Technology is constantly evolving, and tons of its developments, such as VR and AR, continue winning new users across industries. Although augmented reality (AR) remains a novelty in 2020, its possible proves immense in the fields of healthcare, property, manufacturing, education, entertainment, and marketing. Having said this, AR is the technology that a growing number of manufacturers are happy to get access to when creating their content marketing strategies. Marketing is driven by client wants and needs and augmented reality is the innovation that could radically improve customer experience, making customer connections more purposeful and psychological.
The frequent point of those reports on the current and future status of AR is that the technology will continue getting more widespread and effective. So, why not delve into the subject if it is still something new and exciting? Thinking creatively and innovatively is the entrepreneurs’ key to success. Purchasing AR is exactly what one should do today, and we’ll explain to you why!
In this guide, we’re going to place a particular focus on AR usage within the context of promotion and marketing. Let’s find out what benefits you need to derive by implementing AR and how you can incorporate it in your business.
What is augmented reality in advertisements?
Augmented Reality (AR) is generally known as the enrichment of these spaces and objects in the physical world through utilizing computer-generated artificial, artificial and virtual 3D components. AR seamlessly combines virtual and actual, mixing interactive digital content into a person’s view of the physical environment. It is interactive in real time and connected to certain locations or actions.
The AR technology has become more accessible to consumers than ever before due to how chips in mobile devices, such as tablets and tablets, are becoming stronger, screen resolution is becoming higher, apparatus’ cameras are highly-developed and are empowered with features such as GPS, digital compasses and accelerometers. It’s becoming so powerful that we can not but expect a brand new user experience design era.
User experience is a holistic thought. It encompasses all the ways that people use an interactive product like a mobile app. In the case of augmented reality-powered applications, both practical and psychological appraisals influence customers’ attitudes to the product or brand. It is equally important that customers feel good about an AR-powered app when using this and it AR experience can better serve their purposes and better match to the entire context in which people are using the product.
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Elevated levels of improvement caliber, informativeness, interactivity, usefulness, along with hedonic and aesthetic quality, are the main product attributes that make a difference in the user experience of AR apps. And the more technology is present on the current market, the more advanced and capable of fulfilling these criteria it becomes.
The AR technology is promising, really. According to the Statista prediction, the quantity of mobile augmented reality (AR) users worldwide is expected to reach 2.4 billion by 2023.
The forecast appears accurate, especially in the light of the Covid-19 pandemic. The IBM’s 2020 U.S. Retail Index report claims the pandemic has accelerated the shift to digital shopping by, at minimum, five years. At precisely the exact same time, Shopify confirmed that interactions with products powered by 3D or AR content had shown a 94 percent higher conversion rate compared to products without those technologies.
Marketing is generally expected to be one of the most useful areas of AR’s application. It’s mostly due to the fact that Augmented Reality Marketing concentrates on creating electronic affordances in a concrete environment intended to aid customers’ activities and boost their experiences and decision-making. With that said, the application of digital marketing technologies throughout the AR promoting interface looks like a complete win-win. And we are just going to go into more detail about why it is so. But first, let’s find out how AR works and how different AR vs. VR are.
What’s the difference between AR and VR?
Virtual and augmented reality fascinates businesses and wide audiences alike. Not everybody, however, knows exactly how these systems function and how significant the difference between these technologies is.
When comparing VR vs. AR, it is reasonable to say that the latter provides alphanumeric, symbolic, or graphic information based on real-time atmosphere. By comparison, the former provides a comprehensive replacement for an authentic visual universe.
Different from VR augmented reality does not replace the real world. To the contrary, it enriches the environment with 3D digital elements, using computer vision, mapping, and depth monitoring. These elements are aligned, correlated, and stabilized in a spatially contextual and clever manner. AR is currently utilised in augmenting displays like the ones in eyeglasses and handheld AR devices like tablets and smartphones. These devices use the onboard cameras to combine a real-world setting utilizing a computer-generated 3D picture.
