Perhaps the most exciting trend in digital marketing right now (in my opinion at least) is the convergence of digital content into real world experiences. For a long time, Augmented Reality and QR Codes have promised so much, yet delivered very little from a practical perspective. But it seems times are changing, because a bunch of ingenious campaigns have emerged this Christmas that utilise the technology in a brilliant manner. Whether it's the Christmas spirit or not, it seems marketers are now beginning to grasp how to use digital content to supplement real world experiences. Let's take a look at a couple of the best campaigns over the last month or so…

Ebay Give-A-Toy Campaign

This campaign really struck a chord with me because of its charitable nature. Donating gifts to underprivileged kids at Christmas isn't exactly a new concept. But using QR Codes to facilitate it certainly is, which is what Ebay did with their Give-A-Toy campaign. Two virtual shopfront were created with an array of gifts for people to view and buy. Each toy came with an associated QR Code, rather than a price tag. Users then scanned the QR Code to buy the gift for a child. Technology and philanthropy working hand-in-hand = awesome.

JC Penney Santa Tags

This campaign from JC Penney is simple, yet incredibly practical for people wanting to add a personal touch to their gifts this Christmas. When shopping at JC Penney, customers can pick up Santa Tags for their gifts. Each Santa Tag contains an individual QR Code. Once scanned, it allows the buyer to record a voice message for the recipient. The tag can then be stuck to the gift to replace or supplement the traditional card. The recipient then scans the QR Code to listen to the voice message. Superb!

Macy's Believe-O-Magic Campaign

Macy's Believe campaign is already a beautifully crafted digital execution, without considering the Augmented Reality application. The backbone of the campaign is the true story of an 8 year old girl who wrote to a New York newspaper to ask if Santa existed. The story became famous when the editor published a response that confirmed Santa existed to all those that truly believed. It was later translated into an animated Christmas special, called Yes Virginia. Macy's now use Virginia as the face of their Christmas campaign.

To supplement the campaign, Macy's created an iPhone app that uses Augmented Reality to bring the character of Virginia to life. Parents use the app at Believe Stations located within Macy's stores. When a photo is taken at a Believe Station with the app, a character from the show is integrated into the shot via Augmented Reality. Thus, kids can have photos with their favourite characters from the show. The photos can then be converted into a Christmas card to send to friends and family.

Waitrose Christmas Recipe Campaign

The publication of Christmas recipes is a pretty natural activity for a grocery chain to be doing at this time of year. But while those recipes are typically only available in-store, Waitrose have extended their reach via Augmented Reality app Blippar. The app works with both Waitrose's TV ads and print ads. Users simply need to point their phone in the direction of the ad to access recipes from chefs such as Heston Blumenthal and watch cooking classes on how to make them. 

Parrot Carrot Children's Book

This one isn't quite a Christmas campaign, but makes an excellent Christmas present nonetheless. Kids love books. And there's no question they get attached to the characters in their favourite books. Which is why they ask us to read them the same story over and over and over… Parrot Carrot is a children's book with a difference. The book is complimented by an Augmented Reality app for iPhone and iPad. Kids use the app to find and catch the characters from the book around their home in a game of virtual hide and seek. In essence, the app helps bring the characters from the book to life. I'm certain the kids will love it, and I've already bought a copy for my nephew for Christmas. Winning!

Forget Facebook vs Google+. There's another war being waged on the web right now that makes for far better viewing. It's the war to claim the mobile payment space. Yes… payments. It may not sound like the sexiest of battles, but there's some serious innovation at the moment from some of the digital industry's biggest players. From credit cards, to banks to Google, everyone wants a piece of the action. So sit back, take a seat (and maybe some popcorn), and let's take a look at what's happening!

