for the foreseeable future at least this virtual reality will very much have a place in our marketing budgets, but once the sheen of its novelty begins to fade and consumers become savvy to the technology it’s anyone’s guess what AR’s shelf life will be.