Subsequently, virtual reality describes screen technologies — worn ones and adjusted placements — which provide users a compelling visual sense of presence or immersion withing a 3D computer simulation (a 3D model.) This experience is enabled by using stereoscopic head-mounted displays and semi-immersive projection-based systems like virtual domes. The VR visual display is normally supplemented by an audio solution. You can see how AR and VR work on the image below:
Much like Virtual Reality, AR technology keeps growing in popularity, though at various prices. Therefore, according to eMarketer, the sum of AR users is forecast to reach 95.1 million in america, compared to 60.8 million that US VR users are expected to finish within the same timeframe.
VR and AR are different. They have their advantages and disadvantages, possible and current spheres of application, daunting challenges, and interesting use cases. But they could work together. Their interoperability makes it possible to create more engaging experiences and supply a new dimension to relations between the virtual and actual worlds.
Forms of augmented reality
Now that we’ve defined what augmented reality is and how different it is from virtual reality, let’s discuss briefly the four important sorts of AR that marketers can use in their electronic marketing approaches: marker-based, markerless, superimposition-based, and projection-based.
1. ) Marker-based augmented reality. Marker-based AR technologies are invented before the rest of the AR forms and are used more infrequently than, by means of example, markerless AR. They signify that the system needs specific predefined detectable”markers” to signify items in a particular setting. To know what the consumer wants to focus on, the system needs a 2D picture, QR code, or 3D item that would be a mark and set the position of the digital objects to be exhibited. It is only upon detection of the specific markers that the app will showcase the AR-powered electronic content.
2. ) Markerless augmented reality. This is the most popular image recognition way of AR applications now. The differentiation between marker-based and markerless types is in the information source for identifying the digital material’s positioning within the user’s or camera’s view. Thus, in markerless AR, the user can place the digital object anywhere within the specified range using GPS and the compass sensor on the smartphone. For instance, this method was used from the infamous Pokémon Go game.
The technology keeps moving forward, so there are platforms — ARKit for iOS and ARCore for Android — that simplify markerless AR app development. To make sure digital objects remain right positioned in real life, they use data from a device’s motion sensor and camera to comprehend spatial movement across six axes without the previous knowledge of the environment.
3. Superimposition-based AR. The key objective of superimposition-based augmented reality is to partially or fully replace a product’s unique view with a recently created augmented view of exactly the same object. This kind of AR heavily depends upon object recognition; otherwise, the application won’t have the capacity to replace the original perspective with an augmented one. Among the instances of superimposition-based AR is a parking aid system where AR admits the road boundaries to outline them to the driver. Furthermore, other examples of the form of AR are observed in some furniture showrooms like IKEA.
4. ) Projection-based augmented reality. in case of the AR type, artificial light is projected onto objects in the real-world landscape. Projection-based AR is largely used to analyze the product’s structure in more detail, examining its position, orientation, and depth. Normally, this sort of AR is not utilised in mobile applications. The standard case of projection-based augmented truth is that the hologram, where projection-based AR becomes triggered when the light is blown on the surface.
Advantages of using AR in advertisements
As of this moment, there are tons of possible use cases for augmented reality. Promotion is the place where one is going to be able to discover a perfect balance between informativeness and pleasure made by means of augmented reality. Let’s now see what other advantages using AR in advertisements can bring and everything else you can do if integrating AR to your mobile app!
1. ) Optimize the customer experience
Not only AR embeds holograms of product and other electronic objects to the actual scene, but additionally, it uses contextual information about these products and the setting to assist customer experiences and activities. This results in the whole customer experience optimization. And particularly, interactive experience reveals more aesthetically pleasing and playful, the app itself becomes much more useful and easy to use, and customer service excellence becomes more viable.
AR technology enables interactivity and vividness of the experience. In turn, both these qualities are accountable for improving clients’ cognitive and affective evaluations of the promoted product that is seen through the lens of AR. As a result of this, people tend to develop more positive attitudes towards and tests of these products once the experience of interacting with them becomes more immersive, mediated by augmented reality.