So why the great land grab for the mobile payment gateway? Call it the Apple effect. Apple has redefined the music and entertainment industry by creating the channel through which  entertainment content is purchased. In essence, Apple built the new default payment gateway for the music industry (iTunes). Each time a song is sold via iTunes, Apple takes a cut. Now… imagine the possibilities (and riches) if an organisation could create the payment gateway through which every digital purchase was made, not just music…

And imagine the scale of that opportunity when you consider the fact that the physical and digital worlds are rapidly converging to become one. Smartphones are increasingly bringing digital experiences (and commerce) into the real world. We're not too far away from supplementing (and maybe one day replacing) cash & card transactions in the real world with a digital equivalent. And that is where the war is being waged. To create the digital payment gateway for the physical world. Let's take a look at what each player is dishing up…

Google Wallet

With so much at stake in the online payments industry, it's only natural that Google is making a major play. Google's initial foray into the payment space manifested into the launch of Google Wallet in August. The aim of Google Wallet is simple yet ambitious at the same time. It aims to replace a consumer's physical wallet with a virtual equivalent, powered by their smartphone. Rather than having to carry physical cards or cash, consumers simply need to integrate those card details into Google Wallet. Once the banking details have been entered, users simply swipe their phone, rather than their card, at associated payment terminals (limited to PayPass for now). NFC chips within the phone and the terminal allow the devices the speak and transfer the appropriate payment amount. For a demonstration of Google Wallet in action, check out the video below:

Personally, I'm excited about Google Wallet and hope it goes mainstream. Like many others, I check I've got three things before I leave the house – wallet, keys & phone. If I can reduce that to two, I'll be a happy man. In reality, that won't happen until Google Wallet integrates everything I carry in my wallet, not just my bank cards. But it's a good start.

PayPal

Naturally, PayPal is making a strong play to attempt to maintain their status as the leading online payment specialist. In the last few weeks alone PayPal has launched two separate products to attempt to expand their foothold in the industry. The first, PayPal Access, aims to create a Facebook Connect style experience for online payments. I can't see it working however as it requires retailers to sacrifice their customer data, which very few will be willing to do.

More interesting to me is the PayPal Wallet concept, which was launched recently. There are clear similarities towards Google Wallet. Indeed, PayPal is suing Google over the matter. The core difference is that the PayPal version still requires a physical card. In fact, it necessitates that the user carry another PayPal specific card. Which is where the concept falls down for me. While Google is lessening the load in my pocket, PayPal wants me to add another card to my wallet. The biggest advantage of PayPal Wallet is that it isn't reliant on NFC technology. Thus it require far less infrastructural advancement. But my feeling is that the advantage needs to be with the consumer rather than the merchant…

MasterCard

Neither MasterCard nor Visa are content to sit on the sidelines while their industry evolves at lightning page. Both are also developing proprietary mobile payment concepts of their own. Visa Wallet tows the line of Google Wallet, and doesn't seem to add a lot of new thinking to the table. MasterCard however, seems to have a far more developed vision for the future of online payments, even more so than Google Wallet.

MasterCard's Qkr application is an impressive concept which introduces a number of innovative new payment options:

• Users will be able to use Qkr to scan QR codes displayed during home-shopping television programs. Once scanned they will be able to to buy products featured in the program (via credit card details stored by the app)
• In the same way Shazam can scan audio to identify a song title, Qkr will be able to identify frequencies emitted during a specific ad, and allow the user to buy the product in the ad. Check out the demo below and I challenge you not to be blown away

Commonwealth Bank

It's exciting to see a local player getting active on the mobile payments front, even if it is a bank (my least favourite of all corporations). Last week, Commonwealth Bank announced that they too will be launching a solution called Kaching. Interestingly, Kaching is targeted solely towards the iPhone. At face value that doesn't seem a particularly strange decision given the iPhone is by far the dominant handset in Australia. What does make it interesting is that Kaching will use NFC technology, yet the iPhone doesn't support NFC. And given the iPhone 4S has just been released, we're probably around a year from having an NFC compatible iPhone.

To resolve this issue, the Commonwealth Bank will sell NFC enabled iPhone covers to power Kaching. Which is where the plan falls down in my opinion. I will jump all over mobile wallets once they're on the market, but I'm not particularly keen to pay for the privilege when solutions such as Google Wallet are on the horizon, which certainly won't charge customers for usage. Nevertheless, check out the demo below:

So who will win the battle royale?

It's clearly too early to say. And in reality, there will probably be multiple winners, just like we have Android and iOs in the operating system space. But for what it's worth, I'm rooting for Google. Some fear Google already has too much power, but in my opinion they are still far more customer oriented than the banks or credit card providers combined. They know that customer experience always needs to come first to reach mainstream adoption. And they also know that the best price is free.

