The following appears on quocirca.com by Louella Fernandes
According to Juniper Research, the mobile Augmented Reality (AR) market is set to increase from 60 million users this year to nearly 200 million in 2018. By providing an interactive dimension to print, can AR technology breathe new life into traditional print media?
Despite on-going predictions of its demise, print is being revitalised through the use of interactive technology that connects it to the digital world. While many of us favour the speed and convenience of online content consumption, there remains a preference for print rather than pixels, as a way to disconnect from the online noise and distraction.
Yet the print and digital worlds need not be disconnected – both can work effectively together. It’s not a contest between print or digital – each channel plays a different role in influencing how a consumer interacts with a brand and makes a purchase decision. For instance, a print advertisement may stimulate a customer to want to learn more about a product, leading them to search online or through social media for more information.
For today’s “digital omnivores”, interacting with multiple platforms and devices has become the norm – watching television with a tablet nearby and mobile phone in-hand. But how can traditional off-line media, such as print, be brought into this digital mix? One approach is to make print interactive through the use of cross-media marketing.
Cross-media marketing integrates communications across multiple channels, rather than a “silo” approach where each channel is used in isolation. Response rates originating from cross-media campaigns may often surpass those achieved when using separate print or digital channels.
Print can be made interactive by incorporating a call to action in printed material, for instance through response mechanisms such as personal URLs (pURLs), QR codes or NFC technology. As an example, think of an upgrade offer on a direct marketing piece which links to a web site. If the offer is accepted, the recipient could receive a text message confirmation and a thank you postcard in the post.
The market for cross-media technology is broad and diverse. Alongside independent software vendors (ISVs), print vendors including Canon, Ricoh and Xerox offer cross media marketing services to help customers connect print to online channels.
But today, some progressive marketers are moving beyond QR codes and pURLs by using the latest Augmented Reality (AR) technology to bring print to life.
AR uses the camera sensors on smartphones and tablets to combine reality (think photographs coming to life in Harry Potter) with virtual overlays for a more dynamic interactive user experience. AR technology can, for example, allow readers to hold their phone in front of a printed page and see extra content on their handset. This might be a 
moving version of the static image on the paper, a video, a link to buy products or a game. An AR app (such as Layar, Aurasma or Blippar) searches for images and patterns on a server, validates the image and sends back the associated content.