Last year we told you about how Zalando, Europe’s leading online-only shoe, fashion and accessory retailer, had integrated the Layar SDK into its iOS app to give users a unique AR experience for its magazine. Now, the latest issue of Zalando’s magazine is out with even more great Augmented Reality and Interactive Print experiences.

Several pages within the magazine have been made interactive, giving readers a unique print-to-digital shopping experience that connects items in the magazine with their digital counterparts on the Zalando website. A variety of Augmented Reality features wow readers as photography comes alive with behind-the-scenes videos, and 360-degree experiences give them new views of top products, and much more.

“This new feature is a great opportunity to offer our customers additional inspiration for gifts, festive outfits or even their own wish list,” said Arne Schepker, Vice President of Brand Marketing at Zalando (translated from the company’s German press release). “With videos, music and 3D views, we encourage interaction with our customers and make our brands and products even more vivid.”

iOS users in Germany, Austria and Switzerland can download the Zalando app and scan the pages of the latest issue to see the interactive content. To see it in action, have a look at the video below!

Bangkok, Thailand-based graphic design agency Work Actually has recently partnered with Thanachart (TNC) Bank, one of Thailand’s largest banks, to help bring a bit of interactivity to its customers.

Each year the bank gives out calendars to current and new customers, and this year scanning the calendar with the Layar App reveals extra digital content. Work Actually has commissioned portraits of Thailand’s King, Bhumibol Adulyadej by artist Atelier PorChong to feature in the calendar.

Scanning the portraits plays music composed by the King himself, who is actually an accomplished jazz saxophone player. A total of 800,000 calendars have been printed and distributed to bank branches, including 450,000 hanging calendars and 350,000 desk calendars.

So far the calendars have been a great success in Thailand, attracting hundreds of thousands of pageviews and interactions. What’s even more impressive is the average user is scanning over-and-over, with an average of 10 pageviews and 8 interactions per person. It’s only a few weeks into the new year and already around 3% of the calendars have been scanned, based on unique users.

Check out the video above to see more about this campaign, or try it yourself by scanning here on our Client Examples page.

Last year we told you about how Marker Studio, a digital agency from New Zealand, used the Layar SDK to embed AR technology into the existing Yellow NZ app, the country’s Yellow Pages mobile app. Yellow Pages directories have become a common use case for Interactive Print, so it’s no surprise to see more activity in this area.

Just recently, digital agency Citric Media partnered with Global Directories, publishers of over 15 Yellow Pages directories in the Caribbean and Latin America. Together they’ve added AR to nearly 1 million Yellow Pages directories in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands.

900,000 directories in Jamaica and 70,000 in the Caymans have been enhanced with Interactive Print using the Layar Creator. The directories are hand delivered to homes and businesses, and can also be picked up by customers at their telecom provider.

Global Directories says this is part of a broader plan to incorporate AR into other guides and directories, including Blue Pages for government information, Island Pages for tourism information and Menu Pages for food and restaurant information.

“The way consumers access information is evolving rapidly,” said Mark Macfee, CEO of Global Directories. “Augmented Reality is an extremely useful tool for advertisers, as it enhances the perceived value of products, services and brands. Cayman Islands Yellow Pages is thrilled to be offering this novel marketing tool to our customers so they can in turn build stronger relationships with their existing clientele, attract new customers, boost sales, and enhance the shopping experience. With this exciting technology we aim to give our advertisers a competitive edge.”

The new interactive directories have been well received, and have even attracted media attention in both Jamaica and the Cayman Islands.

To see for yourself, try scanning these examples from our Client Examples page.

Certified Layar partner Lumenal Code has teamed up with design team Acme Scenic to produce interactive AR murals for a Nike sales conference in Las Vegas.

The installation, which took place at the Red Rock Casino and Resort, consisted of 5 murals, each approximately 12′ tall, with LED lighting embedded in channels within the murals. When attendees scanned any of the murals with the Layar App, they came to life with interactive animations educating them on new digital sales tools, as well as behind-the-scenes videos of how the murals were created.

“The purpose of our installation at the conference was to provide a fun, artistic introduction to this new set of digital tools,” says Lumenal Code. “Every night, while attendees slept, we updated the content so the next day they had a completely new experience scanning the murals.”

“The animations contained links within them that brought you to one-pages about the digital sales apps, as well as information about an on-going raffle that had the answers hidden within the murals,” the company adds. “There was also a link a series of behind-the-scenes illustrations and time-lapse video showing the creation process for the murals.”

You can learn more about this installation over at Lumenal Code’s website where they have more photographs of the murals and example of the behind-the-scenes video.

Volkswagen is the latest in a number of large automakers to add Augmented Reality and Interactive Print to its marketing strategy. Similar to Nissan Canada’s print takeover from 2012, Volkswagen has launched a sizable newspaper ad campaign in its home country of Germany with Interactive Print enhancements placed front-and-center.

A full twelve-page advertisement in Welt am Sonntag (Germany’s largest Sunday newspaper) shows off the new high-tech features of the 2015 Volkswagen Passat with videos that play right off the page when scanned with the Layar App. Additionally, readers can play with an interactive widget using Layar to view the new Passat with their own choice of color and rim style.

In total, the ads will be part of a circulation of over 400,000 newspapers. The pages have also been compiled into a brochure that will be distributed to every German Volkswagen dealership, as well as select business hotels including Radisson, Grand City Hotel, and Holiday Inn. Over 164,000 copies of the booklet are initially being shared.

The campaign was produced by Volkswagen’s German advertising agency Grabarz & Partner, with digital content production by Mackevision and zweiteHeimat. Limebizz, an Advanced Layar Partner, was employed to help with the AR and Interactive Print items.

So far the campaign has been a success, including some attention from the local press. To give it a try yourself, scan these examples with the Layar App.