The art of 'Blipping': behind the augmented reality business

The definition of blipping is ’the action of instantaneously converting anything in the real world into an interactive wow experience.’ London based augmented reality app Blippar is doing just that. CEO Ambarish Mitra takes Bdaily behind the business.

What key challenges has your company recently faced?

The key challenge that we are facing at the moment is targeting trade press and consumer press at the same time. Although we are working towards one vision, we have to deliver it to two very different audiences.

On one hand we need to show the industry how Blippar can solve some of their problems by offering brands a new way of engaging and connecting with consumers, and on the other hand we need to educate the consumer about this new verb – ‘to blipp’ and to make sure that it becomes second nature to everyone.

What is your biggest achievement over the past 12 months?

In the last 12 months we have reached over 20 million blipps on the platform and have collaborated with 750+ brands and publishers. We are already working on repeat campaigns for many of our existing customers, which is a testament to the great results they are getting with Blippar.

Another significant achievement is that we have succeeded in building a team who is single-mindedly working towards building the behaviour of “blipping”. No good idea can be delivered without great people, if there is going to be a revolution it has to start from inside.

What is your biggest focus for the coming year?

Our vision is for Blippar to become the default lens for image-recognition AR, and for the verb ‘to blipp’ to become synonymous for unlocking the physical world around us—whether using a smart phone, glasses, windscreen, or indeed any new device that might enter the market.

In order to achieve this, we will be working with more industry-leading brands and businesses, helping them to drive meaningful engagement with their target audiences and continuing to showcase the technology’s capabilities while extending our direct reach across Europe, the US and the rest of the world.

If you had to choose one top piece of advice for someone just starting out in business, or is currently operating within your industry sector, what would it be?

My advice is to keep building prototypes iteratively before you even start writing your business plans and also not to plan too much ahead. You shouldn’t try to solve a series of outlier problems in your business model from day one. For entrepreneurs who are constantly building the product, answers are usually revealed in the journey. It’s all a process of action, reflection, and reconfiguration.

Can you share with us your view of the current landscape of business, in your region or generally, and where your organisation sits within it?

We currently sit in the augmented reality landscape. Although Blippar is quasi-AR, our proposition is much bigger as we are working towards building a behaviour of which augmented reality is just one part.

The space of image recognition and augmented reality for real consumer usage is still very new and even unknown to most consumers. As the world of business is waking up to AR, it is very positive landscape to be in at the moment. Hardware products like Google Glass are proving to make landscape more attractive by building greater awareness and creating a positive momentum.