This virtual pet game incorporates augmented reality and will keep your children entertained for hours.

Foursquare has been around for a while and a few weeks ago Facebook announced the launch of Facebook Places (not yet available in South Africa). Location-based tools like these have provided brands with a multitude of marketing opportunities and even though not many South African brands have not caught on to the trend yet, a few international brands have come up with some creative campaigns.

The Financial Times has a unique goal for their location-based marketing campaign, they wanted to reach a younger audience. To provide a brief background, Financial Times only make their content available on a subscription basis and the subscription is not cheap at $180 per year. In order to attract and entice a ‘younger’ audience the Financial Times selected a number of coffee shops located closely to financial centres and business schools. Foursquare users can check in at these locations and once a user become the mayor of one of the selected locations the user will receive a promotional code that will give them temporary access to the Financial Times’ subscription-only content. Clever, but will it result in younger readers signing up for an annual Financial Times subscription?

Starbucks has an interesting (and different) approach. Instead of rewarding loyal clients for the number of times they check in at the same Starbucks, clients have to check in at five different Starbucks outlets before they can unlock the ‘Barista’ badge. At this stage Starbucks is not offering any financial rewards yet for those that unlock the Barista badge but customer loyalty rewards are definitely in the pipeline.

A few South African brands are using Foursquare to reward their loyal clients. Global Wrapps for one encourage clients to check in when they visit a Global Wrapp outlet in order to earn points, receive freebies and information on special promotions. It’s going to be interesting to see how many South African brands will utilise location-based marketing and how consumers are going to respond to and make use of the rewards offered.

The German newspaper, Süddeutsche Zeitung, recently printed its first augmented reality enhanced magazine supplement. iPhone users and users with Android handsets can download an app called junaio and view the augmented reality features built into the magazine. In short, junaio is a mobile augmented reality browser designed for camera equipped devices that allows users to have a ‘social experience.’ Watch the video below to see what junaio can do.

In August Sky Arts inserted four photographs from Ian Rankin’s latest collection in The Times. Readers of The Times were encouraged to download and install a software plugin. Once the software is installed users had to hold up their Rankin photograph to their webcam in order to see an interactive photo gallery. Watch the video below for a demonstration.

The use of augmented reality in print media enhances the reader’s experience and definitely brings a new angle to story telling. I hope South African print magazines catch on to this trend soon, I would definitely buy a magazine that offers me additional interactive content through augmented reality. Would you?