With the help of QR codes, augmented reality and marketing in Starbucks stores, even Picasso is making the leap into the digital age.

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) unveiled its highly anticipated show, “Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris” on February 19th. Art shows of prolific artists like Picasso seem to draw a decent crowd on their own – so why use technology to promote the show?

Accessibility. VMFA was the only east coast venue selected for the exhibition’s seven-city international tour. By leveraging QR codes and virtual galleries, VMFA is able to share this exhibit with thousands that otherwise might not have been able to see the exhibit.

To pull off this feat VMFA teamed with Martin Agency, a Richmond-based advertising agency that helped them create virtual “galleries” in Washington D.C., New York and Philadelphia. To create these virtual galleries Martin tapped Layar, an augmented reality app developer.

How does it work? Simple. If you’re in the vicinity of these select locations, your phone will detect it, and the app will allow you to view one of Picasso’s works hung virtually in your surroundings. In addition to the augmented reality app, they also provided QR codes to 33 Starbucks locations, enabling coffee seekers to scan the code and view Picasso’s works while waiting for their coffee order.

We here at T2 + Back Alley are pretty excited about this clever and innovative promotion of the Picasso exhibition. For us, art is something that can transcend time and societal limitations and inspire.

In our book, smart digital marketing is proving to help make so many aspects of life – including art and music – more accessible to consumers.

Apparently first impressions are very important on first dates AND with those using your mobile app for the first time. According to a study released by Localytics, 26% of apps are downloaded once and never used again. You heard that correctly – never! Talk about one hit wonders. And taking into consideration the cost of developing an app, that’s a big deal.

The good news is that the number of SmartPhone users has grown from 42.7 million to 61.5 million over the last year alone. The bad news it that usage stats show, roughly 35% of SmartPhone users that have access to apps add them to their phone, and only 24% use them.

Bottom line is clear. Although the market for mobile apps is strong – and growing on a daily basis, it’s really important that you (or your clients) have a strong sense of strategy in place to market the apps you develop.

Also, be sure and spend time analyzing your user data so that you know who your ‘loyal’ users are and how much return traffic you have. That will go a long way toward showing you (and your client) how the app is working in conjunction with the rest of your marketing efforts.

Designing mobile marketing solutions for our clients is an integral part of our business plan. If you’re reading this blog, I’m probably not telling you anything you don’t already know. We are a mobile society and carry our mobile devices with us everywhere. If we leave the house without them, we turn back and get them — the thought of getting through a day without connectivity in the palm of our hands is untenable.

A billion people accessed the mobile Internet worldwide in 2009 and Gartner forecasts call for expect usage to double within five years as mobile overtakes the PC as the most popular way to get on the Web. Additionally, according to MarketingProfs’ mobile devices are the most personal method of reaching people and messages are more likely to be read on the small screen than they are on the big.

According to an Outsell study, consumers who have a smartphone spent an average of more than 25% of their waking hours interacting with their device. That same research shows that by 2014, more than half of web browsing will be done from mobile devices.

Despite this clear trend, 56% of marketers are currently doing no mobile or browser advertising. With devices such as the iPad, Android and iPhone becoming capturing increasingly more marketshare, marketers could be missing out on big rewards.

Mobile advertising is still in its early days but this space represents huge opportunities for marketers across B2B, B2C, E-commerce and non-profit organizations. Gartner predicts that by the end of 2010, 1.2 billion people will carry handsets capable of rich, mobile commerce and that that will be the preferential way of reaching consumers.
This is exactly why my company is designing for the mobile space. It’s not going away — and according to the stats above, helping clients develop mobile marketing solutions should be a growing business segment for T2+Back Alley Films.

They ultimately created a concept they called “Little World.” Little World assigns images and user behaviors to user interfaces so that our mobile experiences are not only more realistic, but more animated. An example is pinning a new girlfriend’s phone number to a cloud (since she is, at least at that moment “dreamy”) and grouping friends together, visually, on the interface. Their amazing work on this project has been featured in Fast Company, as well as in Core77, a design magazine and resource.

In a recent interview explaining the concept, Cannon says, “We found out that the featurism around modern phones was actually getting in the way of its core function: connecting people.” That’s just what the interface does – it brings people to the forefront. Little World went on to become a finalist at the IxD10 student competition this month. Brilliant! Congratulations, guys! Check it out the video!

On any given day, you will most likely interact with numerous online interfaces, typing emails, shopping online– all by clicking around on a screen with a cursor. But, what we’ve come to develop as a society is a flat environment, one that is hard to interface with on a spatial level. Most importantly, our interactions have become almost unintuitive, and we have to do a great deal of cognitive thinking just to click on a link. Augmented Reality, merges these two worlds, bringing digital, 3-dimensional environments into your immediate surroundings. Just as the name suggests, it enhances our perception of reality by adding new, dynamic pieces of information that couldn’t exist naturally in the real world.

These experiences work well through a camera lens, such as the live digital graphics that are imprinted on the field at football games and at Olympic events. But, we’re starting to move to more personal experiences. Most of these new applications are within the “gimmick” stage–primarily utilized for entertainment purposes. Soon, we should start using these techniques to build new relationships with brands, with audiences physically and emotionally connected on many integrated levels. These elements and tools, by choice of your segments, will become part of their every day lives. For example, imagine a clothing store with blank price tags, where by looking through the lens of your phone, you could reveal the price. This line of thinking promotes dynamic data, providing opportunities to easily modify sale prices. Simple ideas that engage your users, which are cheap and intuitive, will set your brand ahead of others.

What’s amazing is that marketers are already beginning to take advantage of these new techniques to enhance the user experience. One good example is a new feature on the iPhone app, Yelp. The app allows you to peer through your iPhone, into your environment, and visualize what restaurants are around you. Utilizing the compass and GPS technology on the phone, by revolving your view, more labels of restaurants appear depending on the direction you’re facing. This is fantastic for those in foreign cities, or someone willing to try new restaurants, creating a useful tool and loyalty to the online service of Yelp.

But, why has it taken us this long to progress to this point? The obvious answer comes with the progression of mobile technology. Where these applications resonate are within computer systems that can move around through a space, and are not bound to a desktop. Soon enough, we will see these elements within stationary environments: in retail spaces, gas stations and even under the hood of your car. Our old, ’80s visions of “the future” are actually manifesting themselves, opening up new platforms for marketing and communication.