Kia is taking advantage of the fact that consumers are often times engaging with content on their mobile devices while watching television.

To promote its Optima car model, Kia combined the tasks of mobile browsing and TV viewing using augmented reality as the bridge. Kia launched an augmented reality application for iPhone and Android to bring a 3D animation of the Kia Optima from the TV screen onto the mobile phone, enabling consumers to experience the car?s features in a fun and interactive way.

Explore Engage created the application for Kia. Mobile Marketer?s Giselle Tsirulnik interviewed Scott O'Brien, marketing director of Explore Engage, Sydney, Australia, Here is what he had to say:

How is Kia using augmented reality to let consumers experience the car?s features?
Through sponsorship of the Australian Tennis Open, Kia launched the augmented reality application on iPhone and Android to assist in the audience understanding of the car?s key features like color and design.

The advanced mobile application launches automatically into camera view and detected the Kia logo either on a TV screen or in a highly popular women?s magazine called New Idea.

The campaign was a combined effort between SMG Red, Yahoo and Channel 7 broadcast service of the Australian Tennis Open where Kia is a sponsor.

How is this initiative unique?
Never before in the few years augmented reality has entered mainstream marketing, has there been an effective link between our use of mobile and our still dominant activity of watching TV.

Finally Explore Engage through SMG Red, Yahoo, Channel 7 and Kia, has shown the world the new way to effectively leverage your media investments through a clever integrated campaign.

This campaign went beyond a ?check-in,? beyond a call to visit a Web site, it directly married mobile activity with TV viewing in a manner that is sure to have agencies around the world quite interested.

The activity of downloading an application for mobile relevant to your TV is the first point of a more certain metric to report deep target audience engagement.

Explore Engage is already planning several ways this unique solution can expand and become a standard ingredient in any new TV campaign worldwide through 2011 with brands looking for a definitive marketing edge.

What are some of the benefits of augmented reality?
By triggering 3D special effects from a key image like a brand's logo or other feature, augmented reality can facilitate the convenience and excitement of information and entertainment when and where it counts.

Augmented reality helps us inform, entertain, navigate, compete, configure, construct, learn and buy things.

What are some of the challenges?
As augmented reality is such a wide encompassing technology there are education efforts required by early adopters.

The brands that have invested in that process like Kia, Hotels.com, GE and McDonald?s are reaping the rewards.

One base level confusing point for those in the advertising marketing industry and the general population is realizing there is point of interest location-based augmented reality and there is image tracking creative type augmented reality.

With reports of over 500 million people being exposed directly to an augmented reality application in 2009, that exposure is expected to have doubled at this point and smartphone adoption has a large role in that.

Some not so positive conclusions have been made about augmented reality due to agencies not specializing in the technology churning out some fairly average creative.

Further adding a bump in the road to acceptance, some great augmented reality applications have received reasonable funding and developed to a fair standard, only to be seen back three clicks from the homepage.

Where do you see augmented reality in the next year or so?
What is clear to Explore Engage is that there are many practical uses for augmented reality within the realms of our devices and platforms now. With major companies like Nokia, Qualcomm, Adobe, Samsung, Apple, Microsoft and the Android market developing augmented reality strategies, there is a more general consensus now the technology is only going to become more a part of our lives.

According to forecast hype videos from the mentioned companies, augmented reality will touch almost every facet of our life.

Together with predictions by John Underkoffer of Minority Report, in a matter of years human computer interaction will be dominated by augmented reality, gesture control and other supporting technologies.

Explore Engage is determined to be part of the leadership in provision of augmented reality services and platforms and on that note, it has already commenced development of augmented reality sunglasses which may be launched some time during 2012.

As the tablet device market through iPad initially disrupted the technology market place, AR glasses are expected to have some early adopter popularity given the wide range of applications and content already being designed, collated and submitted on the smartphone stores.

By December 2011, we expect that augmented reality will become a normal part of our media diet bridging print to digital and mobile to TV commonly through informative or entertaining motives with clear monetization strategies.

Final take
Here is a demo of the Kia augmented relaity experience
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