Every fortnight at Blue Hive we get together to indulge our passion and appetite for all things digital. We share links, discuss new ideas and vote on the best content. We call it Digital Honey.

There is a problem we see time and time again: brands using technology for technology’s sake rather than using it to actually add value to the brand or product message. The biggest culprit in recent years has certainly been Augmented Reality.

Agencies have been swarming to use Augmented Reality (AR) in every campaign, plastering on QR codes and praying that their consumers will actually use them. And hey, if it doesn’t produce positive ROI it will win an award…right?!

We’ve seen very few genuinely useful examples of AR. Crispin and Porter used it to demonstrate the value of a $1 note promoting the Burger King $1 menu and Rayban gave consumers the chance to virtually try on their new range of sunglasses (as demonstrated by our very own Nick Hearne).

Now Olympus is entering that exclusive club of brands using AR to great effect. They have created an AR demo of the new PEN E-PL1 to allow users to virtually test drive the camera. The user holds the special Olympus QR card in front of their webcam; on screen it’s replaced with a dynamic 3D Olympus E-PL1. But the experience goes even further; allowing the user to interact with the camera controls, take photos (of yourself!), shoot video, try the flash, remove the lens and even play with the in-camera effects.

What makes the Olympus AR experience so good is just how useful the virtual experience actually is. It’s sure to engage a more techy audience, and is publicised in consumer mags such as Wired and Popular Science because of this, but it’s a great product demonstration for any user.

It’s refreshing to see Augmented Reality being used for a genuinely useful purpose rather than just another tick on the digital check list. To see the product demonstration in its entirety visit http://www.getolympus.com/pen/.