The Wall Street Journal reports on some new 3-D techniques being implemented by marketers and agencies:
Papa John’s International, the U.S. Postal Service and General Electric have begun to incorporate “augmented reality,” or AR — a technology that lets consumers interact with hologram-like images — into their marketing. One well-known example of AR: the yellow first-down lines in TV broadcasts of football games.
Starting in June, pizza chain Papa John’s is affixing an AR image to the back of 30 million pizza boxes, for a rollout in coming weeks. Customers can visit a special Web site, hold the image up to a Webcam and use their keyboard to drive an animated, 3-D 1972 Camaro on the computer screen.
This week, the Postal Service will start running an ad campaign that touts a flat-rate shipping fee for its Priority Mail service. The online portion of the ad effort includes a “virtual box simulator” on the prioritymail.com site. The simulator allows consumers to hold an object, such as a cup or a book, in front of a Webcam and use the resulting 3-D image to determine the right size box for shipping the object.
There are both some very interesting, and silly, uses for this technology, but it sounds like in the right hands, it can be very cool. And it’s one more reason creative people and media need to work together.