Now… if only they could get Apple to release an NFC enabled iPhone!

I rarely plug internal projects on my personal blog as I think it can come across as a little vain. But as an avid sports nut who has written about digital sports marketing many times in the past (and rambles on constantly about AFL on Twitter), I think this one's probably relevant. Next Digital has been the digital partner for the MCG for at least 3 years, and late last week we helped them launch their first iPhone application:

The app provides a bunch of useful features for sports fans to enhance their experience when they visit the ground, including:

• A seating locator tool enabling patrons to find their seat, along with their friends' seats
• Real time car park updates, which anyone who has ever driven to the MCG on gameday will understand the value of
• A facility locator map (especially essential for those of us who need to find both a bar and a bathroom during the game!)
• Integrated social features including photo sharing and Facebook Places check ins (side note – with over 75,000 check ins the MCG in amongst Australia's most checked-in venues)

Aside from that there's a bunch of other standard features such as news, travel information & travel information.

If you're a sports fan like me, you can download the app from the App Store now.

As many of you would be aware, Facebook Places launched in Australia today. Wooo! A few weeks back I wrote why I think Places is going to be an amazing application for marketers. Having finally been able to play with it today, I can now talk about Places from a user’s perspective. And again, it seems to be a kick ass little app. Indeed, I’m declaring it an immediate Foursquare killer. To be fair, I’ve never been a Foursquare fan in the first place. I doubt I’d have more than 10 Foursquare check-ins in total. The thing is… I just couldn’t see the point with Foursquare. But I can with Places. There are a number of reasons why…

Push Notifications

I may change my tune on this in time. I’ve deleted iPhone applications in the past purely because of overuse of the push notifications. But the Facebook Places push notifications seem to operate intelligently. A bunch of my friends checked-in around Melbourne and Australia today. Yet I only received a single push notification, which occurred when a co-worker checked in to a local restaurant for lunch. In other words, Facebook Places only alerts you when a friend is nearby. Sweet!

Conversely, Foursquare is reliant upon being manually activated before it alerts you to the whereabouts of your friends. Which I simply never remembered to do. Because I didn’t care enough. Push notifications are the killer feature for me. They remove a manual step in the process. If Facebook could remove the manual check-in component, without sending the privacy Nazi’s into cahoots, they’d have the perfect application.

Instant Social Graph

Facebook’s most precious asset is its’ social graph. It makes the Places application immediately useful. Because Facebook knows who my friends are. Foursquare didn’t. At least, it didn’t know who my real friends are (only a handful are tech geeks). So it created no real value for me. Because when people checked-in around town, I didn’t really care. But with Facebook Places, I do! Therefore I’ll use it.

My suspicion is that Facebook’s open graph will be its pillar of strength for many years to come. It makes applications useful, whether internal or external. I love the sound of Apple’s new Ping service. Some of my friends have amazing taste in music and I’d love to know what music they’re buying. But until Ping integrates Facebook’s social graph, it holds no value to me. I only care what music my friends are buying, not some random dudes. Any social application with a utility based upon discovery simply has to have Facebook integration nowadays.

No friggen gimmicks

Facebook’s Places product is simple. It does one thing really well – tell me where my friends are in real time. No gimmicks. And no friggen badges! The whole badge collecting element of Foursquare always felt massively lame to me. It was like I was back in boy scouts or something. Yuck!

Now… if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to delete Foursquare from my iPhone…

It’s been a little quiet round here of late. But it hasn’t been out of total and utter laziness, as I have been writing for the shiny new Next Digital blog. The links to my recent posts are below if you want to go check them out:

• Case Study: OfficeMax Ecommerce Launch
• Who won the online election?
• Location: The next big thing on the web

I’ve also written a short piece on mobile marketing for an upcoming edition of Marketing Mag. So there you have it. Go forth and read my pretties…

