• Telefónica Digital to integrate Aurasma's Augmented Reality platform into its media services and distribute to mobile customer base
• Biggest deal ever in the Augmented Reality space, with scope to reach 25 markets and 300m customers
17 September 2012- Te lefónica Digitaltoday
announces a global partnership with Aurasma, the world's
leading augmented reality platform. Under the terms of the
deal, Telefónica will integrate Aurasma's cutting-edge
technology into the range of media services Telefónica offers
brands and advertisers. The agreement, made by Telefónica
Digital's global advertising team, represents the
biggest deal between a global telecoms company and an
augmented reality provider to date and will see Telefónica
drive distribution of Aurasma's technology across its
footprint, starting initially with the UK through O2.
Augmented reality (also known as AR) is already bringing
traditional media to life, transforming current static forms
of advertising into interactive content unlocked by mobiles
and tablets. Analysts predict the total AR market will be
worth $600 billion by 2016*.
Aurasma's innovative technology recognises images and
objects, allowing interactive digital content such as videos,
coupons, competitions and 3D animations to be unlocked from
virtually any type of media, including outdoor billboards,
print adverts, products, physical locations and in- store
materials. Since launch in June 2011, the company has already
attracted over 8,000 commercial partners to its platform and
reached more than four million downloads of its app.
Under the terms of the partnership, Telefónica will integrate
Aurasma into its media offering, enabling brands to benefit
from augmented reality as part of their marketing campaigns.
The capability will be offered alongside other technologies
including location-based marketing and mobile coupons, with
Telefónica helping brands to introduce new levels of
interactivity and customer engagement into their advertising
campaigns.
Telefónica will also seek to increase the distribution of
Aurasma's app through its mobile customer base and also
implement augmented reality in its own marketing
campaigns.
The partnership will initially be rolled out in the UK
through O2 and offered to brands through O2
Media. The two companies will work together to introduce new
innovations around augmented reality and mobile into the UK
market. The capability will be rolled out to other Telefónica
markets in due course.
"Augmented reality has the potential to fundamentally
change advertising, transforming current static formats and
introducing new levels of interactivity," said Shaun
Gregory, Global Director of Advertising at Telefónica
Digital. "Aurasma is the undoubted leader in this space
with a uniquely scalable platform approach and best in class
image recognition technology. It has already demonstrated the
power of its technology in thousands of innovative campaigns
across the world and we look forward to working with them to
further drive the use of this technology in
advertising and marketing communications."
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Matt Mills, Head of Global Partnerships at Aurasma said, "We
are delighted to be working with Telefónica - one of the
world's largest and most innovative telecoms companies.
Telefónica has a deep understanding of the whole mobile
ecosystem and so immediately grasped Aurasma's potential to
transform the way that people use their phones to engage with
the world. We look forward to working with the Telefónica
Digital team to bring this transformation to the thousands of
brands who advertise through their media services and over
300 million Telefónica customers."
[Ends]
*Source: Semico "Augmented Reality: Envision a More Intelligent World" Aug 2012
About Telefónica Digital
Telefónica Digital is a global business division of
Telefónica. Its mission is to seize the opportunities within
the digital world and deliver new growth for Telefónica
through research & development, venture capital, global
partnerships and digital services such as cloud computing,
mobile advertising, M2M and eHealth. It is also driving
innovation in over the top communications services under a
new umbrella brand called Tu. Telefónica Digital will deliver
these new products and services to Telefónica's 309
million customers as well as leveraging the power of the
internet to enter new markets. It is headquartered in London
with regional centres in Silicon Valley, Sao Paulo, Spain and
Tel Aviv. Jajah, Terra, Tuenti, Media Networks Latin America,
48 and giffgaff are all managed under the Telefónica Digital
umbrella.
www.telefonica.com/digital
@tefdigital www.telefonica.com/digitalhub
Aurasma is the world's leading augmented reality platform.
Available as a free app for iPhones, iPads and high-powered
Android devices or as a free kernel for developers, Aurasma
uses
advanced image and pattern recognition to blend the
real-world with rich interactive content such as videos and
animations called "Auras".
Auras can be created for printed images, product packaging,
clothing, physical places and users can even use the app to
create and share their own. Since its launch in June 2011,
Aurasma has had more than four million downloads, 400
Aurasma-enabled apps and over 8,000 partners in markets
including retail, fashion, sport, automotive, education,
advertising and publishing are using the free technology in
their campaigns, on their products or embedding the
technology in their own applications. Aurasma was developed
by and is part of software company Autonomy - an HP Company.
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