How Augmented Reality can Help Your Business
Whether you’re uploading or viewing photos and videos, playing gaming apps or utilising 360 degree photo capture on social media platforms, chances are that you’ve used some sort of AR. Yup, all those beauty filters across Instagram and the dancing hotdogs spread across Snapchat? You can thank AR for that.
So, What is AR?
Augmented Reality, or AR, is a creative technology that magically blends the virtual and real world. It’s a technology where assets like 3D models, videos and other formats are superimposed in real time through our device cameras like smartphones, tablets or computers. It’s called ‘augmented reality’ because it uses these computerised graphics and virtual objects to augment our experience of the world around us.
AR is a Growing Industry
Though AR technology is still in its beginning stages, it possesses serious growth potential. With increasing use in a variety of industries, companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft and Facebook are among the few big names heavily invested in AR technology – meaning they’re drawing big investments into the industry. The AR market size is projected to reach a huge $3664.5 million USD by 2026, exploding from about 849 million in 2019 at a CAGR of 27.6%.
As more brands report successful conversion rates using AR, it’s projected to become an active channel in the marketing toolkit to push higher conversions and sales.
Marketing Potential
Marketers are interested in reach, engagement and other upper funnel metrics. You’re looking for something that will promise a return on ad spend – something to increase your business’s number of impressions, traffic and virality – AR might just be the solution for you.
AR provides convenient, immersive 3D experiences that allow consumers to engage with brands and products via digital experiences, where they can try on, interact with or personalise their product virtually. In a study by INC42, they found that immersive experiences (such as AR and VR) have an engagement rate 7 times higher than 2D videos – with an UGC rate of up to 40%.
They also create unique opportunities to connect with consumers because they enable visualisation, personalisation and storytelling – improving the connection between businesses and consumers. According to an analytic report by Zappar on how the brain interacts with AR, brand awareness is noted to increase by up to 70% with creative use of AR.
So, what are the options?
As AR tech continues to improve, we are seeing a rapidly expanding number of augmented reality experience options – meaning the marketing possibilities are also endless. Here are a few examples that you could consider!
Face Filter
Img Source: TechCrunch
Face filters are fun, easy and super shareable, meaning they’re a fantastic addition for a marketing campaign. Face filters use AR by augmenting a user’s face to change their appearance – which can range from beautifying it to quirky, fun overlays.
The face filter can direct the consumer towards a branded design, and, if smartly outlined, it provides an accessible link between brands and consumers, making a brand more recognisable. They’re also commonly used on big social media platforms like TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram, meaning they have shareability and the potential to go viral!
World Effects
Source: Inter IKEA Systems
World effects provide an incredibly immersive experience through AR. Combining the real and digital world, AR can be used to simulate products in real-life spaces all conveniently through your camera. They provide realistic scale and representations of certain items, and can be used to showcase everything from furniture to even shoes on your feet!
Consumers can really connect with a brand through world effects because they’re given the option to try out your product in real time. Sometimes, this could even be the switch that drives a customer to purchase your product!
Portals
Source: Medium.com
Portals are fantastic tools to immerse a user in a brand and boost engagement. As the camera superimposes a scene through augmented reality, the user is transported to a new world. From photorealistic simulations of places like the Amazon rainforest or animated, fantastical lands, portals provide an incredible immersive experience for customers to explore which all tie back to the brand.
Mini Games
Source: Niantic
Another option to use in your marketing campaign could be AR games. These games make the user an active participant by having their actions shape the games. The user participates in the game through facial tracking and gestural technology to reach some sort of objective.
Given our current pandemic, mini games are a great investment. Mini games fill up the time and keep people occupied, but also help its user actively engage with a brand. Depending on the difficulty of the game, this could be highly addictive – and shareable!
Image Trackers
Source: WikiTude
Image trackers are another excellent way to add depth to your marketing campaign. Image trackers augment a physical object or image with content and information, allowing users to interact with a brand in real time. They’re fantastic tools to drive consumer interaction, helping them to better engage with posters, logos or billboards!
With society becoming more and more reliant on the virtual world during this pandemic, there’s no better time to harness AR.
Let us know if you’d be interested in using AR for your future marketing campaign – we’d love to see how we could help!
