As part of the Smart City initiative of Dubai, Dubai Customs wished to strengthen its presence on Gitex with the newest innovative mobile technology – Augmented Reality. So, in co-operation with H2O, we’ve developed an AR app for them – which, at the end was used much more widely.

The app consisted of three parts, one for the Gitex exhibition, one for the newspaper add, and a game to learn and entertain users. This ensured that anybody who interested in Dubai Customs could get information whether they were Gitex customers, or just saw the newspaper ad. When creating an app content supporting an event we always think of adding extra visual tricks. In this case the installation of Dubai Customs contained a giant poster in the background. Holding your phone (or the iPad provided by friendly hostesses) the poster became live, and you could see the whole environment in 3D. More to that, animated trucks, ships were “coming out” from it demonstrating the role and philosophy of Dubai Customs – thus creating a lasting experience. Similar to that a video played on the newspaper ad when you pointed your phone to it. A clever way of expanding the limited space of an ad.

The other part of the app was a catchy falcon game, since falcon is the logo of Dubai Customs. Falcons were flying in the surrounding virtual environment around you. In order to catch them all, you had to turn around in the physical world as well. This added another layer to the experience mixing the actual environment and the virtual world together. When catching a falcon, it transformed into a shield bearing the relevant information that the client wanted to tell the users, of course in a more memorable way.

All was happening right on your mobile, so it immediately carried the main message: Dubai Customs is already on your mobile – in a smart way.