Shortlist Mag Produces Interactive AR Special Edition

Shortlist magazine has joined forces with blippar to bring its retro gaming special edition to life. Using the augmented reality platform, they have created a ‘playable’ cover and fully interactive print magazine.

As well as cramming the gaming pages full of playable preview content and click to download options, the audience is treated to trailers for the next series of Idiot Abroad and an exclusive podcast from columnist Danny Wallace.

The team also used the AR tech to remove friction – with the ability to Blipp to buy and Blipp to sign-up to the My Hyde newsletter. The potential of the Blipp to vote feature – enabling audience participation while getting a greater understanding of their affluent London audience – must be quite huge.

Although I was excited to be able to interact with a couple of Super Mario games, the Blipp sent me through to the App Store, even though I was using an Android handset – bit of a shame!

The Middle Class War on the back page was given a great human touch by getting the participants, Dom Joly and Jason Biggs, to supply their own videos for the audience to watch.

Martin Robinson, Editor of ShortList, said: “We’d been planning a gaming special for ShortList which celebrated retro games as well as new releases, and thought it would make for an exciting magazine first if people could somehow ‘play’ our cover.

“ShortList has excelled itself in making the entire issue interactive, with every story – gaming or non-gaming – having some kind of Blippable content.”

Shortlists sister title, Stylist, is up for Best Use of AR in our Effective Mobile Marketing Award 2012 for its blippable Olympic edition.