Augmented Reality Advert for King Abdullah University of Science and Technology

The Brief

Macmillan Publishers Ltd approached Inition to ask for help creating a 3D interactive experience to be used in an advert for the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), based in Saudi Arabia. The advert, which would be printed in the leading science journal, Nature, aimed to take readers on a memorable journey through university departments and to display a variety of jobs available in each area of science.

Our Solution

Inition’s creatives designed an interactive virtual landscape based on the KAUST campus, allowing app-users to explore research departments and to link out to job vacancies on Naturejobs in each area.

Inition developed multi platform augmented reality technology which would work across smartphone, tablet and in-browser on both Mac and PC, ensuring that almost all of Nature’s readers would be able to access the printed advert’s interactive content.

All readers had to do to experience the virtual campus was to download the free AR app from Google Play or the App Store. After launching the application, users could point their camera at the printed advert, bringing the KAUST campus to life before their eyes.

The Results

This is one of the first times that augmented reality has been used to display classified jobs and Nature hope to continue to use this type of technology in the future, both for advertising solutions and editorial opportunities.

Andrew Douglas, Global Head of Advertising and Sponsorship at Nature Publishing Group said: “We wanted to develop this app to demonstrate how this technology can potentially be used for both editorial and commercial opportunities. This proof-of-concept also demonstrates NPG’s ability to provide creative, bespoke promotional services to its customers, identifying and project-managing third-party expertise where necessary.”

Here at Inition, Co-Founder Stuart Cupit said of the project: “It represents the culmination of months of research and development time to get the technology running seamlessly across mobile, tablet and in-browser on Mac and PCs. Augmented reality is a great way to leverage print advertising and to unlock a host of interactive information that captures the user’s imagination.”