New wide world

You are walking through the main station and see a poster advertising your favorite band's next concert. Wow! Are there any tickets left? You quickly take a photo of the subject with the Kooaba application and know within seconds that there are still tickets available, that the weather will be fine on the day of the event and that it will only take you fifteen minutes to get from home to the venue. Tip-top - and the ticket is bought.
What has been part of everyday life in Japan and China since the late 1990s and has been commonplace in the USA and Canada for several years is only just beginning to emerge in Switzerland: Smart ads and augmented reality (AR). Ads and posters are backed up with background information or booking tools that can be used to book tickets here and now, arrange a test drive in a new car model, take part in a competition or calculate whether the advertised insurance would be cheaper than the current one. Three technologies currently make it possible to provide such additional information behind image data: the classic quick response code (QR code), the challenger, the image recognition software Kooaba, and the latest trend, AR with image recognition.
The ugly box
Here in Germany, QR codes have been appearing sporadically for around three years. The black and white box images are an advanced form of barcode. They encode information such as URLs and telephone numbers. If you want to decode a QR code, all you need is software on your cell phone that can be downloaded free of charge from the Internet. The decoding software is already programmed into many cell phones. When the code is photographed, the software immediately provides the stored data, for example a link or an SMS text. The user does not need to be online for this. Because QR codes can be decoded by anyone using the freeware, they are referred to as "open taggs" - as opposed to encrypted beetaggs, which are used for B2B applications. Unfortunately, QR codes are not particularly attractive. "That could be one of the reasons why they haven't caught on yet," speculates Bruno Mettler, founder and CEO of the Zurich agency for interactive experiences, Vanija. "Anyone promoting a new Audi in high gloss doesn't want to see a foreign object on their poster." The below-the-line agency Streuplan launched its first campaign with QR codes back in 2008. However, it was not a success. "The response rate was alarmingly low," says Managing Director Thomas Back, "even though we were addressing a young, technology-savvy target group and there was a prize on offer. QR codes have three weak points: The user has to download software, you have to explain the mechanism to them and MMS are expensive." Streuplan was probably simply too far ahead of its time. After the belly landing, Back decided against further experiments with QR codes.
The image recognition software Kooaba, which was developed by a spin-off from ETH Zurich, makes it far easier to find the new technologies attractive. Anyone who uses this software to feed advertising or editorial articles does not have to decorate them with ugly code. Only a small icon in the form of a lens reveals that the viewer can expect something else behind the subject or article. If you want to see what's behind it, you need to have Kooaba on your smartphone. If they then take a photo of a subject or a newspaper article, they receive the information stored in the Kooaba database for the image directly on their display without any further intermediate step. This could be further links, additional photos for a report, a competition or an ordering tool. Kooaba is being pushed by the widespread use of smartphones. "With the new smartphones, using the Internet is not only quick and easy, it is also already covered by a flat rate in most contracts," says Bruno Mettler. "If you have to pay three francs a minute without a flat rate to get additional information via QR code, you'd rather check the Internet at home. But if it costs nothing to take a quick photo of a subject and get more information, people are happy to use the service. Last year, I wouldn't necessarily have recommended Kooaba. Today, smartphones, especially iPhones, are so widespread that the technology can be used very well with certain target groups." Thomas Back from Streuplan also gives Kooaba a good chance: "Imagine you're sitting in a gourmet restaurant with a great woman. The bottle of wine arrives, the lady disappears to the toilet. You take a photo of the label on the wine bottle and can then score points with your extensive knowledge of the wine." In fact, Kooaba unfolds its potential above all in everyday situations.
QR codes and Kooaba provide additional information on image data. Augmented reality goes one step further: it adds an additional dimension to reality. AR applications require a camera, either in the smartphone or on the computer. It takes a live video image of the subject, which is held in front of the camera. Software then creates a grid of the two-dimensional image and uses it to calculate the two- or three-dimensional representation of the subject. For example, the current issue of the Credit Suisse customer magazine Bulletin is all about movement. The cover picture shows the former Swiss track and field athlete Dave Dollé on a treadmill. If you hold the page in front of the camera, Dollé is jogging on the magazine. If you tilt the magazine to the left or right, the runner "feels" the resulting slope or incline and runs faster or slower. How does this work? The software recognizes the inclination of the image grid and calculates how much the athlete needs to speed up or slow down. The application was programmed by Vanija. The production of such gadgets is very complex: Dave Dollé, for example, not only had to be photographed for the cover, but also filmed in front of a green screen. The more complex AR applications are, the clearer and more sophisticated the concept behind them has to be.
