Augmented reality – flash in the pan or here to stay?

You may have noticed an Augmented Reality gold rush over the past few months. Brands are taking an increasing interest and agencies are coming up with lots of clever and inventive ways with which to utilise the technology.

But the question remains, is AR worth all this interest?

Revolution Magazine's top ten augmented campaigns reveals some pretty cool and (whisper it) really rather useful applications. It seems we’ve got over the gimmicky ‘let’s just do something in AR’ phase, with the Glasses Direct specs simulator being a particularly smart use of the technology.

For me though, the best uses of AR come not sat at your home or office PC, but rather when you’re out and about in the real world. Mobile AR applications allow you to enhance the world around you, providing real-time information via a hugely appropriate interface – the space you’re looking into. A great example of this is the Yelp Monocle i-phone app.

Now arguably it’s just as easy to be directed to your nearest restaurant via a good old fashioned ‘online map’ – but the theory is sound. Contextual AR makes a lot of sense.

What this kind of mobile AR application really reminds me of is Nokia’s Point and Find service. Point and Find recognises objects in real time via your camera phone and automatically links you to relevant web content. Combining services like Point and Find with AR seems like a particularly logical way to go. Especially when you think where it could lead...


So imagine it's 2012 and you're at a conference with lots of people you don’t know but should probably be talking to. You open up your camera phone, scan the room and are given a brief bio of each of the people in the room as you move over them. The app knows your profile and from this has deduced that there are two people in the room you must get to know. Two big AR arrows point them out to you. Genius.

Anyway, I digress. Is AR here to stay? Yes. But, to my mind, primarily as a way to enhance the world around you in clever and ultimately very useful ways.

In the mean time I’m off to talk to someone about my new Conference Mate™ Augmented Reality app. Anyone fancy investing?

Widgets Are Made for Marketing, So Why Aren't More Advertisers Using Them?

In response to a blog post from Advertising Age, the blogging community was discussing why more advertisers weren't using widgets. One theory was the cost. This was our response:

The cost of distribution can be high if it is adserved. But in the case of a Clearspring widget we did for learndirect, the technology was free and download was also free as it was hosted on the learndirect website. In this instance the widget was less about entertainment and actually provided a functional app for users – motivating learners on their learning journey. Clearspring said they might be changing this model in the future, but for now it has represented a massively cost effective way of communicating with customers and in learndirect's case, providing a truly useful widget for motivating learners.

Hayley

Whopper Virgins

Burger King's new ad campaign, Whopper Virgins, is supposed to launch on TV next week. The question is, will it go ahead after much of blogland has found it culturally and morally offensive?



Some blog commentators see this ad as just another example of America trying to ram their own ideals and values down the throats of the rest of the world - another move towards a homogenized McWorld. Should they really send their intensively-reared, fat-, salt- and sugar-laden meat into the remaining corners of the world who've yet to be subjected to it? The locals' own hand-reared meat is probably healthier and tastier than a Whopper any day - I wonder if BK polled them on that?

Some commentators also noted that throwing one free burger at people who may be living in borderline poverty and famine is more than a little insensitive. However, there is nothing to say that anyone featured in the ad was in that situation and it would be just as wrong to jump to conclusions. Likewise many commentators have pointed out that some of the countries featured - Romania for example - are already exposed to fast-food advertising so it's wrong to generalise them all as 'poor backward country folk'.

Personally, on first view the campaign comes across as exploitative, stereotypical and condescending. I'd be interested to see a behind the scenes - not because I care if the Whopper really came out on top (that is perhaps the most irrelevant part of the whole campaign), but to see just how authentic or otherwsie their 'Whopper Virgin' setups are. I'm willing to bet that more than a little cultural stereotyping and staging went into the traditional outfits, idyllic rural backdrops and gentle pastoral folk.

Jon Darke sees it a bit differently:
I don't see it as exploitative. It's a wider sociological issue about the developed world's communal guilt, and the notion that we are forcing our cultures upon them through advertising and media. I don't believe this to be true at all, having been to some of these places, including the poorest villages in S.E. Asia, and spent time with the people. Exposing these people to a burger isn't going to brainwash them. They are simply going to think that a bunch of silly westerners came to their village, fed them, took some pictures and went away.

