Fans of thrilling fiction novels have long been anticipating its release, and now you can get a sneak peek with Layar!

Inferno, the latest book from author Dan Brown, author of the massively popular Da Vinci Code, is the latest book to use Layar’s interactive print to help promote its release. Readers in the Netherlands can get an exclusive look at this highly anticipated release by using Layar to scan an ad for the new book.

By scanning the ad in Volkskrant Magazine, fans can read, watch, listen and buy with just a few taps. Brown readers can get a sneak peek of the first chapter, watch a video trailer for the book, listen to a sample of the audio book or directly buy the book right from their phone! 

Volkskrant Magazine is distributed with de Volkskrant newspaper, which translates to “the people’s paper.” De Volkskrant is the largest newspapers in the Netherlands, read by 750,000 people each day. Already, thousands of readers have scanned the ad and interacted using Layar. Volkskrant Magazine is part of multimedia publisher de Persgroep. De Persgroep Advertising worked together with their client to produce this ad.

“We enjoy looking for creative crossmedia solutions together with clients to be able to interact with our readers”, says Olav Bongarts, director of de Persgroep Advertising. “We are quite overwhelmed by the success! More than 2,000 readers scanned the ad with Layar and created almost 5,000 interactions. It’s great that we can measure the Return on Investment so quickly and accurately.”

Interactive print has seen a lot of activity lately around books as publishers use Layar to promote new releases in exciting and engaging new ways. Just last month we shared with you how CBS Outdoor had again used Layar on advertising for popular author David Baldacci’s latest novel, boosting web traffic to Baldacci’s site by over 500%!

Click here to see the ad and try it yourself with Layar!

^{Photo by Will Halsey/Bloomberg Businessweek}

Our friends at the Dutch fashion brand SuitSupply are back again with a huge, week-long insert campaign in the Wall Street Journal.

Just a few months ago in March we shared how SuitSupply launched its spring catalogue with an interactive print campaign that let you purchase items and see behind the scenes videos from their stylish photoshoots. Now, the brand is making a big push in the United States, publishing an interactive fashion newspaper in the Wall Street Journal.

The 32-page insert has been running since last Friday, May 9th and has the potential to reach 1.2 million subscribers per day. With the help of Layar partner Limebizz, the newspaper was made interactive with the Layar Creator.

“We’re getting a bigger footprint in the U.S., and we’re seeing lots more people going to our online store, so it made sense to do some with a bit of a broader reach,” CEO Fokke de Jong said in an interview with BusinessWeek.

The insert is a huge ad campaign from SuitSupply, and the fact that they’ve chosen to make it an interactive print campaign with Layar’s technology says a lot about their confidence in this new medium.

Brands are seeing higher engagement in ads and editorial content with interactive print, so it’s no surprise the SuitSupply again has chosen interactive print for this important campaign.

Gazettes Newspapers, a group of newspapers in Long Beach, California, has discovered the Layar Creator, augmenting the front pages of its sports sections with bonus videos for readers.

Sports editors Mike Guardabascio and J.J. Fiddler recorded the video embedded above that explains how readers can use their smartphone to access the bonus content with Layar. Here’s a excerpt from an article about the project that appeared in the Gazettes.

Gazette Publisher Simon Grieve said that as digital consumption continues to grow, the Gazette is dedicated to embracing the advancements of a tech-hungry world, and finding ways to integrate familiar and trusted forms of news media with these new developments. […]

“Newspaper pages can only hold so much,” Grieve said, “but the opportunity to have an array of digital content hiding just beneath the surface, ready to be brought to life with a simple scan from a cell phone, opens a lot of exciting doors for both newspapers and their readers.”

Mike Guardabascio, co-sports editor at the Gazettes, shared his excitement about the new technology:

“When (co-sports editor) JJ Fiddler and I first got to the Gazettes, we joked about how great it would be to put our video highlights in the newspaper, should that technology ever exist.” Guardabascio recalled. “We weren’t serious, but now someone has come along and invented a way to do just that.”

We love that pioneering journalists have started using the Creator to enhance the static print pages of their newspapers. This project is a prime example of how any publication, big or small, can quickly begin creating interactive print all by themselves with the Layar Creator.

Gazettes also plans to continue using the Creator with it’s coverage of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

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!

Click here to read the Dutch press release!

Layar is very proud to be a part of the 2011 De Tegel journalism awards. Each year the event honors various achievements in journalism - it’s basically the Dutch version of the Pulitzer Prize.

This year, De Tegel is using a unique, new newspaper design to announce the winners, and they’ve given it a digital twist with Layar.

Today in The Hague, De Tegel holds its annual awards event, where the new paper design, filled with info about the winners and nominees, will be passed out to attendees. The paper was specially designed with tabs, an invention by Koos Staal (Staal & Duiker) and Matin van Ee (BDU). The new design aims to be easier to handle and read while remaining attractive to advertisers.

Each nominee has a photo and description which have been augmented with digital content. Readers can scan the images to view videos, hear more information or read the nominated works.

Have a look at the example pages after the jump and scan them with Layar to check out the project!

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