Thanks to”Avatar“, James Camaron’s next movie, augmented reality gained un incredible buzz lately. There’s no day without magazines telling stories about the next big thing: how augmented reality’s going to change our lives. Even Variety, the famous movies and actors magazine, explains how Coca-Cola Co., Mattel and McDonald’s partner to integrate technology for promotion.

“Hollywood and Madison Avenue have been quick to embrace the technology — which launches movable 3D images or games on computer screens when an item is held up to a webcam — as the newest must-have marketing tool to connect with consumers.”

Coca-Cola Co., Mattel and McDonald’s have invested millions in order to not only educate people about what can be done, but also associate themselves to Avatar in unique ways.

Augmented Reality will probably be one of the trending topics during next holidays online discussions. I’m curious to see how Twitter is going to celebrate Avatar’s opening day (december 18th) with hash tags like #augmentedreality or #AR.

However, the path to success is not that easy. AR is not as eas as typing text, using a USB card or playing music on an mp3 player. Education matters. That’s exactly where companies like Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Mattel have a key role to play. Indeed, it’s often much easier to teach people hard concepts with everyday examples, rather than talking to them about 3D, depth, focal distance or markers. Give them a toy or a can they can move around a webcam, and they will quickly and easily assimilate what augmented reality is all about. Mattel, for example, just had to provide action figures together with an i-Tag, created by Total Immersion, for users to reveal special content when shown to a webcam.

IMHO, more and more “low-tech” companies will embrace the realm of augmented reality in the next few months. These companies are deeply connected to people’s everyday life, they are more encline to add the appropriate amount of augmented reality in their campaign than hich-tech companies can imagine.

One more thing: most engaging AR experiences for the consumers are based on MLT (“MarkerLess Tracking“). MLT definitely helps to connect with consumers more smoothly/efficiently/easily. That’s clearly the right way to implement AR.