KomodoPR PR london agency

An article in today’s FT reports that social media is stealing the show over at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. Apparently augmented reality is the buzzword over there at the moment. I’ve come across this a couple of times and been told how it’s the ‘future of marketing’ by its proponents.  But what exactly is it?

Well, basically, it’s when a view of the world is supplemented with computer generated images. So, for example, when you hold your phone up to a chair and view it through the camera, some information could pop up on a screen about price, or there may even be a virtual object on your screen (so you could see what a virtual chair in your living room, could look like). I guess you could say it’s a bit like how The Terminator  or Robocop views things – you know, they look at someone’s face and some data about their criminal records appear next to them… Geddit? Well, maybe this video will help:

Pretty damn cool, right? (And much more sophisticated than Robocop or Terminator’s viewing tech).
It’s on the horizon and I’ve heard about the costs (they’re high). I’m going to reserve judgement on this one until I’ve seen more proof that it delivers decent ROI.

But at this stage, as a novel marketing toy, the brand who will find the greatest success with augmented reality will be the brand that times their campaign perfectly, so that it rides the wave of interest when the public really understands it.

Of course, the campaign itself needs to be really hot and innovative, too. That goes without saying. But if marketing experiments on Second Life taught us anything at all, it’s that if you get in there too early, you’re only reaching niche early adopter audiences. Too late and you’re another ‘me too’ and you’ll miss out on the valuable buzz that surrounds a truly innovative campaign.