If you’ve noticed all of the Augmented Reality and Layar activity coming out of South Africa over the last year or so, you can probably thank one of our Layar Partner Network members, Digital Narrative.

2014 was busy year for Digital Narrative, as the creative agency helped several brands and publishers add Interactive Print to their marketing strategies. This includes a travel contest with vida e caffè, and several issues of Food & Home Entertaining from Caxton Magazines.

Both were widely successful campaigns, and in 2015, the agency doesn’t show signs of slowing. Here’s a look at what Digital Narrative already has cooking this year.

Sea-Change Exhibition
The Sea-Change Exhibition in Cape Town, South Africa, is a multimedia project that tells the story of the birth of humanity and the ancient relationship we all have with the sea. Displaying large format photographs along the sea wall on the promenade, a selection of these panels are transformed into high-definition videos through Augmented Reality when scanned with the Layar App.

Online retailer and exhibit sponsor Pick n Pay also invited the exhibit to participate in their Cape Town Cycle Tour expo stand earlier this month. A selection of the panels were on display where staff with iPads showed off the interactive AR videos to the public, helping to generate over 5,000 views in 3 days.

“I have been amazed at the power of AR (and specifically the LAYAR app) to add an exciting new dimension to our exhibition,” said Ross Frylinck, co-director of the Sea-Change Foundation. “It’s a very easy app to use and the feedback from the public has been really positive. To see our photographs come to life in HD video has been very rewarding.”

Interactive Wall at IAB Summit
Digital Narrative also created another type of “wall” exhibit, this time at the recently held IAB Summit. The concept was a large 4m x 5m Pinterest board-style wall, and each item could be scanned with Layar to reveal the exciting possibilities of Augmented Reality.

“Layar’s Augmented Reality is a QR Code on steroids! No wait, even a great QR Code is still a QR Code and Layar is a whole new ball game,” said one attendee. “Watching a wall, a document or even a business card come to life in front of you is mind altering.”

MINI 5 Door
And finally, Digital Narrative was recently employed to help showcase some of the new features of the MINI 5 Door at The Design Indaba expo in Cape Town. Users could scan displays and parts of the car to hear the engine sounds on specially provided headphones, watch the latest television commercial, view a 360º panorama of the car or enter a contest to win an iPad Mini.

“The augmented reality on the MINI Design Indaba expo stand was great! It helped communicate the essence of the stand by taking the 5 senses to the next level,” said Carmen Slade, Marketing Manager MINI. “This tie into the MINI 5 Door hatch on the expo floor was a great brand fit and one enjoyed by all who interacted with it.”

Earlier this year we shared an interesting client example from Food & Home Entertaining (F&HE, published by Caxton Magazines), a South African magazine which had partnered with grocery store chain SPAR to offer a recipe contest to readers with Interactive Print. Building off the success of that campaign, the pair have teamed up again to make a special December issue for the holidays with loads of interactive content.

Working with Layar partner Digital Narrative, F&HE has included 18 Interactive Print pages that reveal video recipe tutorials, secret ingredients, bonus recipes, tips and even prizes when scanned with the Layar App. By watching, video demos from the magazine’s food editor Thulisa Martins, readers can win vouchers to SPAR stores, as well as hand-picked kitchen gadgets and cookbook hampers.

Click on the images below and scan them with Layar to see how the holiday edition of F&HE comes to life with Layar.

“We’ve been bringing a lot of our print content to life through Augmented Reality on our various magazine titles as it enhances the reader’s experience by giving them access to exclusive content,” said Jana Kleinloog, Digital Manager at Caxton Magazine. “The Food & Home Entertaining audience is really interacting with us via this medium especially when Layar gives them useful content like cooking tutorial videos and extra recipes.”

“It’s been a pleasure to collaborate with Caxton Magazines and SPAR on this interactive issue,” said Johan Walters, Director of Digital Narrative. “We are firm believers in adding magic to print and look forward to engage the mobile savvy Food & Home Entertaining reader.”

Judith Gale, Group Brands Manager for SPAR, commented that the use of Layar’s Interactive Print technology in the magazine “truly makes the dishes come alive and even easier to make.”

South African cafe chain vida e caffè has partnered with Dubai Tourism and the Atlantis, The Palm resort in Dubai to launch an innovative augmented reality contest with Layar.

Thanks to the help of local Layar Certified Partner Digital Narrative, vida e caffè is offering its customers the chance to win an all-expenses-paid five-night stay in the luxurious resort by scanning its coffee cups.

Over 330,000 cups have been adorned with a special sleeve made interactive with Layar. Coffee drinkers can scan the cups with the Layar App to see a video about the resort and enter for a chance to win the trip.

“As a brand we are always looking for innovative ideas and concepts to leverage from,” said Andrea Calitz, Marketing Manager, vida e caffè. “Our coffee cup sleeves are a popular media space and we were looking for a way to take this concept to the next level. Our goal is to show potential brands and customers out there that the vida cup sleeve is a great addition to any media or brand strategy.”

“It’s great to work with partners that are willing to push the envelope and try new things to engage their customers,” said Johan Walters, Director, Digital Narrative. “With Augmented Reality we are making the print media digitally relevant to the consumer. And at the same time, create something innovative and exciting for the customer.”

They brand has even enlisted the talents of some local YouTube celebrities to promote the contest with their unique brand of humor.

The contest is currently running throughout the month of September, so if you’re in South Africa, head over to a vida e caffè location and enter to win!