The ad is additionally controversial because of the product advertised. It's generally agreed that 'evil burger companies' don't do much good on this earth. That escalates to ‘How dare they advertise their product by feeding it to poor farmers to gauge opinion’. They exist because it's a viable business model in demand.

What is really boils down to is this: The advert is simply poor. How is the opinion of a Thai farmer on the taste of a burger relevant to me? It isn't that dissimilar to the recent Apple/PC war - corporate bickering déjà vu. Where's the creativity?

What do you think? Here's some more views from the Collective floor:

Omar:

"It's brilliant! The new-age missionary!! Bringing burgers to the deepest, darkest corners of this flat world..."

Jon H:

"A bit condescending mefinks.. "

Jon D:

"It's actually a good idea (in theory). Brand infiltration affects peoples' decisions more than you realise, and getting a control test is almost impossible with brands as large as these."

Stephane:

"I think it's pity - culture needs diversity; it should be the other way round. Unfortunately the humbleness of learning from others is not in the blueprint of Western industry."

Leila:

"I think that the whopper is a winner in taste any day! Down to McFilth I say!"

The campaign is supposed to launch in 5 days. Let's see what happens.

Links to further reading:
Official Site
Maholo
Inquisitr
Metro

Twitter: What's the bl**dy point? Part two.

What more can twitter do for your brand?

6. Brands can engage in a real two-way conversation with their customers – brands have the potential to listen to the buzz about their brand in the Twitter-sphere, simply by searching for their keywords and thus actively and instantly respond to their consumers and react instantly.

Search for you brand using Twitter and listen to the noise.

7. Build a reputation for your brand by following potential customers and journalists that write about your space.

8. Lead generation.

One question though that still remains as to how do I know who is interesting and worth following? Time is money and all that and I don’t want to listen to people waffling all day (I have Facebook for that). I'm currently trialling MrTweet...so watch this space on my thoughts.

But so far for me it has been a bit of random luck finding people. One simple way Twitter could make spreading the word much faster is by making it easier to search for people and categories. So far, it’s been a bit of a treasure hunt. Although I hear on the twitter blog that there might be progress.
So to get you started - here’s some Twitter voices we are following who we think have something good to say about digital or do digital good:
@BBCdigital
@BarrackObama
@russelldavies
@kevinrose
@BrandRepublic

You got any better twitterers to share?

Hayley

Twitter: What's the bl**dy point?

I have to admit, I did nearly give up with Twitter. I thought it was a geek world full of self-indulgent Facebook feeds. But what kept me going was not only characteristic sheer pigheadedness but also the fact that it’s full of early adopters (yes, geeks) who tend to be the type of people to talk about the industry stuff I want to know first. And the more I’ve started using it, the more benefits I can see.

So I’m sold….can I take you to the Twitter-side?

1. It’s not Facebook status feeds - Twitter is not full of self-indulgent Facebook-esque feeds. It’s all about knowledge sharing – so for you that means industry and brand knowledge building.

2. Keeps you ahead of the competition - by following the leading commentators and ordinary folk alike people are actively sharing industry information and news before it hits the regular media in nice dinky bite size pieces and links. Which makes you look clever in front of your clients and colleagues when you share a nice ‘new’ idea.

3. Networking – you don’t have to be mates with someone to stalk them now! Twitter allows you to follow who you like and it’s up to them if they want to follow you back or just ignore your noise – but quite often people will return the favour and engage in dialogue.

4. Profile raising – if enough people start following you and your ramblings, you can go from zero to hero and you’ll be a keynote speaker at FOWA in no time.

5. Easier than you thought - If you down load a Twitter firefox add on – it makes it really simple and quick to up-date and follow feeds. No more logging into a distracting webpage all the time. Try this: >https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5081

Hayley

Flash for the iPhone

Paul Betlem, the Senior Director of Engineering at Adobe Systems, has announced that Adobe is developing a Flash Player for the iPhone.

This is great news for anyone wanting to deliver brand experiences on mobile phones – it’s just a shame we still don’t know when it will happen. The powerful combination of the iPhone interface with the rich interactivity of Flash is something agencies, marketers and consumers will find hard to resist. Interestingly, we can also envisage a potential cost saving for clients as pre-existing Flash content is repurposed for mobile.

