We’ve seen a number of print publications doing tie-ins with AR (Augmented Reality) over the past couple of years, but daily newspapers offering AR content on any form of regular basis are less common.

However, this month has seen not only one but two instances of just that. Earlier this week, The Independent launched its first issue as portion of a standard tie-in with Blippar, called Independent+. 

Metro has also been trialling AR content with Blippar, but in a far more quiet way. From 9-19 April, it ran a handful of ‘Blippable’ articles every day in its Guilty Pleasures gossip section, including the same old mixture of images, videos and competitions, in addition to ‘Blipp to Buy’ mCommerce functionality.

“We desired to ensure the print product wasn’t left behind,” says Sophie Robinson, creative director at Metro. “There’s no explanation for it to be two-dimensional. With AR, we will be able to feature all the same extra content and feedback as at the website. When you are at the move and you’re reading a few video on YouTube, to be capable of see it in your cellphone immediately just is sensible.”

Doing it right

“If we’re integrating Blippar into any advertising content, it is a one-off,” says Metro marketing communications director Bryan Scott. “The challenge on an everyday title is, how do you are making sure you might have content day-in day-out It requires extra content, and that’s the reason an additional pressure on us, but we’re determined that if we do it, we are going to do it properly, and infuse it during the paper.”

Whether meaning Metro would consider integrating AR as deeply because the Independent has continues to be seen – for now, it is all strictly inside the test stages.

“As we investigate new revenue streams, we’ve been meeting up with small companies who offer AR technologies,” says Robinson. “We’re just seeking to test the appetite of our readers for this content, and we’re also going to be testing a couple of other things. We haven’t any idea yet if we are going to carry this on.”

Known

Metro has worked with Blippar before. In November 2011, it ran an early test campaign which gave readers the danger to win an iPad, by playing a virtual fruit machine, which attracted greater than 10,000 unique users, and in March 2012 ran a promotion with an AR element added on, which was interacted with by 3,500 individuals.

In fact, that’s a huge a part of the explanation Metro chose Blippar – its familiarity, not only to the paper but in addition to its readers.

“Out of the entire companies we met with, we decided a tribulation with Blippar will be best because we’ve done stuff with them before,” says Robinson. “Plus, we all know a number of our readers have already got Blippar on their phone, they usually get it. In actual fact, whenever another magazine or paper uses Blippar, it actually helps us, by educating them concerning the technology and inspiring them to download the app.”