the introduction of its customized property-viewing app (PGP Reality) that will allow house-hunters view prospective properties advertised in print publications; Pam Golding Properties (PGP) has become the first estate agent in South Africa to use Augmented Reality (AR) app to market properties.
Commenting on the app, PGP Chief Executive, Andrew Golding, said the app is a “key marketing tool to rapidly deliver more content to today’s fast moving and tech-savvy consumers.”
“PGP Reality will be used in our selected weekend newspaper advertising, printed marketing material and billboards. As the name indicates, the new technology really brings properties ‘to life’, particularly as videos or virtual tours of homes can be made full screen by double-tapping your screen,” he added.
According to Golding, “In today’s competitive world of real estate, forward-thinking companies are always looking to reinvent innovative methods of marketing their products and attracting new business.”
He said, “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. 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.”
According to Gadgets, to view the enhanced visuals of an AR marked page or image, you can download the free PGP Reality application to your mobile device via either the Google Play Store for compatible android devices, or via the Apple iStore for an iPhone or iPad. Once you’ve downloaded and opened the app, position the entire page within the camera view on your device and the enhanced content will be displayed via your internet connection.
On why the reality app is not yet available on BlackBerry – South Africa’s most popular smartphone brand, PGP said, “It is something that the developers are looking into, from a global perspective, but note that Blackberrys don’t have the processor power necessary to run the complex image recognition algorithms.”
