Stern AR

Company

The stern weekly magazine of publishing house Gruner & Jahr is one of the most important magazines in Germany with a circulation of 850.000 issues sold and a total reach of an estimated 7,5 Million readers, covering a wide range of stories of political, economic as well as social and lifestyle interest.

The stern issue # 36/2011 was planned to document the revolution which the new technology of Augmented Reality is about to introduce into our daily lives by providing a hands on taste of this to readers with a smartphone.

AR Experience

Based on the junaio Plugin technology, a free of charge "stern AR" app was created for iPhones and Android smartphones and can be found in the Apple App Store or Android Market. With this app, readers can view 16 different AR experiences spread throughout the magazine, from animated cartoons, 3D animations and very touching video interviews of bereaved family members of those who lost their lives in the 9/11 catastrophe in 2001.

Conclusion

The whole experience resulted in a high acceptance and usage rates. We got great feedback from users and the publisher. Furthermore we can call the whole project a great succes for Stern and junaio. 

"Augmented Reality applications are fun. Yet, it really gets fascinating when, with the help of AR, we succeed in conveying new insights, very personal experiences or special moments. For this reason we did not want to just write about this new technology but to make it come alive for our readers through the very stories reported in stern."

stern editor in chief, Thomas Osterkorn