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Blippar’s quest to scale bolstered by Geometry Global partnership

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By Jennifer Faull, Deputy Editor

May 17, 2017 | 3 min read

Blippar has formed a global partnership with shopper marketing agency Geometry Global with a view to helping its roster of clients better harness augmented reality (AR).

BLippar

Blippar

AR has long-promised to bridge the divide between digital and physical. But Blippar’s early attempts to convince advertisers fell flat and as a consequence marketers seemed to view it as more of a ‘gimmick’ than a channel to engage consumers at any sort of scale.

Last year, it set about on a new strategy to recalibrate its offering to “reach critical mass by 2017” and heavily marketed itself to advertising agencies at Cannes Lions, one of the industry's biggest events.

This is the first "multi-country strategic partnership" it has forged with since then and working with this particular agency is no coincidence.

Blippar’s global head of experience strategy Omaid Hiwaizi, - who laid out its ambitions to The Drum last year – previously served as Geometry Global’s chief strategy officer.

He is hoping the tie-up will fuel the scale of adoption among advertisers that has thus far proved elusive. In exchange, his former agency has been promised that its clients will gain strategic advantage as employees are trained on how to create and deliver AR content using Blippar’s AR creation tools Blippbuilder and Blippbuilder Script.

Both companies said they will cross-refer business opportunities and collaborate on joint projects in the UK, US and Germany.

"AR is a critical new frontier for retail since it can help brands overcome purchase barriers by providing shoppers with information and engaging experiences at the point of sale,” said Hiwaizi on its potential gains.

“Given Geometry's activation and shopping behavior transformation sweet spot, this partnership creates the perfect context to define the rules on AR in retail, shopper and brand storytelling."

This should go some way to aiding the two biggest problems that Hiwaizi has come up against; clearing up marketers' confusion on what Blippar can do and creating better content for the app.

Debbie Ellison, head of digital at Geometry UK will lead the partnership with responsibility for global rollout.

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