This positive attitude highlights the practical advantages that augmented reality brings to the table. Sonot only it becomes more enjoyable for a customer to complete certain tasks on your app with its AR feature, but in additionit also enables them to make better purchase decisions.
2. ) Increase engagement through emotional connection
The adoption of AR is deemed effective if the tech, among others, makes it possible to comprehend the emotional context of the customer’s experience. AR will then adapt according to what it is perceived and produce more exciting and pleasant experiences for customers.
AR interactive technologies have the capacity to present more energetic product visualizations to clients, which makes it possible to create stronger emotional connections and positive affective experiences. Augmented reality advertising enables the exploration of product unrestrained by the fact of users’ real atmosphere. In addition to being more informative compared to 2D pictures, such experiences also enrich customers’ imagination, which makes them feel fun and pleasure.
Not always, it is the purchase that the consumer is motivated to create. Augmented reality might be utilized in advertising to emphasize your brand’s advertising message and engage clients in whatever manner accessible, make sure it consuming more content inside an app, sharing articles on social media, or perhaps making a purchase. The fact that people feel more emotionally involved if there is AR enhancement in place contributes to a rise in the degree and the quantity of interactions. With higher engagement that is inherent in augmented reality advertising, brands will be reaching customers better.
3. Boost retention rates
Augmented reality adds an exciting benefit to marketing. Together with increasing customer involvement, AR is also an effective tool for maximizing and maintaining retention prices.
The increase of AR-based sales plans have the potential to support after-sales support and customer retention. The question arising about the retention rate is if your clients are sticking to your personal brand. And this usually depends, to a large extent, how fulfilling their very first experience was. Merging the real world with the simulated one, AR can reveal a lot more information in a more transparent way so that when the consumer receives the true solution, they do not feel scammed.
Alternatively, even if your objective isn’t to sell the true solution, the interactivity of AR marketing can help keep users more anyway for you to take advantage of other more intricate monetization opportunities. Allowing complex data to interface with the real planet, AR helps producers effectively market themselves and their products. So, the more intensive and prolonged users’ attention drawn to the display using AR is, the less challenging it is to have a business to retain them.
4. ) Boost brand awareness and brand loyalty
Customer expectations are steadily growing, and today’s markets are rapidly changing. Due to this, businesses have to devise new ways to increase and maintain their brand awareness and brand loyalty. Modern technologies like augmented reality can help you with that.
The effects of AR experiential marketing on new equity can be very impressive. The high sensory immersion that AR enables is generally associated with a more positive brand attitude and improved product knowledge. So, do not miss your chance to profit from this opportunity. Create AR experiences that would generate word of mouth and hype. Let users instantly share positive opinions about you and your offering on the world wide web, thus forming your strong brand awareness.
Moreover, AR may have positive impacts on your brand loyalty. Satisfied customers have a propensity to repurchase a new. Accordingly, brand experiences that are driven by customer satisfaction normally increase brand loyalty. In a virtual world which a company has established inside its app, AR immersion is the instrument that permits the brand stand out and draw people’s attention. Hyper-realistically reproducing various brand identity elements, products that the company sells, and other content intended to function as immersive customer attraction, AR will keep improving your brand awareness and loyalty.
5. ) Present personalization opportunities
Augmented reality advertising can make personalization much more personal as perceived personalization is one of the principal processes underlying AR. It enhances customers’ purchase intentions, helping personalize products, and simplify the buying procedure.
Information tailored to a specific customer creates generally positive affective and behavioral responses to the app and maker. Visualizing products in a personally relevant context, allowing users to visualize goods in their body or face or within their own surroundings, AR technology significantly customizes experiences for people.
The AR interface enables the customization of experiences by directly showcasing selected products in the customer’s real time atmosphere. Due to this, consumers can associate and encode that personalized information building a positive association link between the brand and themselves.