Switzerland as a trendsetter
Lego, Shiseido, Adidas, Nike, Audi, Mini and BMW have already attracted international attention with AR campaigns and applications. At Lego, you can look at the contents of the packaging at the point of sale, while Shiseido enables a make-up session on screen so that women can see how mascara, blusher and other products look before they make a purchase. Since the beginning of the year, Switzerland has increasingly seen editorial articles, advertisements and posters in which a QR code or the Kooaba icon reveal that the article or subject alone is not everything. Although Switzerland lags far behind China, Japan and America, it is a pioneer in the use of new technologies throughout Europe. This is mainly due to the fact that smartphones, which are needed to use QR codes and Kooaba, are very widespread in Switzerland: Around 15 percent of Swiss people use an iPhone, compared to just one in twenty in Germany. A perfect basis for Switzerland to become a pioneer in the use of AR technologies.
The Swiss Press Association is the augmented reality pioneer in the Swiss advertising and communications industry. At the beginning of the year, the association launched the first Swiss campaign to use all three technologies. Anyone who photographs the subjects of the "Das-kann-nur-ein-Inserat" campaign, created by Contexta graphic designer Manuel Rohrer, or holds them up to the webcam, is in for a surprise: a brick becomes a three-dimensional house, an egg becomes a dinosaur. In this way, the association conveys the message that "great things begin with an advertisement". The subjects do not offer any added value beyond this insight - but in retrospect, the first steps always seem insufficient. "The Swiss Press Association has shown a great deal of courage by using the three technologies," emphasizes Bruno Mettler. "Kooaba and AR in particular are still very young technologies that are only just emerging. The association's campaign is the first and largest in the world to make such broad use of these types of technologies." The association wants to go a big step further with the next call for entries for Das-kann-nur-ein-Inserat. Toni Vetterli, Head of Marketing at the Swiss Press Association: "In the new, adapted calls for entries for the 2011 competition, we will focus on overcoming media disruption, for example through the three different technologies. The fact that posters and advertisements have the potential to trigger action is the core theme of our competition. QR codes, Kooaba and AR support this message perfectly."
Developments in recent months show a clear trend: from an initial gimmick, smart ads and AR have long since developed into a good way of offering customers and consumers real added value and differentiating themselves from the competition. Advertising is becoming a service. Much of this is still a dream of the future, but you can already hear it. Hansres Emch, Key Account Manager at LD-Media, is certain: "Optical tags have great potential. An advertisement that is not dialogized, a poster that is not interactive, has no chance in the future."
Expansion of reality
Publicitas Publimedia has also recognized this. The company has been offering its customers kooa-based print ads since June. "Print is alive. Print ads are taking on a new dimension," says Cesare Patella, Head of Media Service and Research at Publicitas Publimedia. "The needs of national and supra-regional advertising companies today go far beyond traditional planning and processing. Today, individual, target group-specific special forms of advertising are increasingly in demand. With Smart Ads, we are expanding our existing range of services in the area of planning and campaign handling and covering the current needs of advertising clients." Although Publicitas Publimedia has only been on the market with this service for a short time, it has already been able to develop concepts for a number of interested parties. "Our offer is being followed with great interest," says Patella.
Coming up with new applications for Kooaba and AR is not difficult. But because almost any gimmick is possible, the ideas quickly become adventurous. That's why implementing everything that works has never been good advice. Especially when it comes to technical gimmicks, the question of added value, the benefit that the consumer derives from the extension of reality, should be at the forefront. Patella agrees: "Smart ads are worthwhile for product and service campaigns that are intended to trigger an immediate action in the consumer. They then increase the chances of contact and response. However, the key questions should always be: Is the campaign fun or can it generate excitement? Does it offer the user real added value? What's in it for them if they show that they are interested in a product or service by taking a picture?" The added value for the advertising client must also be kept in mind. After all, they don't just want to entertain their customers, they want to make a profit first and foremost. "Smart ads also have advantages for the advertiser," emphasizes Patella. "They can make direct contact with the target group, individually define campaign options, measure the response, generate customer data and gain strategic marketing insights. This transforms contact opportunities into real customer response rates."
Between gimmick and added value
Kooaba and AR are still in their infancy worldwide - and the transition from a gadget for freaks to a useful extension is still fluid. Which side the interactive business card belongs on, with which the Namics agency is making its first forays into augmented reality, is left to personal judgment: If you hold the business card of Namics CEO Jürg Stuker in front of the webcam, you suddenly have the boss himself standing on your hand. "Of course, the business card is still a gimmick at the moment," says Dominik Ruckli, Junior Art Director at Namics and initiator of the idea. "For us, it's primarily a marketing tool. We want to get our foot in the door of AR and show that we can do this. This is how we create a wow effect that sticks in people's minds."
