Exclusive | TELiBrahma, augmenting real world with digital engagements: PR Satheesh

When I was introduced to the computer in my early age, I hated it unlike my other classmates who fell in love with the machine. I even hated the videogames that my father bought me as a gift, often giving it away to my friends or anyone who was interested in playing with them. I was termed technologically handicapped for I was averse to the idea of machines and was more interested in normal things like books. Then came the innovation called mobile.

Surprisingly I was the first one among all my friends to get one and I completely vouched for its great utilization to mankind. And well the rest is history. The mobile has brought the best of the world to us and TELiBrahma is ensuring the same. TELiBrahma is an Intel-funded company focused on building brands and enhancing consumer engagement through augmented reality (AR) and location-based advertising. TELiBrahma has worked with the advertising, media and retail industries to create innovative ad campaigns that allow consumers to have experiences beyond traditional media.

POINT, according to TELiBrahma is the world’s most powerful and lightest augmented reality platform, and they are redefining the boundaries of what technology can achieve. They deliver unparalleled results to their customers through their patented technology and innovative ideas. They have augmented the latest edition of the Stardust magazine and Savvy with POINT while Maxim has associated with them for the fifth consecutive month. They have also tied up with Hyundai, enabling them to have interactive engagements with their customers through video, slide show and pop ups.

I want to move with the mobile and new technology, so I decided to talk to P R Satheesh , Principal TELiBrahma to know about their recent works and also about the buzz called AR (Augmented Reality) and intricately understand it’s working.

I was under the impression that AR was limited to Smart Phones and if that was so many of us were doomed but Satheesh enlightened me with the words that, it is not a smart phone that enables AR. Any phone with a basic camera and Internet connectivity would do. He explained this further with an example (I need details to understand technology). Imagine you have a movie poster in front of you and capture the poster with POINT app – we will help them buy tickets on the move or you look at an advertisement of real estate, capture through your mobile phone and we would deliver 360 view of the property, places near by the property, there are lot of interesting things that one can do from the mobile phone integrating with the real world scenario. “We help consumers engage in the real world through mobile phones; we believe your mobile knows where you are, it can see what you can see it can help you do lot of interesting stuff.”

This indeed had to be a city phenomenon but Satheesh surprised me with the information that they have received a massive response and engagements from the tier 2 and 3 towns. This was definitely a myth proved wrong for me.

“AR is opening up doors for print to utilize the digital technology to its maximum use and augmented reality plays the crucial role in converting static print editorial/advertisement to digital era by “Augmenting real world with digital engagements”. The hand held device will help the reader to get to the digital World via pointART and they would both have its place, pointART is an enabler in that sense!” says Satheesh.

Mr. Vikram Hira, MD, Magna Publishing Co Ltd. “TELiBrahma’s Augmented Reality technology will provide our esteemed readers a sleek-peek of the exclusive and extra content in the form of audio, video, pictorial and extra content of the articles which will ensure they spend more time and keep coming back. In addition, we are also reaching out to our current and new advertisers to generate revenue through AR-enabled ads in our magazines. Through this partnership we will be able to take print media to the next level and as a natural progression, will be increasing our readership as well.”

Piyush Sharma, CEO, Maxim India “Maxim being the ultimate celebration of being a guy, and being young at heart blends seamlessly with a strong personal medium such as mobile. And our alliance with TELiBrahma is a natural alliance of two leaders in complementing industries. We definitely are expecting great results for both our brands and above all the end users. We strongly believe that going forward our association will go beyond providing robust and measurable engagement and ultimately together we will be able to deliver our advertisers a total performance oriented return on their investment.”

The need to add makes the printed product interactive, taking the readers to the digital World, Point ART acts as a spring board to the digital World. This explains the tie up with Stardust, Maxim and Savvy. Satheesh spoke about the experience of working with the print medium and said that they had always worked with Brands and their print creative, they had thoroughly enjoyed the experience and it was a learning experience at both ends.

Revealing more information Satheesh said that, “The objective was to address the Editors issue of space crunch, providing an extended space (mobile) to deliver additional images and videos to create deeper engagements with their readers. The editorial cover pages were augmented to deliver behind the scene videos, bigger than life pictures of the celebs and more- thereby diversifying the magazine’s window in providing exclusive content. The cover pages featuring famous personalities were augmented to create a lot of excitement by bringing them LIVE on to readers’ fingertips. Additionally, select few images from popular sections were also augmented creating varied engagements like slide show of fantastic photos; interesting information about luxury brands and also an opportunity to vote were available to the readers.”

The market is opening up to this technology and therefore there are definitely more business opportunities for TELiBrahma ahead. As the use of Internet via the handheld device increases, it would drive augmented reality to the next level. Augmented reality will enable new dimension to the mobile users by interactive content coming LIVE on the move. This would also help to bridge the digital and traditional media together. TELiBrahma would focus on helping brands to help achieve higher ROI's from their traditional media spends, not just print media.

Augmenting real World with Digital engagements is the mantra and TELiBrahma’s focus is to continue being a leader in this space. Be ahead of the curve in inventing and engage better with their customers and consumers. Their solutions did and will continue to integrate well with traditional media. Traditional media has content, so where there is content – TELiBrahma will have a play. Watch out for more announcements from TELiBrahma soon. I By Rabab Rupawala [rabab(at)adgully.com]