Member Article

Marketing innovation through digital reality

Bdaily is gearing up for the upcoming ‘Marketing: the art of’ event, and in the run up we’ve talked with some of the key speakers who are set to deliver their take on marketing in 2012.

Dr. Geoff Archer from Teesside University gave an insight into the venture he’s been involved with alongside Colin Kelly, owner and MD of digital design and ad agency MAAD.

Geoff told Bdaily about their project:“Colin’s company, MAAD specialise in very high end digital media marketing tools.

Their clients are people like Braun, Procter & Gamble, Gillette and Boots.They create digital assets which illustrate what products are doing, for instance what the elements of an aerosol are doing with the skin.

“They specialise in something called Augmented Reality, which is when something which is a physical product interacts with a digital version of itself. For example, QR codes are a very simple version of this. You scan a code with your phone camera and it links you to a website, and so you’re linking something physical, a piece of paper, to a website.”

Colin came to Geoff to develop a marketing asset that would demonstrate an electric shaver in a digital form, and would exactly mirror a real life product as it was being used.

“MAAD have created an animation that shows how the blades cut, flick, etcetera. We created something very bespoke for Colin in terms of a circuit board which went inside the shaver. And that communicated with the computer which, when you turn it on, activated the animation of the cutting action. And all the time when you’ve got this in your hand doing this, the digital shaver is moving in time with you. So you can rotate it, look at it…They wanted Teesside University to mentor them and transfer a bit of the skills over.”

Geoff explained how this can be used as a way of marketing a product, and may be used in a store or at a trade show. He went on to tell Bdaily about what he and Colin will be talking about at the “Marketing: The Art of” event.

“We’ll also be talking about other high end digital marketing assets that MAAD produce, such as, if you’ve ever been to Boots and had a skin consultation, the consultant there would have an iPhone which is linked to a special camera light. Now MAAD create the app that helps the consultant choose the products.

“What all these things have in common is that they immerse you in the product. It creates something which is intangible but links you to the product. It’s not like just reading about it, you’re touching, feeling … something’s happening when you’re doing it and that’s really important in marketing.

“Innovation occurs in strange places, and this project is something that is an example of Teesside doing something interesting and challenging. I’ll be advising on how to engage with universities to get expertise in this area.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Miranda Dobson .