Barry O’Sullivan is a member of Irish Internationals growing digital team. The agency recently worked with Aer Lingus to deliver a print campaign integrated with the Blippar technology. Barry approached Digital Times with the case study and some results and the details are below. It is good to see Irish agencies and Irish brands looking to use AR technologies to deliver direct response campaigns across print and online as part of an integrated campaign, and not just stand alone pieces of advertising.

At Irish International we’re always looking for fresh ways to bring our clients’ brands to life.
It’s why we love digital technologies that build on more traditional media experiences. QR codes were a good start. But we found them limiting, and they weren’t the most pleasant to look at. AR magazines were interesting, for a short while – but it didn’t make sense to hold a magazine up to a webcam: users should be able to interact with the extra content while they’re reading. It was then that we discovered Blippar. An ‘image recognition’ app that could effortlessly transform a print ad (or any still image) into a rich interactive experience, right in front of the consumers’ eyes.  A piece of technology that lets you direct people to whatever content you want. Whether that’s a simple 3D animation. A source of extra information, a money-off coupon, a video, anything.
We had to try out this new technology. Our client, Aer Lingus, was already using QR codes, so we showed it how it could make them work even harder, by not using them at all. Instead we offered the user a deeper, richer experience on their journey to purchase airline tickets – through the first ever ‘augmented reality’ print ad from a travel brand.  In just three days in Metro’s AR edition (a world first), our ad received over 1,000 unique Blipps. So that’s a perfectly effective press ad in its own right – which also delivered more click-throughs than we’d get from 650,000 views of an average banner ad.

So will apps like Blippar revitalise print?
Combine newspapers with smartphones, and you have a new channel that is not only engaging, but also allows you to share content with friends in ways that until now, we had only ever seen in Minority Report. And newspapers are just one application – the possibilities for adding value to outdoor media, to packaging, even to shopfronts and window displays are staggering. Below you can watch a demo that shows how the Blippable Aer Lingus ad worked. You’ll also see the full print ad. To Blipp it, just download Blippar from your app store hold your phone over the ad and discover what the Blipp everyone’s been talking about.

Below is the advert if you want to play around with the application. Just click on the image for a larger view and then hover your device’s camera over it.

Campaign
The research was conducted as part of Better Together, a national campaign which aims to build public support for community and voluntary groups by leveraging social media. It shows that 81% of Irish charities have a presence on Facebook, 43% use Twitter and 31% use YouTube. A separate study conducted by AMAS in February, found that only 61% of Irish businesses are currently using Facebook.

Non-profit
The new study was commissioned by The Wheel, the national representative and support body for community, voluntary and charity organisations. It is the first comprehensive research into the use of social media in Ireland’s non-profit sector.

Other key findings include:
• The majority of organisations (62%) use social media platforms on a daily basis
• Social media use among non-profits is a relatively new phenomenon with 76% of respondents using social media for less than two years
• 68% of organisations say their target audience are most likely to be online between 6pm and 12.00am, yet only 20% of organisations say they are likely to be online at this same time
• 67% say they have no budget allocated to social media but 71% say social media will be a priority for their organisation in the future

Followers
“The research shows that the non-profit sector see social media as an influential and cost-effective way to promote their cause and reach new potential supporters. However, it would seem that much of the sector is at the exploratory stage with the majority yet to use social media to its fullest potential. This is evidenced by the fact that 23% of organisations say they have more than 1,000 online followers, however just 6% have managed to grow their followers to more than 5,000,” says Hugh O’Reilly, The Wheel.

* The survey was conducted by The Wheel between 3 and 27 August 2011, among a sample of 178 community and voluntary organisations. Private sector data is derived from the Irish Online Marketing Sentiment Survey (AMAS, 2011).

iPhones are popular tools

Market research commissioned by mobile solutions provider Púca shows that despite the downturn, demand for the latest smartphones amongst adults remains strong with more than half (54%) claiming ownership of a smartphone.
On the day that Apple announces its latest iPhone, the research* shows that 28% of smartphone equipped adults have one of the devices with 14% of those without a smartphone intending to choose Apple for their next handset.
Young people are particularly likely to update to the iPhone with 23% of non smartphone owning 18-29 year olds wishing to make the iPhone their next purchase.

App usage
Apple users are ahead of the curve for app consumption with 98% downloading apps against 77% for all respondents. The research also shows Apple’s strength in the nascent tablet computing market with 6% of those surveyed owning an iPad.
“The rise of smartphones is certainly linked to the rise of social media. There is also certain ‘wow’ factor with Apple’s products design and usability. iPhones also benefit from the thriving content ecosystem Apple have created with the iTunes store,” says Eamon Hession, CEO Púca.

Finding apps
The survey also asked what were the most important ways users found apps with the top three ways being “word of mouth” (31% citing this of prime importance), searching for an app “like this” (21% citing this as most important) and the apps appearance in appstore charts (19% giving this prime importance).
“The results point the way to a three pronged approach to a successful app. The opportunity is there for brands to harness the power of word of mouth by making it easy for users to recommend the app via Facebook and Twitter integration. The high amount of users searching for “an app like this” means that a good app should have an inherent usefulness and fulfil an unmet need for users,” says Hession.

Location based services
Almost 75% of smartphone users are willing to share their location with a brand under certain conditions.
“Location enabled marketing has huge potential but our research underlines the importance of doing it right. The research shows that consent depends on how much the consumer trusts the brand, whether data is secure and if they receive a voucher or some other reward in return,” said Hession.

