The recent location-based AR campaign held by virtual sims LovePlus of Konami seems very successful. Yes it does, especially it has driven a large group of tourism to Atami even when the place is under its down time. People on Mashable are confused, why some people in Japanese, or simply speaking, Otaku, can “enjoy” a vocation with their virtual lovers? (if you have read through the case, you know that the “package” is roughly HKD 3800 per “person”, and of coz, their virtual mates are “persons” too….)
Creepy, it’s what USA people comments.
Maybe. But before any judgement, they seem very enjoying throughout the trip, plus, they DO have also boosted the tourism of Atami…. yeah, creepy successful though.
However, I bet some US people will be surprised on how the Japanese people leverage the location-based service innovatively. Maybe foursquare can “have some similar fun” based on this opportunity? Haha, gotta be interesting.
Do you have any ideas on the next innovations? Leave me your comment below. =)
While people believe that AR, Augmented Reality, is one of the star technologies that would properly change our world, its marketing potential is still in its infancy stage and we’ve yet-to-know its true limitation as not many of us have the resources for experiments…
“The foundation of augmented reality lies in adding a layer to the real world,” says Chris Barbour, head of digital marketing for Adidas Originals. “That’s what we have done. We have taken a real world item and added a fantastic virtual world on top of that”
All users have to do is go to the Adidas site and hold up their sneaker, which has a code embedded in its tongue, in front of their computer webcam. A virtual world then pops out in front of them and they can navigate it using their sneaker as a controller.
“We are not trying to mimic a real-world look, we have a more stylized, pop-up book creative approach,” says Barbour. “The neighborhood is displayed on a two dimensional computer screen, but you can use your shoe to control the angle and depth of view and zoom in and out, giving a 3-D sense of perspective.”
Over the next few months, Adidas plans to introduce three augmented reality games developed by game developer xForm into the virtual neighborhood. The sneakers will then serve not only as the key to get in, but also act as the controller for the games. Among those available will be a skateboard game, where the sneaker acts as the controller to navigate the virtual city’s alleys, a Star Wars-like game with the sneaker and a music-based game.
So three more AR games will be shown in the coming few months, which is, of course, as cool as Adidas’ brand. ;)
