Queen’s Day, a huge public holiday this Tuesday in the Netherlands, has a rich history with Layar. Just last year, the local newspaper where the Queen herself was to visit enhanced its pages with extra content about the royal visit using Layar. It even provided a link to a livestream of the day’s events for supported devices.

This year, it’s not just Queen’s Day – it’s also the coronation of the new King (yes, next year it will be King’s Day) and with this evolution comes more evolution of augmented reality and interactive print with Layar.

A new Dutch augmented reality agency AugmentNL has come up with a unique way to use some of the most prominent space in Amsterdam as interactive print. The tall and wide Overhoeksgebouw has long been a popular Amsterdam ad space and is currently draped in a decoration for Queen’s Day. Scanning this side of building liberates this space to the people of Amsterdam, letting them post messages and drawings for all to see.

For those in Amsterdam this week, by scanning the side of the Overhoeksgebouw you can view the latest tweet featuring the hashtag #FelicitatieXXL and add your own drawn graffiti to the side. This teaser project from AugmentNL shows the wide audience a simple interactive print ad campaign can have when placed in a prominent location.

Using the dynamic widgets available with Layar’s technology, AugmentNL can provide a live feed of tweets along with an interactive canvas for drawing right on the side of the building. It’s certainly a unique idea, but with Layar it’s simple and easy to implement very quickly.

So if you’re in town for Queen’s Day, scan the Overhoeksgebouw by the IJ river and see how interactive print isn’t just for magazines – it’s great for providing interactivity on large outdoor advertising as well!

Founded in 1905, ADO Den Haag is one of the leading football teams in the Dutch national league. Together with marketing and communications multimedia agency UWMERK!WAARDIG, ADO Den Haag will be the first football club ever to use Layar technology during a football match. The kick-off will be take place this evening during the ADO Den Haag – FC Twente match. The club and agency have made the strategic choice to combine football, passion and content in a large campaign for their fans.

During the match, fans will be able to scan the club logo with the Layar App. While using the app, the fans will receive a message of team captain Danny Holla who invites them to participate in an exclusive contest. In addition the fans will be able to purchase a unique merchandise package and they can “Like” their favorite club on Facebook.

We caught up with Jasper Saeijs, Marketing Coordinator for ADO Den Haag and André Batenburg, Managing Director for UWMERK!WAARDIG to hear more about this campaign.

Why did you decide to include interactive print in the multimedia of ADO Den Haag?
J.S.: ADO Den Haag wants to get to the next level of interaction between the club, the players and the fans. Interactive print provides a unique opportunity for us to bring our club and our players closer to our fans. With Layar we can use the emotional value of a football club and provide a more unique experience around our matches.
A.B.: More and more people want to have a live experience on their mobile devices. Layar provides the unique opportunity to combine multimedia techniques and interactivity (dialogue) at the same moment. Layar is easy to use and enhances the live experience during the football match.

What do you want to achieve?
J.S.: Besides bringing the club and the players closer to our fans, we can also make a quick link to our marketing activities around our products. Interactive print helps in making your marketing strategy less aggressive.
A.B.: As a multimedia agency we want to help ADO Den Haag intensify the contact with their fans. Next to that, we engage with the fans via film, contest, social share and e-commerce.

Why did you choose Layar?
J.S.: UWMERK!WAARDIG introduced us to Layar and we were impressed by the technology.
A.B.: Layar has broad experience in augmented reality and as a Certified Layar Partner, UWMERK!WAARDIG is developing ideas for today and the near future. We can level on strategic issues and work side-by-side in the field of operations.

Plans for the future?
J.S.: For now we like to test with augmented reality and see if we can achieve better communications and interaction with our fans. Augmented reality is one of the concepts that I think will be the future of marketing communication.
A.B.: We will integrate Layar for several business cases of our clients. That goes for retail and other companies. At this moment we are creating a variety of business cases using Layar that will go live in the upcoming weeks and months. I believe that interactive print will grow rapidly and we are happy that we are experienced in this field.

Give it a try yourself by scanning the ADO Den Haag logo in the flyers below! (Click to enlarge.)

The real estate industry has a long history with Layar. In 2009 when Layar began with geo-located layers, Funda, the Dutch real estate search engine, was one of the first and most popular layers on our platform. Today, individual agencies like 4one4 in Australia are using interactive print to provide relevant information about properties to their customers.

Interactive print goes far beyond the pages of magazines, pamphlets or business cards, and Van Santvoort, a real estate agency here in the Netherlands, is showing just what that can mean. At the recent Regionale Nieuwbouwbeurs real estate exhibition, the Van Santvoort stand featured walls full of digital interactivity built by Layar partner Limebizz.

Visitors to the Van Santvoort booth could scan the images and descriptions of real estate properties to view extra photos. Users could swipe through photos in and around the properties as well as view floorplans. Videos offered booth visitors with tours of properties, and a 360º interactive “walkthrough” really made them feel like they were there!

