Property goes AR with new Pam Golding app

The next time you’re browsing through the property section of a newspaper, you could find yourself pointing your smartphone at it: international property group Pam Golding has announced the launch of an augmented reality property app.

Pam Golding says that it decided to launch the app because it believes that print still has a role to play in the industry.

“While it’s true that digital marketing has changed the face of real estate forever, we acknowledge the important role the print media continues to play in advertising properties for sale, and in attracting buyers and sellers,” says Pam Golding Group chief executive Dr Andrew Golding. “It is certainly not a case of digital versus print media – we believe there is synergy between the two, and that the use of innovative technology can further enhance our advertising in print media.”

“As a result, we have introduced a technological innovation which will add value to the property experience for our clients, called ‘PGP Reality’. This augmented reality technology allows us to deposit concealed digital content on our print advertising, thereby enabling readers access to additional, useful information which will add further appeal to their visual experience of our property portfolios. This can include a video of the property, 3D models, links to the property listings, agent details, share and tweet buttons and more,” says Dr Golding.

The app, called PGP Reality, is available via the Google Play store for Android devices and on the Apple App Store for iOS devices.

Adding AR to print ads is hardly a new idea. A number of magazines have included AR elements in their covers in the recent past. Whether Pam Golding can get the app to take off is another thing entirely. While AR apps looked set to take off towards the end of 2012, research conducted at the beginning of this year found that young people — those most likely to adopt new technologies — don’t really care all that much for AR apps and QR codes.