Last month, automaker Nissan launched a huge campaign in Canada for 2013 Nissan Altima. This time around, they wanted to show off the innovation found in the new car with some innovation of their own: interactive print ads.

In coordination with Canada’s largest newspaper publisher Postmedia, creative agency TBWA, buying agency OMD and Layar, Nissan took over the front pages of 12 newspapers with full page ads, all enhanced using Layar. Check out the video below to see the campaign in action.

Postmedia project manager Maggie Greyson says Nissan, impressed by the capabilities of Layar, pushed to create an interactive print campaign.

“We had people looking into the future of print and they saw Claire Boonstra, co-founder of Layar, giving a lecture in New York,” says Greyson. “What Claire presented there was far above and beyond what the competition was offering. In a pitch to Nissan we incorporated Layar and it turned out to be the big shiny, innovative tool that they were attracted to.”

Yuri Machado, Postmedia’s Vice President of Integrated Advertising, was attracted to what he describes as the “natural, human interface” that Layar offers.

“Layar is a great way of bringing print to a mobile world,” he says. “I liked that it was easy for us to execute ourselves. It’s a much easier process and feels more like a natural experience than QR codes.”

The campaign also includes an 8-week editorial series called “Digital Life” which includes educational pieces that dive deeper into the world of Layar with instructions, a history of augmented reality (AR) and a company profile.

Postmedia says between 5 and 8 million people have seen the campaign. The publisher also plans to include AR in the newspapers’ coverage of the Summer Olympics to provide what it calls “second screen interaction” to the editorial content.

We received a special (and delicious) delivery here at the Layar office: chocolate! But not just any chocolate, this is chocolate from CHOCSTAR.nl - a Dutch site that lets you create your own custom chocolate bar.

But what’s really cool about CHOCSTAR is now every shipment comes in packaging which has been enhanced with the Layar Creator. Annefrid Imenkamp, CHOCSTAR’s CECM (Chief Executive Chocolate Maker… A.K.A. best job ever!) saw a demonstration of the Creator by very own Claire Boonstra just a few weeks ago. And now, their packaging is coming to life with digital content.

Here’s what she had to say about the experience:

“A couple of weeks ago I attended a network event where Claire Boonstra gave a presentation about Layar and the new Layar Creator. At that time we were in the process of updating the packaging of our chocolate and I was instantly inspired. The following day we got to work with the Layar Creator right away and were very pleased by the user friendliness and the easiness in which you can activate print with digital content.

At CHOCSTAR fun, interactivity, innovation and graphical design are of great importance and it’s these values in which Layar perfectly provides and significantly exceeds the QR code (which we previously used on our packaging). I also really like the fact that you have the possibility to change and improve the campaign whilst it is already published.

By means of the Layar creator, start-ups and smaller companies like CHOCSTAR which do not have big budgets or aren’t backed by wealthy investors are given the opportunity to provide added value (by means of information, interactivity and fun) to their customers and simultaneously distinguish it selves from competitors.

We are very enthusiastic about Layar and definitely thinking about other ways in which we can use the technology!”

Try it out yourself! You can either order some chocolate from CHOCSTAR, or click the image below and view it with Layar to experience the activated product packaging!

Last week we hosted our “Activeer Print” (Activate Print) event here in Amsterdam for close to 100 attendees from the publishing, print and media industries. We were thrilled by the turnout and we’re very thankful for all who attended.

If you weren’t able to make it (and if you happen to understand Dutch) you can now watch the entirety of the event online! We’ve uploaded videos of the presentations (6 in total) to YouTube and embedded a playlist above.

If you’d like to follow along with the slides, you can find those for Raimo and Leonieke’s talks right over here.

Don’t speak Dutch? Still be sure to check out video number 5, a walkthrough of the Layar Creator by own very own Xuan Wang. It’s in English, except for a small bit at the beginning, so be sure to have a look.

Back in March we told you about “Er is Post!”, a quarterly magazine from the Dutch national postal service PostNL, and how it had been enhanced with digital content and direct links using Layar. The video above shows the results.

Today, we’re excited to announce that PostNL and Layar have partnered to continue bringing interactive print to the doorsteps of over 6 million households in the Netherlands. PostNL announced the partnership today on their website.

Making traditional post advertising interactive is a nice bridge between the physical and online world, said PostNL Commercial Director Ger Jacobs in March. “With first-hand experience, we hope PostNL can better service its enterprise customers in the future by providing guidance in the use of old and new media.”

Yesterday marked the opening of Fashion Week here in Amsterdam, and to spread the word today, they’ve enhance the front pages of every big newspaper in the Netherlands.

From de Volkskrant to Spits to Trouw and of course De Telegraaf - all of them have content waiting to be unlocked and viewed by scanning them with Layar. The fashion house Marga Weimans is behind the “take over,” which features a special video and other info about Fashion Week.

If you’re in the Netherlands, pick up a newspaper, scan it with Layar and check out the videos and other content. Watch the video below to see today’s papers come to life!