Púca’s research will be made fully available to subscribers of the company’s newsletter next week. To subscribe please visit http://www.puca.com/signup

* The survey was conducted by Market Research Company iReach during the period of 22nd September to 29th September using the iReach Consumer Decisions Research Panel which delivered 1,000 responses from adults in Ireland aged 18+ to 65+ and is nationally representative by Age, Region, Gender and Social Class.

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* The study was carried out in August by independent market research company, iReach. 216 businesses responded of which 25% were large enterprise, 29% medium enterprise, 21% small enterprise, 15% SoHo (Small office Home office) and10% public sector. Leinster comprised 59% of respondents, Munster 23% and Connacht/Ulster 18%.

It can now consider itself a top 20 publisher in Ireland and look to exploit enhanced advertising opportunities to a targetd demographic of petrol heads on the back of the growth. The breakdown of the figures is as follows:

CEO Fred Karlson is quoted as saying, “We have been overwhelmed by the very positive response we are getting from the DoneDeal website and in particular the motoring section. We have always been proud of our motoring section which continues to be our most popular area of the site. People seek an easy and safe channel to buy and sell cars and I am delighted that these ABC audit figures confirm that cars.donedeal.ie is now the website of choice for buying and selling cars in Ireland”.

Dennis Crowley (standing), founder of Foursquare regularly emphasises using Foursquare to engage with the real world, pointing to the benefits of earning badges as a way to encourage people to go to the gym or visit a museum. He has also hinted that in the future, users may be notified that they should check-in to places that they have been before.

Girls less interested than boys
Dubit, a youth communications agency, recently surveyed 1,000 UK teenagers with an equal balance between gender and age. The survey concerned Location Based Services (LBS).
48% of those surveyed aged between 11 and 18-years-old have not heard of Facebook Places, Foursquare, or Gowalla and SCVNGR. Furthermore, 67% of young people that have heard of location services don’t use them, and 58% of teens that have heard of them don’t see the point. Girls are less interested than boys: 76% of young females do not use any location application compared to 60% of males.
Facebook Places was recognised more than any other service with 44% being aware of it compared to 27% having heard of Foursquare. Awareness of all services increased with age, with Foursquare seeing the biggest difference. This appears to be a huge opportunity for Facebook.

The Irish experience
So what’s it like in the Irish market, are businesses and brands aware of Location Based Services, do they see potential in what was once deemed an unstoppable business model by many early adopters of Foursquare?
Claire Carroll, digital media strategist at Neo@Ogilvy in Dublin says her clients have shown a keen interest in the emergence of these services. “I think, as we’ve seen over the years with online media, they are awaiting tangible data and research on the Irish market in order to heavily commit to these services. I don’t think there’s any question around clients not wanting to adopt them, but it’s more how they are integrated into the marketing strategy right from the devising of the creative concept.”
David Hayes, digital PR & communities manager with Cybercom echoes these sentiments. “Clients are aware of LBS such as Foursqure and Facebook Places. From a marketing perspective Facebook Places offers the best option because of the scale of the user base with Foursqure coming in second.”
Ciarán Norris head of digital at media agency Mindshare says his clients are definitely interested in hearing about LBS, particularly due to the hype around Foursquare and, more recently, Facebook Places. “However we always caution them that they need to be prepared when using them to target very niche audiences. They can make great sense for businesses that have locations (cafés, restaurants, etc.) but require much more creative thinking for retail brands. Whilst development costs can be quite low, the low reach and difficulty of making them relevant means that there have been few successful uses, I’d argue, by big brands.”

Does Facebook Places have the edge over Foursquare?
So Location Based Services (LBS) are still very much in their infancy in Ireland, a country that is seeing smartphone [and tablet] use soar on a weekly basis.
The question remains: is there still potential for such services, despite a low uptake among Irish smart phone users, especially the youth market? “In the long term location based networking is going to grow, so yes there is still potential for these services but brands need to be creative in how they engage customers thorough these services. Once again innovation will be essential in creating a successful LBS marketing strategy. Time to get creative,” suggests Dave Hayes.
“When you factor in the emergence, in the UK, of near-field-communication and the increased development in mobile comparison shopping engines I think we’ll see strong adoption rates of LBS in the future,” says Claire Carroll. “In the UK, 90% of ‘check ins’ have been through Facebook Places. Because you can take your online social activity everywhere with you through the Facebook platform, there’s no real surprise in this high figure attributed to Facebook.”
Facebook Places, according to agency and planning folk seems to have the edge. “If brands can start to creatively use Facebook Places, which comes with in-built scale, then there is still a part for them to play. More likely location will be used more for targeting, sending messages to people based on their location by using GPS or phone-tower data, rather than relying on them checking-in,” argues Norris.

Potential remains
As consumer become more immersed and more comfortably familiar with the socially connected mobile, commercial world, LBS should be more accepted.
A recent Q2 Mobile Audience Insights Report from location-based ad sale house JiWire in the UK suggests over two-thirds of consumers would share their location in order to get relevant content delivered to their smartphones.
5,000 people in the UK and US were surveyed and 69% of those in the UK said they’d opt-in to location-based services for targeted, relevant content.
“This survey reveals the importance of daily deals and promotional information when approaching a shop, and highlights the usefulness of accessing stock information, directions and checking customer reviews,” says Peter Jones, MD of JiWire Europe.
What’s emerging from all of this is a clear picture. Consumers are happy to opt into LBS, but only if they receive content that’s relevant to them, that affords them value and provides them with useful information.
Sounds like sensible advertising, doesn’t it?

This article was first published in the September print edition of Digital Times. Subscribe here.