This project is a clear leg-up for Van Santvoort over the competition. Instead of a single picture and description, Van Santvoort could provide multiple pictures, videos and even 360º experiences at an in-person exhibition, instead of online where these experiences traditionally live. Bringing the digital to the real life really made the difference for Van Santvoort.

It’s no secret that interactive print is exploding across the globe.

From real estate agencies in Australia, to big brands and publishers in Canada and the United States, to the biggest publications in France and the Netherlands, and even a boom in downloads of the Layar App in Saudi Arabia – Layar is a truly worldwide company. We’ve even taken it upon ourselves to make sure content is distributed across dozens of servers worldwide for greater speed.

As the international market for interactive print emerges, it’s time for us to take the next step in providing the best possible user experience to as many people as possible. Available today for iOS and Android, version 7.2.2 of the Layar App  includes support for the following languages:

Combined with English, these languages make up a large portion of Layar users around the globe, but this just the beginning. To provide the best experience to more users, we will add more languages based on usage and demand over time.

The inclusion of native language support within the Layar App makes it easier for publishers to create seamless and engaging experiences for their readers. Publishers could already tailor their interactive print content into the language of their choice, and now the Layar App itself follows suit to provide an immersive experience in a user’s native language. It’s simply a better all-around experience for users.

Want your language supported in the Layar App? Let us know in the comments section which one we should do next!

One of the world’s most iconic magazine brands has thrown its hat into the interactive print ring with Layar.

Playboy, the massively popular men’s entertainment magazine, has selected Layar as its provider of choice for interactive print going forward in the Netherlands. The half-century-old publication joins a rapidly growing list of publishers and printers teaming up with Layar to bring engaging digital content to print readers. Read all about it in our press release here.

Click here to try it out!

Starting with its most recent issue, on sale today, Playboy Netherlands will work with Certified Layar Partner Limebizz to provide exclusive digital content to print readers when they scan special pages with the Layar App. You can buy the magazine in the Playboy webshop. Together they’ve crafted some beautiful artwork and iconography combining the logos of Playboy and Layar to draw the reader’s attention to the extra content.

In this issue, readers can vote for their favorite playmate of the last year to decide who becomes Playmate of the Year for 2012. On the cover, the three lovely nominees – Beau, Nadine and Lotte – come to life to entice your vote. Inside, last year’s winner – Zimra – introduces readers to the interactive magazine in a video. (Hint: There’s a secret page giving you a look at exactly what made Zimra last year’s winner! See if you can find it!)

Flip through the photos below to check it out!

Readers can view extra photo slideshows of the nominees and take a look behind the scenes videos from their photoshoots. Other content includes videos of cool gadgets, cars and tech, a flashback to the girls of 1984, music playlist links (including a cool ticker of music using our new HTML widget), movie, tv and videogame trailers, contests to win prizes and much, much more!

We caught up with Patrick Goldsteen, Editor in Chief for Playboy NL, to discuss how this special issue came to be.

What made you decide to jump in with Layar?
We saw some other magazines who were experimenting with Layar. This gave us some insights into what we could do with it and we saw some great opportunities to extend the experience of the magazine reader. As Playboy we have a great amount of content but are limited to the 114 pages of the magazine. With Layar we virtually have an unlimited amount of possibilities to publish extra content.

What are your goals for this project?
During our recent restyle we focused on upgrading the quality of the content and with Layar we put our digital content within hands-reach of the magazine readers. This is the first step; after this we are planning to create extra interactive content with the HTML possibilities of Layar.

What do you like most about using Layar?
It really brings our content to life, like the cover. The cover would normally be static but since the cover now consists of a video, readers can see their favorite models move, talk and interact with them. This brings the experience really close to the readers.

Why bring interactive print to Playboy?
The majority of the Playboy readers are young adults within the age range of 18 to 30. They grew up in the digital age and their mobile device can almost be seen as their most precious asset. So we bring them extra content in a manner they understand on a device the love to use.

Plans for the future?
Our plan is to continue to experiment with Layar and challenge ourselves in new creative possibilities. It’s for sure that this won’t be a one-of-a-kind Playboy edition, this will be our second content layer for the magazine, and we are looking forward to creating these extra experiences for our readers.

It’s true that Playboy’s audience is a perfect fit for interactive print. Not only are they younger and more digitally connected as it is, but let’s face it – it’s safe to say that Playboy readers are far more engaged with the content in the pages than your average magazine reader.

There’s a lot to love in this issue of Playboy. The extra content is terrific and is just what readers of Playboy are looking for … more! The calls-to-action are beautifully created, blending Layar and Playboy’s logos into one instantly recognizable icon. Combined with color coded icons that draw readers to photos, videos and other content, it’s a masterful implementation.

UPDATE – February 18th, 2013 – Due to the explicit nature of this campaign, some of the content can not be viewed in the iOS version of the Layar App.