Surf Safely with Leo Burnett Australia’s AR App

AR fully entered the public realm this summer following the success of Pokemon Go.

While the public’s willingness to embrace the new tech phenomena surprised many advertisers, others have been busying themselves, thinking up ways to use the medium and attract similar levels of attention.

Leo Burnett Australia has unveiled Pocket Patrol, an AR app that allows beachgoers to identify beach hazards and promises to keep them safe.

Created in partnership with Samsung and non-profit Surf Life Saving Australia, the app shares data from on-duty lifeguards and surf lifesavers – combined with GPS, Compass, Gyroscope and image recognition technology – to warn sun worshippers of the perils at sea, particularly rips.

And considering how much smartphones are used these days, it seemed only natural to relay this information onto this platform.

“It was important that Pocket Patrol was easy to use; it had to be as simple as holding up your smartphone to the water,” says the agency’s ECD Vince Lagana. “Augmented Reality became a natural fit to implement into the app; Pocket Patrol is the first time that this technology and GPS have been used together to display hidden dangers in such a manner. Making it happen meant pushing the technology to its current limits so we could achieve a level of accuracy satisfaction to both SLSA and Samsung.”

And the app has helped beachgoers understand the role of lifesavers. It was originally tested on 2,000 people over a month-long trial before a VR experience and 360 film were rolled out to almost three million more. The app will help to encourage safe surfing but it should not be used as an isolated warning device as it may not identify all hazards; swimmers should still consult lifeguards if in doubt.

For more information on the app, click here or here to download it.