"Technologies are currently being pushed even though relevant content is not quite there yet," says Mettler about the Swiss status quo. "In the future, it will become even more important to have a clear concept and to store meaningful data so that real added value is created." This is when interactivity becomes exciting. The free newspaper 20 Minuten, for example, regularly uses Kooaba to provide its readers with additional images or film sequences for articles. More and more Kooaba icons are also appearing in Blick, Weltwoche and NZZ am Sonntag. "All industries that need to provide content need to get to grips with these technologies," says Emch from LD-Media. "Kooaba offers great opportunities for print, for the packaging industry, but also for manufacturers of operating instructions, for example."
But LD-Media goes much further. Because even beyond advertising and media, reality-enhancing technologies offer fascinating possibilities: Emch and his colleagues have created a kooa-based potato stick pack, as sold in every supermarket. Anyone who takes a photo of the packet with their smartphone can take part in a competition and receive nutritional and diabetic information about the product as well as various recipe suggestions directly on their cell phone. Completely google-free. If you select one of the recipes, all you have to do is enter the number of people to be served and you will receive a shopping list compiled accordingly. They are also guided by their smartphone to the shelves where the ingredients are stored. "The packaging becomes the medium," says Emch. "But it's important that the concept behind the use of Kooaba and Taggs is right. This also means that there is always short, medium and long-term content to ensure a lasting effect. I call this symbiosis of print and mobile devices information kinetics." LD-Media's "enhanced" potato stick pack is not yet in the stores. But it can't be too much longer, Emch hopes.
Everyday life as a user interface
The use of Kooaba and AR is conceivable in various areas. Passionate city explorers will probably love the following idea: you are standing in the middle of an unfamiliar city and want to know whether there is a bus or streetcar nearby, where a restaurant is, the nearest doctor or the nearest shoe store. No problem. Your cell phone registers where you are and quickly provides you with the information you need. Mind you, this is not science fiction, but a reality thanks to the Wikitude and Layar applications.
One AR application that is already proving useful is the furnishing app that Vanija programmed for Möbel Pfister. Anyone who wants to redesign their living room simply takes a photo of the room with the iPhone app, selects the desired furniture and then moves it around the room until the furnishings are to their liking. Atelier Pfister is the first iPhone app of its kind in the world. Gone are the days of furnishing a room with scaled paper cut-outs as a test ...
Service in the third dimension
There are also exciting areas of application for augmented reality in industry. Vanija also developed an application for railroad manufacturer Bombardier. The company has developed an engine for locomotives in which individual parts can be removed and replaced on a modular basis. This reduces downtimes. The engineers struggled to explain to their sales staff how the engine works - and the sales staff in turn found it difficult to make the whole thing plausible to potential customers. Now all the salespeople have to do is hold an image of the engine in front of the webcam and the design is assembled in three dimensions in front of the prospective customer's eyes. The engine can be rotated and turned, viewed from all sides and from the inside. For Bombardier, the investment of around 40,000 francs for the AR tool has long since paid off.
Kooaba certainly has the greatest potential for the advertising and communications industry at the moment. However, this technology is still far from mainstream. "I see the most important area of application for Kooaba in posters," says Mettler. "You can take advertisements home with you and look up what interests you on the Internet. Posters, on the other hand, are fleeting. You walk past them and can't take the information with you unless you write it down. It's easier to take a photo of the poster and immediately get all the information you want or book tickets directly." Posters such as those for the Orange Openair cinema on the Zürichhorn are predestined for such applications: seen, program and weather checked, tickets ordered. The information needed for this service is already available on the Internet. The only difference is that it is now pre-selected by the time and the user's current location and brought together in a web application that is optimized for display on a smartphone.
Smart ads and AR are not the, but certainly important forms of advertising of the future. Cesare Patella from Publicitas Publimedia agrees: "Smart ads are a new type of technology alongside others that will come onto the market and present advertising clients with new, creative challenges. But the direction is set with smart ads.
Supply and demand will come closer together. In future, we will also offer smart forms of advertising in the classifieds market and in other areas." Bruno Mettler estimates that in around three or four years, most posters and advertisements will be backed by Kooaba: "Kooaba is suitable for widespread use in many areas in order to provide users with additional information and services quickly and easily. Kooaba applications are less complex and less expensive than AR applications. AR is more suitable for emotionalizing products or services and offering consumers special playful experiences in small doses so that tomorrow they will still remember what they saw today. Agencies will have to keep up with this. Their customers are demanding it."
Anne-Friederike Wilhelm
> Film "Only an advertisement can do that"

Augmented Reality - Credit Suisse Bulletin from Vanija on Vimeo.

Vi3DLive for Bombardier from Vanija on Vimeo.