Telefonica And Aurasma Join Forces To Drive Market For Augmented Reality

- Telefonica Digital to integrate Aurasma's Augmented Reality platform into its media services and distribute to mobile customer base

- Biggest deal ever in the Augmented Reality space, with scope to reach 25 markets and 300m customers

LONDON, Sept. 18, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Telefonica Digital today announces a global partnership with Aurasma, the world's leading augmented reality platform. Under the terms of the deal, Telefonica will integrate Aurasma's cutting-edge technology into the range of media services Telefonica offers brands and advertisers. The agreement, made by Telefonica Digital's global advertising team, represents the biggest deal between a global telecoms company and an augmented reality provider to date and will see Telefonica drive distribution of Aurasma's technology across its footprint, starting initially with the UK through O2.

Augmented reality (also known as AR) is already bringing traditional media to life, transforming current static forms of advertising into interactive content unlocked by mobiles and tablets. Analysts predict the total AR market will be worth $600 billion by 2016*.

Aurasma's innovative technology recognises images and objects, allowing interactive digital content such as videos, coupons, competitions and 3D animations to be unlocked from virtually any type of media, including outdoor billboards, print adverts, products, physical locations and in-store materials. Since launch in June 2011, the company has already attracted over 8,000 commercial partners to its platform and reached more than four million downloads of its app.

Under the terms of the partnership, Telefonica will integrate Aurasma into its media offering, enabling brands to benefit from augmented reality as part of their marketing campaigns. The capability will be offered alongside other technologies including location-based marketing and mobile coupons, with Telefonica helping brands to introduce new levels of interactivity and customer engagement into their advertising campaigns.

Telefonica will also seek to increase the distribution of Aurasma's app through its mobile customer base and also implement augmented reality in its own marketing campaigns.

The partnership will initially be rolled out in the UK through O2 and offered to brands through O2 Media. The two companies will work together to introduce new innovations around augmented reality and mobile into the UK market. The capability will be rolled out to other Telefonica markets in due course.

"Augmented reality has the potential to fundamentally change advertising, transforming current static formats and introducing new levels of interactivity," said Shaun Gregory, Global Director of Advertising at Telefonica Digital. "Aurasma is the undoubted leader in this space with a uniquely scalable platform approach and best in class image recognition technology. It has already demonstrated the power of its technology in thousands of innovative campaigns across the world and we look forward to working with them to further drive the use of this technology in advertising and marketing communications."

Matt Mills, Head of Global Partnerships at Aurasma said, "We are delighted to be working with Telefonica – one of the world's largest and most innovative telecoms companies. Telefonica has a deep understanding of the whole mobile ecosystem and so immediately grasped Aurasma's potential to transform the way that people use their phones to engage with the world. We look forward to working with the Telefonica Digital team to bring this transformation to the thousands of brands who advertise through their media services and over 300 million Telefonica customers."

*Source: Semico "Augmented Reality: Envision a More Intelligent World" Aug 2012

About Telefonica Digital
Telefonica Digital is a global business division of Telefonica. Its mission is to seize the opportunities within the digital world and deliver new growth for Telefonica through research & development, venture capital, global partnerships and digital services such as cloud computing, mobile advertising, M2M and eHealth. It is also driving innovation in over the top communications services under a new umbrella brand called Tu. Telefonica Digital will deliver these new products and services to Telefonica's 309 million customers as well as leveraging the power of the internet to enter new markets. It is headquartered in London with regional centres in Silicon Valley, Sao Paulo, Spain and Tel Aviv. Jajah, Terra, Tuenti, Media Networks Latin America, 48 and giffgaff are all managed under the Telefonica Digital umbrella.

www.telefonica.com/digital
@tefdigital
www.telefonica.com/digitalhub

ABOUT AURASMA
Aurasma is the world's leading augmented reality platform. Available as a free app for iPhones, iPads and high-powered Android devices or as a free kernel for developers, Aurasma uses advanced image and pattern recognition to blend the real-world with rich interactive content such as videos and animations called "Auras".

Auras can be created for printed images, product packaging, clothing, physical places and users can even use the app to create and share their own. Since its launch in June 2011, Aurasma has had more than four million downloads, 400 Aurasma-enabled apps and over 8,000 partners in markets including retail, fashion, sport, automotive, education, advertising and publishing are using the free technology in their campaigns, on their products or embedding the technology in their own applications. Aurasma was developed by and is part of software company Autonomy – an HP Company.