Moreover, AR advertising can give a synergistic effect with other new technologies. Collecting and processing information from these resources, you will be able to achieve the personalization that will actually give you a competitive edge over others.
Inspiring examples of augmented reality in advertisements
The possibility of AR for promotion is not something abstract. For several years now, companies have been using augmented reality in their products. Over time, the quality of delivered experiences has dramatically improved, so the technology application’s scope proceeds increasing so.
Essentially, there are 3 kinds of AR applications relevant for companies ready to utilize the technology for marketing purposes: online on-line applications, in-store applications, and mobile applications. The three companies below are the perfect examples of such AR apps. They have managed to professionally fit augmented content into an augmented real surroundings producing excellent augmented experiences.
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- Ray-Ban Virtual Mirror. This is among the first online web-based AR applications developed by a retail business. The app can be found through the supplier’s’ international website so that potential customers can try on several styles of sunglasses and see which one matches their face best. This renowned sunglasses company managed to develop a self-augmentation app that may help improve user interaction with the latest increasing overall customer satisfaction.
- Sephora Virtual Artist. This beauty technology pioneer and one of the greatest beauty retailers has introduced two unique sorts of AR-based applications: in-store magic mirrors and a mobile app. AR mirrors in their stores have enabled customers to envision how virtual facial makeup or remedies would look like on them. And in 2016, Sephora introduced its Virtual Artist, a mobile AR app allowing users to test products without being present in a physical store.
- IKEA Place. IKEA’s mobile app is among the first applications using AR for furniture and home goods retailing. It allows clients position catalogue items at scale straight in their homes where they are expected to be finally placed. Together with their smartphones’ cameras, users can compare and assess over 2,000 items available on the IKEA catalog by incorporating physical and augmented elements. The application is seen as almost 100% accurate in generating 3D images, which only adds to customer satisfaction with the app and brand experience.
how to incorporate AR into your business?
The advantages of AR for marketing are hard to deny. This obviously brings up the question,”Now what?” We have the solution! Now, it’s time to start integrating AR marketing in your organization! These are the steps you must follow:
1. ) Conduct market research. First, research the market so as to later make informed and sensible decisions incorporating AR into your organization. The entire potential of this technology is monumental. However, is it enough for a business like yours? Thus, don’t only focus on the comprehensive augmented reality market study but also ensure you’ve conducted a competitive analysis as well and have relevant data to act upon at hand. Who are your competitors? How do they use AR in their marketing strategies? What are these approaches’ strengths and weaknesses? Answering these questions, you will get closer to understanding how to build an AR-powered brand image standing out in a marketplace.
2. ) Evaluate technological and business challenges. Second, while exploring what benefits AR has brought to your competitors, give special consideration to their mistakes, flaws, and all of the publicly available information about the technical and business challenges they’ve faced. Augmented reality is a complex technology, so you will need to know about what issues you will encounter when implementing it and what limitations it might present to your company processes. These are the points which might not be possibly overlooked. Speech them till you return to discussing the strategies to integrate augmented reality into your existing application or build new AR apps for Android and iOS.
3. Employ an AR development team. Finally, ensure you’ve got the right people on board. Whenever you understand the competition and how to efficiently stick out from it, it’s high time for you to discover more about the software development market and pick the dream team that will professionally perform your AR project. Does this have to be an in-house or outsourced team? How many years of experience could you expect them to have? How many AR-related tasks do you want to see in their portfolio? What is your ideal candidate’s value proposition? Connect with AR developers, ask those questions, and explore opportunities for cooperation. Your perfect development team needs to be awaiting you.
Conclusion
Augmented reality marketing actually proves to be capable of successfully turning the computing power to enhanced customer loyalty and satisfaction. AR applications — both due to the hedonic benefits and high levels of integration and precision — can inspire users emotionally and behaviorally. They bring about superior brand experiences and standard brand attitude.