At present, it looks like there is only talk about the Flash plug-in on the Safari web browser. As such, Flash widgets per se are not really on the card yet. Native iPhone widgets/applications in Flash are still a good while away, but we wait with anticipation for the opportunity to use this new technology.

I'm a PC...the rejoinder to the stereotype.

Sometimes it's not necessarily how much you spend on a campaign that grabs attention or changes perceptions.

For me, the great thing about 'digital' is being' 'clever', not necessarily 'cool'. This week, Microsoft have validated this notion in withdrawing their $10 million campaign (featuring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld) and then launching a much simpler (and in many people's opinions more effective) messaging campaign that responds intelligently to the successful Apple "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ad campaigns.

"I'm a PC" aims to break the geeky stereotyping by showing a series of video clips from PC users around the world including members of the public in a variety of jobs and celebrities such as 'Desperate Housewives' actress Eva Longoria, author Deepak Chopra and musician Pharell Williams who all say proudly "I'm a PC".

Added to this, there is also a microsite that allows you (the general public) to also stand proud in announcing your PC-affiliation. So if you ARE a PC, why not join the throng!!

Black on white

There's been a fair bit of debate lately in blogland over whether white text on a black background is more legible and comfortable for the eyes to gaze at (not to mention energy-saving to monitors) than vice-versa. The debate culminated in the rather-silly Blackle - a 'black Google' which claimed to be more environmentally-friendly than its white counterpart.

Ironic Sans has made the very good point that as the majority of sites - and printed text - set black text on white, it's jarring to suddenly face a black page with white text. Visit their test page to see for yourself. So for now it's probably best to stick with convention.

Olympic logos

Scott Hansen of ISO50 has compiled all the Olympic logos from 1924 to now for a side-by-side comparison. It's very interesting to see how they've changed over time. Try and guess which decade the following logos are from (names and dates removed, obviously)...

1.

2.

3.

4.


Click the link to see if you're right.

It remains to be seen if the much-debated London logo will really be a product of its time too...

That old devil Six Degrees of Freedom!

For a good while now, I've always wondered how the theory of Six Degrees of Separation has been affected (or perhaps evolved) into a lesser figure through the explosion of social networking and our predilection of lowering barriers to making friends within the online space.

For those, like myself who considered this to be a reasonably recent theory, it actually goes way back (pre-interweb) to the late 60's and some research by Stanley Milgram and Jeffrey Travers, who engaged in a study where people were asked to send a letter (via acquaintances) to a Boston stockbroker. Of the 300 or so letter chains that were sent, the average number of separation degrees was 6.2!






















Rather than changing this figure (one would initially consider it being lowered), the internet has merely gone to validate (beyond doubt), that the theory is correct and that we are all connected in this way.

Probably the most conclusive research recently undertaken was using online chat, where Microsoft researchers studied the addresses of 30bn instant messages sent during a single month in 2006 through their instant messaging application....a more planetary research piece than the localised one carried out 40 or so years previously!

So with this theory well and truly validated, we really can say "It's a small world".

Shifting from anecdotal to factual..Google research on organic vs PPC!

Today, Google revealed its first piece of major research on the value to a brand of balancing search results real-estate between Organic and PPC.

For some years now, I've listened to the sales banter from those organisations that make their business from both natural and paid-for search, convincing me that balancing can only be a good thing. Anecdotal stories about seeing a brand on both left and right hand areas of the screen and eyetracker visualisations showing me where my eyes apparently go still had the fundamental flaw that this is the obvious explanation from someone who made money out of selling me both services! These latest findings start (in some way) to shift from the anecdotal to the data-factual.

Run across their European sites, the research showed that coming top of organic listings raised purchase consideration of a brand by 4% and exposure to a listing in the top paid position (with no organic listing on the page) increased purchase consideration by 20%. Combining both a high-ranking natural listing and paid for, raised purchase consideration by 22% and, according to this first batch of research, this trend is seen across most verticals and all markets.

The cynic in me still has lots of questions, however, it's a great start and one backed by numbers not the sales targets...I wait with baited breath!