A Birmingham digital firm has created a magical “augmented reality” experience for fans of best-selling author Cecelia Ahern.
Digbeth-based Stickee was asked by HarperCollins to build a digital world inspired by the author’s novels which can only be unlocked by owners of Ms Ahern’s books.
The campaign coincides with the publication of the paperback of Ms Ahern’s latest book, The Book of Tomorrow, which follows a string of best-sellers including P.S. I Love You, The Gift and Thanks for the Memories.
Stickee managing director Steve Gray explained how augmented reality worked.
“You’ve got reality – then you’ve got virtual reality, which is when you put a headset on and blind out reality and have a virtual experience,” he said.
“In the middle of those two things is augmented reality – fusing the live, real world with something that is a virtual experience.”
Stickee’s use of this exciting technology means that readers of Cecelia Ahern’s books will see a special code printed in the books – known as a “glyph” – which, when they show it to a web cam, causes a magical world to materialise on their screen.
Mr Gray said: “There is a series of books and each book has a different glyph in it,” he said.
“When you hold that glyph up to a web camera you see on the screen a reflection of that book. You then see a virtual world augment itself on top of the book.
“As you move the book around and move it closer to the camera you see more detail but if you put it further away it looks more distant.”
The augmented world is not specific to any book, but contains characters which interact with objects around them and build relationships with each other, and every new book that is scanned adds new features to the world. The campaign aims to build up Ahern’s brand as well as reader engagement – and of course to encourage people to buy Ms Ahern’s books so they can unlock the augmented reality worlds.
Mr Gray said: “The key thing is that there has been lots of different projects that use augmented reality, so it’s not a new technology.
“People have used it but it had no purpose or marketing in there, it was about using technology for technology’s sake.
“This project is not just a piece of augmented reality, it’s solving a lot of marketing objectives as well.”
Stickee, based in Fazeley Studios, moved to Birmingham from the South-east last year.
It specialises in consumer-facing brand campaigns and clients including major companies such as Virgin, Vodafone and Birds Eye.
