Music app Shazam brings an AR platform

Shazam the well-known app that identifies unknown music tracks playing in the neighbourhood in just a few seconds, has teamed up with various companies and announced a new AR platform. Shazam will now also bring products to life with augmented reality.

Step by step to AR

Shazam laid the foundations for further developments back in 2015 and introduced an image and video recognition function. The app also recognises which film, TV series or advertisement is currently playing.

In a further step, the new AR platform from Shazam can now bring any type of marketing material to life, be it products, packaging, POS stands, advertising or even events. Specific Shazam codes are scanned via the app, which then provide AR experiences such as 3D animations, product visualisations, mini-games and 360-degree videos.

Shazam has entered into a partnership with the British company Zapparthe global leader in AR on mobile, to provide the code scanning technology behind Shazam codes and immersive AR experiences. Shazam AR works on all iOS (Shazam v10.5) or Android devices (Shazam v7.5).

Keyword: Gamification in AR

For the launch, Shazam is cooperating with the spirits producer Beam Suntory. Shazam users in the US who are of legal purchasing age will be enticed with an AR experience from April. So when someone Shazams in a shop, they will be given the opportunity to take part in the branded interactive AR memory game. Potential customers are incentivised to take part by the chance to win and learn more about the spirits through the game.

"What advertisers had been missing with AR was a frictionless way to deliver these experiences at scale," said Shazam CRO Greg Glenday.

The broad user base makes the difference

The advantages are obvious. Shazam already has a broad customer base and users are already used to making discoveries. According to the provider, the app already has more than one billion users. It is also used very intensively: Over 30 billion discovery requests have been made since the service was launched.

Shazam has been integrated into Apple's mobile operating system and the Siri voice assistance system as standard since iOS 8. An Android version has been available since 2008.

In December 2016, Shazam also entered into a cooperation with Snapchat to integrate the music recognition app into the popular instant photo chat service. There is still a lot to come.

Source: businesswire.com /nzz