German consumer parcels operator Hermes is promoting its parcel shops on smartphones through anultra-modern ‘augmented reality’ application.
The firm has teamed up with Metaio, a German firm specialising in ‘augmented reality’ softwaresolutions, to launch an advertising service for its parcel shops on mobile phones. Hermes claims tobe the first parcel operator with such a service.
Customers can now use their smartphones to find the nearest Hermes parcel shops by pointing thesmartphone camera at the street. The smartphone uses the ‘junaio’ application to display on thesmartphone screen relevant information about the objects viewed (such as famous buildings) as wellas nearby locations (such as a Hermes parcel shop). The information is called up from Wikipedia,which now contains the location of all Hermes parcel shops in Germany.
Lutz, Rahn, Area Manager IT at Hermes Germany, said: “With over 14,000 parcel shops, we have thelargest national network of parcel collection points across Europe. We want to transfer thiscustomer proximity into the virtual and mobile world as well. Today, some 75% of the parcels wedeliver are already ordered online. With augmented reality, we are now also establishing contact toour customers in an interactive way.”
Hermes stressed that while most smartphones use special apps to locate shops, it is cooperatingwith an existing general software. Smartphone owners who already use junaio are thus directlypointed to Hermes parcel shops. With location-based services and advertising, companies targetconsumers exactly at the point when they look for information regarding the surroundings. “Thecontext-sensitive, intuitive presentation will be a decisive factor for mobile services andadvertising in future,” Hermes added.
Peter Meier, Chief Technology Officer at Metaio, added: “With the augmented reality format,junaio can change the mobile advertising market in a similar way Google has changed the internetadvertising market.”
