Zappar Expands North American Presence With Exec Team Hire

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM--(Marketwired - Jul 21, 2017) - Zappar, a leading developer of augmented reality (AR) experiences and creative tools, today named Keith Curtin as Vice President Sales, East Coast. The addition of Curtin to Zappar's executive team helps expand the company's U.S. operations, which now ecompasses San Francisco, Boston and the associated metropolitan and regional geographies. As VP Sales, East Coast, Curtin will be responsible for educating Zappar's brand partners on how to best implement Zappar's leading AR, VR, and MR platforms and tools to enhance their digital strategy and capture value for their businesses and end users.

Curtin joins Zappar from See Digital, a consultancy firm he founded specializing in AR, virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR). He is broadly regarded as one of the top influencers in the AR/VR/MR space, having worked with major global brands on some of their first forays into building and deploying AR/VR/MR consumer campaigns. Prior to founding See Digital, Curtin spent several years as Vice President, Business Development at Blippar, an AR platform for brands, agencies and retailers. An early Blippar employee in the U.S., Curtin helped the company scale through several phases of the growth lifecycle while helping major global brands to test, adopt and deploy increasingly sophisticated AR campaigns. Prior to Blippar, Curtin spent more than a decade working in various sales leadership roles across the publishing, digital media, brand and agency industries.

"After a number of years of brand experimentation, we're now seeing businesses get more serious about their level of interest in adopting AR as part of their longer term digital strategy," said Caspar Thykier, CEO, Zappar. "Keith's experience in the space is close to unmatched as he's already spent several years working with brands not only to test but roll-out innovative and successful consumer marketing campaigns rooted in AR. As we move into our own accelerated growth phase, we're thrilled to have Keith on board." 

"Working in augmented reality for the past few years has been an enriching experience for me and has helped me see in various forms what works and what doesn't, especially when working with key decision makers at major consumer brands," said Curtin. "I decided to join Zappar because I felt that the team's vision for AR was aligned with my own, and that the team's history in the space has lent it a certain wisdom around and insight into what it will take to continue building and growing a marketplace for rich AR experiences and successful business solutions. I look forward to helping the Zappar team meet its growth goals in the next few years to come."

Founded in 2011, Zappar was an early pioneer in developing authoring and publishing platforms for AR, helping drive adoption and experimentation at the 3D artist, graphic designer and creative content developer level. Grassroots enthusiasm for Zappar's AR authoring and publishing platform served as a catalyst for several major integrations across the brand, agency, retail, entertainment and media industries, including Shazam, Coca-Cola, Hasbro, Toys"R"Us, Dunkin' Donuts, Hachette, Warner Bros.and Rovio (Angry Birds). Zappar counts thousands of marketers, developers and designers across 199 countries as users of its platform.

About Zappar
Zappar is the world leader in augmented reality ("AR") on mobile devices accessible through its free-to-download app on iOS and Android (or third-party apps with Zappar embedded within them). Zappar specializes in AR-enabled products and infotainment experiences: working closely with brands, license partners and retailers across the world to produce innovative, customizable market-leading solutions as bite-sized entertainment. Partners include Rovio, Sony Pictures, Sony Music, Warner Bros, Hasbro, PEZ, Universal Pictures, Pearson, Crocs, Morphsuits, Moonpig.com, Coca-Cola, Manchester City Football Club, and Asda amongst others.

With the launch of ZapWorks, Zappar is bringing to the market the most feature rich and affordable AR/VR content creation tool available that is already being used by Avon Cosmetics, Deloitte, InterContinental Hotels Group, Pernod Ricard, Coca-Cola, R/GA, Samsung, Thomson Reuters and Vodafone, among others.