Dentsu iButterfly Experiments AR and Location Based Coupon Service
Dentsu Inc., Japan’s largest advertising agency, announced that they started experimental coupon platform iButterfly with free iPhone application.
The application “iButterfly – Coupon Entertainment” can be downloaded for free until the end of March 2010 (requires iPhone 3GS).
On the mobile application, user can look through the iPhone app to the town and find butterfly flying around. By shaking iPhone like using butterfly net, user catches the virtual butterfly carries coupons and contents related to the location.
During the experimental period, three companies or shop group provide the butterflies.
- Tokyo Music Map Group – shops offering good back ground music provides discount coupon
- Yamada Denki – Japan’s biggest electric store chain will offer coupon at its Ikebukuro branch
- Tokyo Gas – regional gas provider will offer a coupon for free novelty at three showrooms
Chou (butterfly in Japanese) is used here in double meaning, with another same sound “Chou” which means “collection book”.
Dentsu is planning to add more “Chou” such like “Nationwide local mascot characters collection book”, “All Yamanote Line stations collection”, “Today’s Fortunetelling”, “iPhone App recommendation”, etc.
Author Information Akky Akimoto is one of the first pro-bloggers [J] in Japan. As an individual he writes for Asiajin and his own Japanese weblog. He also produces web services including IvRead.com and Narabe.com. Twitter @akky 2 Responses to “Dentsu iButterfly Experiments AR and Location Based Coupon Service”
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[...] As ReadWriteWeb puts it, Apple taking an anti-advertising stance is “pure insanity.” Check out the iButterfly app in the video below. It’s just one example of how location-based ads in augmented reality apps can work. According to their Web site, iButterfly (which is free of charge through March 2010, if it remains in the App Store at all) allows the user to “look through the iPhone app to the town and find butterfly flying around. By shaking the iPhone like using a butterfly net, the user catches the virtual butterfly which carries coupons and contents related to the location.” [...]