Augmented reality, or AR, may finally be coming of age. Particularly for Millennials, defined as those born in the 1980s and whose lives revolve around being constantly connected to technology (Blackberries, iPhones, Facebook, Twitter, video games, and more), AR offers a serious opportunity for marketers to reach these important consumers. With augmented reality, marketers can take the physical world and combine it with the digital world, giving both users and brands the ability to connect even further with a product before, during and after making a purchase. 
"In its simplest form," says Vivian Rosenthal, founder of New York City-based AR start-up GoldRun, "Augmented Reality is a digital layer over the real world that you can't see with the naked eye but you can see with the camera on your smartphone or computer."
But why and how should your company use augmented reality? Aside from the simple benefit of reaching Millennials, we'll delve into a few well-done campaigns in this guide to explain further.
The Prevalence of Augmented Reality
Augmented Reality is nothing new. It's been around officially since 1990, when Boeing researcher Tom Caudell coined the term to describe a digital display used by aircraft electricians that blended virtual graphics onto a physical reality. In other words, augmented reality combines two very different dynamics: the perception of personal exclusivity and a multi-dimensional, sensory experience.
We're all familiar with AR, even if we don't realize it.  One of the most common AR uses is the yellow first down line we've all grown accustomed to on football broadcasts. Contrary to what some may think, those yellow lines are not actually painted on the field, but inserted in your television viewing experience.
In March, the German film The Witness let users become a part of the film for the first time via AR and determine the outcome of the movie based on their own actions on their smartphones. And it will only continue to grow in advertising. According to 2009 figures from ABI Research, the market for augmented reality (AR) in the US alone is expected to hit $350 million in 2014, up from about $6 million in 2008, or, around 50 times more from 2008 to 2014.
Using AR for a Competitive Advantage
For the marketing folks associated with Visit St. Petersburg/Clearwater, they've been thinking innovatively in terms of technology all year. They're faced with an understandable problem: so many destinations in Florida can offer beaches and entertainment, but how do you appeal to that younger demographic in a creative manner?
The Florida-based organization targeted New York City residents in the doldrums of winter with quick response, or QR, codes in partnership with JetBlue Airways on city subways. In the campaign, users snapped photos of the QR code and entered a co-branded contest to win a trip to the beaches. In March, they launched the first true augmented reality campaign in their industry, allowing users to picture themselves in the many local attractions (from beaches to the brand new Dali museum and more), accessible on their computers and shareable on social networks.
"For whatever reason, the travel industry has been a bit slow to adapt to a lot of these technologies," says Nate Huff, the vice president of publishing at Miles Media, who worked on the VSPC campaign in conjunction with Digital Frontiers Media. "With travel-based marketing, it's so driven by ROI, particularly because many of those organizations are run by the government. But this was a risk-taking group, and they realized that implanting an AR campaign is really going to get far more buzz than it's probably going to get in terms of actual consumer usage, but it's something that sets the brand apart and shows innovative thinking."
But augmented reality doesn't exist just in the online and television/film world. As smartphones continue to proliferate our daily lives (passing PCs in overall sales in February), offering these experiences in a mobile setting becomes increasingly important. And in the future, it will likely be the main way to reach consumers via augmented reality.