Last week I wrote about how a number of Australian sports organisations were using real-time data to deliver awesome digital experiences. But while the sports industry is leading the way, there are countless others that could be harnessing the demand for real-time information. And make no mistake, the web is going real-time. Twitter started the trend, and now the mobile web is launching it into full flight. I’m no Apple fanboy, but iPhone has quite literally changed consumer behaviour by introducing the mobile web to the masses. Last week a study from Ruder Finn emerged analysing the usage patterns and needs of mobile Internet users. And unsurprisingly, real-time information was at identified as a primary need of mobile Internet users. The rise and rise of the mobile web was further compounded by wi-fi provider JiWire, who recently revealed that 56% of their connections were made via mobile handsets! And when consumer trends emerge, businesses follow. So I thought it’d be fun to take a look at the businesses that have taken the early lead in the real-time race, and those that are lagging behind…

The winners

To start off with, let’s take a look at the businesses that have emerged as innovators in the delivery of real-time information via mobile interfaces. The results may surprise you:

• The Banks: Yes… public enemy number one! But as much as I hate the banks for being evil mofo’s, the Commonwealth bank iPhone app is the most used on my phone. Mobile banking is simply brilliant, allowing me immediate access to my financial information. Along with Commonwealth Bank, Westpac & St George are also aboard the real-time train.
• Public transport: Another curse of my existence! Yet despite my loathing of public transport, tramTracker is my second most used mobile application. Access to real-time data allows me to determine how far away the next tram is, and whether it’s worth sticking around for it. Wonderfully useful! MetLink also provide an iPhone application with similar capabilities.
• Qantas: Finally, a brand I don’t hate…! While I don’t use this application often, it’s one of my favourites from a conceptual basis. The Qantas application feeds real-time flight information directly into your iPhone. Anyone who’s ever picked up a friend or family member from the airport should recognise the benefit immediately.
• eBay: I’m not a compulsive Ebayer, but I have lost an auction because I wasn’t online when the final hammer went down. It sucks! So this one earns an obvious gong for allowing members to transact anywhere, any time.
• NRMA: This strays somewhat from the transmission of real-time information, but still falls under the category of real-time access to corporate services. NRMA’s Roadside Assist application enables members to request assistance directly from their iPhone. A service assistant is sent out based upon the GPS coordinates sent via the device. How cool is that? After being stranded by my car recently, this one really appeals to me.

Others organisations earning credit for delivering quality real-time mobile experiences include the Yellow Pages, Domain, Lonely Planet, Domino’s, Amazon, Haymes Paint, Nova Radio & The Age.

And now for the fun part… the hall of shame…

The losers

So we’ve identified the winners, but what about the laggards? Here’s a list of industries that are clearly missing the boat when it comes to real-time data delivery to their customers:

• Taxis: Ever had problems hailing a cab? Of course you have! I understand it’s a massive logistical exercise, but imagine if all cabs were equipped with GPS to enable customers to locate a nearby cab. And imagine if you could hail a cab directly from your phone with your exact GPS coordinates. Win!
• The stock market: I don’t play the stocks, but I appreciate just how important real-time information is to the industry. Which is why it was a shock to see organisations such as E*trade and IG markets lack a mobile presence. Particularly when their quality web interfaces are built upon the delivery of real-time data.
• Household utilities: Of all the Australian utility providers, only AGL has an iPhone application, which fails to provide any meaningful real-time information. But wouldn’t it be cool if you could track your usage and bills in real-time. With the Victorian government pushing the ‘Target 155‘ message, it seems particularly relevant to the water industry. You want us to save water? Well give us the tools…
• Real estate: Domain does a reasonable job of enabling users to browse for properties via their phone. But what if it fed real-time data to buyers? Alerts could advise users when properties in their preferred area/s sell and the sale price. Of course, this is little more than a pipedream as the real estate industry deliberately withholds sales data in order to deceive their customers. Thus the provision of an application that may actually help buyers make a better decision is completely ludicrous. I guess the best we can hope for is real-time push notifications when a new property is listed in a preferred suburb.
• Top-up subscription services: There are a bunch of subscription services that require customers to continually top up their credit. Prepaid phones plans are one example. Tollways such as Melbourne’s CityLink are another. As is the incoming (and infamous) Myki public transportation system. Each could benefit from the delivery of real-time alerts once a customer’s account is close to expiring.

Got any others to add to the winners or losers list? Well don’t just sit there… add them via the comments!