As the end of the year approaches, so too does the cold and miserable weather of winter. When it’s wet, cold and gray, who wouldn’t rather be in a sunny, warm location by the beach? That’s the idea of the tourism department of Sarasota County, located on Florida’s Gulf Coast, which will be running ads this January in one of the more dreary winter cities, London.

But they’re not just any ads. They’re Augmented Reality (AR) ads, wrapped onto the sides of the city’s taxi cabs. Sarasota County has teamed up with Miles, a destination marketing agency from Sarasota, to create scannable AR taxi wrap ads that spring to life when scanned with the Layar App.

By scanning the taxis, users will see a minute-long 360-degree video of Siesta Key Beach and will be directed to the VisitSarasota.org website where they can learn more.

“It is imperative that we stay on top of the latest marketing trends in order to establish Sarasota County as the must experience destination on Florida’s Gulf Coast,” said Seana Mincy, Advertising Manager for Visit Sarasota County. “Incorporating interactive mobile technologies, such as Layar, into our advertising mix helps us remain on the cutting edge of our industry.”

The taxi ads will accompany promotional posters throughout London, including at airports, public transit stations, restaurants and more.

“We believe traditional media is an important part of a marketing strategy, not as the primary messenger, but more as a tool to drive visitors to the digital marketing components,” said Neal Alfano, Creative Director for Miles. “To help bridge the gap between traditional and digital media, Miles incorporates mobile technologies such as Layar in traditional advertising to provide instant gratification and delivery of content.”

Beverage company Crystal Light launched a magazine advertising campaign with a twist – Layar’s interactive print technology!

Readers of various magazines in the U.S. will see the “Color Me Stylish” Crystal Light ads. Some of the ads feature black-and-white illustrations which can be brought to life with color by scanning with the Layar App.

In this example, scanning the ad brings up a nicely-designed widget that lets the reader view different illustrations for different flavors and colors of Crystal Light. The products in the illustration change color and can be tapped to view more info.

Try it yourself! Click the image to the right to view a larger version that you can scan with the Layar App. It’s a fine example of what’s possible with the Layar Creator.

Allianz, a multinational insurance and investment services company and one of the world’s largest businesses, is using Layar to bring augmented reality (AR) and interactive print to its customers.

This summer, with the help of Layar Partner Network member TAB Worldmedia, Allianz Suisse launched a new mobile application - KonnectAR - which allows its clients to access digital content, services and information related to the company’s printed brochures and magazine advertisements. The app was built using the Layar SDK, one of our custom solutions that allows brands to embed Layar’s AR technology directly into their own apps.

When a customer scans an Allianz product brochure or an Allianz advertisement in a magazine, the KonnectAR app provides animated product information, links to relevant websites or even a button to quickly call a service employee on their phone in their preferred language!

“The possibility to connect our online content with our offline commercial instruments and engagements is of crucial importance in an ever increasing connected world,” said Patrick Eugster, Head of Corporate Development and Strategic Marketing at Allianz Suisse. “KonnectAR allows the customer an easy transfer across different media instruments and therefore improves the whole brand experience these customers face.”

Read more about the new KonnectAR app from Allianz!

Our friends over at Tribal DDB - a global digital advertising agency - recently employed the help of Layar Vision to enrich one of its projects. The project is a desk reference “calendar” that the company sends to prospective clients to inform them all about mobile.

It’s called “Mobile Engagement: A Guide to the Mobile World,” and now with Layar’s help, the calendar comes to life with augmented information within the pages. In the video above, we sat down with Joeri Kiekebosch, who worked on the project, to get an idea of how and why they chose Layar Vision.

“We had the feeling that a static desk reference was… static. And we’re a digital agency that does digital stuff, so we needed something that made it interactive,” Kiekebosch told us. “If you talk about mobile, you should be able to do something with your mobile. Why not scan the calendar with your mobile and see extra content on top of that?”

“There are a lot of big shots walking around here, and these people kind of like geekiness but are not geeks. AR is perfect for these people,” he adds. “Everybody has an iPhone, they were like ‘Oh this is cool, this is fun!’ They got it installed easily, they understood it. For these kinds of people it really worked.”

Take a look at our interview with Joeri to see the calendar in action!

Last week I spoke at Mobile Convention Amsterdam. This time I did not talk about Layar and its vision for Augmented Reality, but about my personal vision on mobile and where this is all going. It was the first time that I shared these thoughts publicly, and it was pretty exciting to see the reactions!





And here’s an easier-to-view version of the presentation: