Client: Hallmark Cards Inc.
Project Title: Augmented Reality Greeting Card
The Challenge:
Hundreds of millions of greeting cards are sold annually and provide a tangible, physical medium to share personal expressions. With an increased level of consumer interaction with digital devices, Hallmark saw an opportunity to capitalize on a multiple media opportunity for sharing enhanced greetings. Hallmark was seeking new technology to amplify a physical greeting with a digital experience. The technology would enable a user to augment their personal expressions with digital platforms.
Our Approach:
Proposals were received from North and South America, Europe, Asia, Oceania, and the Middle East. Hallmark was named on the RFP, which allowed many respondents to illustrate their creative approaches to address Hallmark's goals. NineSigma vetted the proposals in order to determine the technological approaches that were intuitive with multiple display designs, and enabled digital content delivery.
The Impact:
Hallmark short-listed six interesting responses and ultimately selected a German provider, Metaio. Among other commercial credits, Metaio had recently worked with Popular Science magazine on an augmented reality cover sponsored by GE. Hallmark worked with Metaio to get the greeting cards with the new technology on the market in time for Mother's Day 2010, within one year of initiating the project with NineSigma.