Leading Edges uses technology to enhance advertising

Published 6:00 am Sunday, May 27, 2012

    If local advertising agency Leading Edges has its way, pretty soon you will be using your iPhone or iPad to bring its clients’ ads to life.

    The agency’s brand new HD On Me app uses an existing technology called Augmented Reality in a new way. AR technology allows smart phones to recognize images through the phone’s camera. HD On Me uses that technology to animate and otherwise enhance advertisements.

    The idea is similar to QR tags, the little square bar code-like patterns in some ads that bring up more information about a product when scanned. But while QR Tags would simply direct a user to a website or video, HD On Me brings up content that is part of the context of the ad itself. For example, if you use an iPad, with HD On Me enabled, to look at a Leading Edges billboard, the billboard will become an animation, while the sky and other environment around the billboard remain unchanged on your iPad’s screen.

    “It’s like QR codes on steroids,” said Tony Boutwell, vice president and creative director at Leading Edges. “This stays in the context of what you’re viewing, then maps interactive content.”

    The app works with still images like billboards, magazine pages, t-shirt designs, and business cards. Ads and logos that use the app will have an HD On Me logo nearby to let people know that they can use the app to make the ad “come to life.”

    Boutwell said that he doesn’t know of anyone else using augmented reality in the way that Leading Edges plans to use it, but, he said, “I think it’s going to take off.”

    He said there are a variety of ways the technology could be used in sales and advertising, such as creating virtual sales people to provide more information about products consumers see on store shelves. Augmented reality is GPS aware, and can work in 3D, Boutwell said, so he feels it’s only a matter of time until more companies start taking advantage of it.

    HD On Me has not been fully implemented yet, but it is available free on the iTunes App Store and will work with a few selected images, including the cover of the 2012 Official Mississippi Tour Guide.