Digital Pharma: Augmented reality gateway for Bayer haemophilia site
pharmafile | September 1, 2010 | News story | Medical Communications | Digital Pharma blog, augmented reality, disease awareness campaigns, haemophilia
Bayer Healthcare has launched a new disease awareness campaign that uses augmented reality techniques to engage with its target audience.
The Questival website aims to provide information and advice on ‘real life’ issues to teenagers with haemophilia and is themed around a virtual festival.
Bayer Healthcare brand manager Tom Cleminson said: “We hope this site will be a real hit with our patients.
“We are committed to their quality of life and well-being as well as their treatment and we’re pleased to be able to inform teenagers through such an innovative and exciting platform.”
The company worked with communications agency Langland on the site, which has a pleasingly slick consumer feel to it and offers a unique augmented reality entry sequence.
Augmented reality adds interactive, superimposed computer-generated imagery to a view of the real world, and on the Questival site visitors activate this by holding a special festival lanyard up to their webcam.
When the webcam detects the lanyard a stormy landscape appears on screen. Blowing into the computer’s microphone then disperses the clouds to reveal a sunny scene and a special code allowing entry to the site.
The lanyards are available from users’ local haemophilia centre or can be downloaded online – the site has instructions for users without a webcam on how to reach the site.
The Questival site offers information and advice on ‘real life’ issues such as sex, alcohol, smoking and drugs, tattoos and depression for those suffering from haemophilia.
The rare hereditary blood-clotting condition affects approximately 400,000 people around the world, nearly all of them male.
Bayer’s work with the condition includes its Kogenate brand, which it markets for the treatment and prophylaxis of bleeding in patients with haemophilia A.
Bayer said it hopes the new site will help young people find answers to personal questions in a fun and relaxed yet secure environment.
The video below demonstrates how Questival’s augmented reality element works.
Questival from langland on Vimeo.
Bayer and Langland have worked together before in haemophilia, most recently producing the Kid K football game and iPhone app.
Meanwhile, Bayer has produced a range of other haemophilia awareness initiatives. These include its online magazine for young people Frankly.net, which tackles similar subjects to the Questival site, and the FactorTrack iPhone app.
Dominic Tyer is web editor for Pharmafocus and InPharm.com and the author of the Digital Pharma blog He can be contacted via email, Twitter or LinkedIn.
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