Augmented Reality = Augmented Marketing?

What precisely is Augmented Reality?

What precisely is Augmented Reality?

Augmented Reality is the projection of digital images in an analogue surrounding, often with the help of an extra camera and screen, like your phone. The camera of your phone takes pictures of the surroundings in which you are located while at the same time you can place telephone objects in that particular environment. These are objects that do not really exist, but they add an extra experience to the world surrounding you. Think about the projecting of match information on a soccer field while you are in the stadium yourself or looking at new furniture for your future living room!

The fun thing about the AR Kit is that it makes the technology so specific that the size of object is determined by the dimensions of your surroundings, and it considers other analogue objects in the room. Where Augmented Reality used to require all sorts of external apps or extra hardware, the AR Kit makes the technology more accessible. It works on iPhones from the 6S generation and all those above.

It is precisely this accessibility of the AR Kit that finally makes Augmented Reality ready for the world and thus ready and useable for marketing purposes.

What makes AR suitable for marketing?

What makes AR suitable for marketing?

It really is a combination of Augmented Reality qualities that forms it into an interesting and convenient marketing instrument. AR offers a variety of advantages that can literally bring your message or products to life.

It is new and draws attention. All right, this advantage will probably become less important over time; however, there are still new applications of AR upcoming, and as a brand, it is a good opportunity to let your target group experience your brand in a new and unique way. Further ahead in this blog, you will see how IKEA, as one of the first big companies, used this to their advantage!

AR makes it personal. The fun aspect about AR is that it is almost always personal. Object are projected in the direct surroundings of the user. A big part of the success of Pokémon Go is the fact that the Pokémon are almost coming to life in your backyard! From a brand and product aspect, this carries another big advantage. Ikea enables you to place furniture from their catalogue into your own living room or bedroom, so you can already see how it will turn out. Converse created an app with which customers were able to aim their telephone at their feet and making them able to try on new sneakers. With the help of AR, every message becomes a personal one, because the message occurs in the environment of the user itself!

It makes a message interactive. Written messages, images or videos, they are all, in one way or another, static. Interaction is not needed and is rarely encouraged. This opportunity of interaction is standard in AR technology. A 3D-projection can be viewed from all points of view, it can be turned, and you can walk around it. Objects can be moved, turned or used differently.

Interaction ensures that a message is better remembered because people are actively engaged with your message. In a world where brands cry for attention and everything is about holding that attention, AR can be used as a very interesting tool of marketing. This makes AR very well suitable for educational- or training programmes. Think about children at school who can project the galaxy into their classroom and can wander through it or engineers who can point their device onto a specific machine, after which information appears next to the machine about how to assemble it.

It lets people experience your product before purchase. The examples from Ikea and Converse already showed that AR enables consumers to view, try and experience products before they purchase it. This way the brands try to take away the insecurities people have during the purchase of a (high involvement) product and to reduce these and inspire them with new ideas for the purchase of product that they otherwise might never try. Connect an AR application to the e-commerce of a webshop and an interesting new possibility of conversion appears! In the future, we will probably see more of the kinds of application, from the trying on of new clothes and even in ordering food!

AR is accessible. An advantage, but also a condition for success is that the technology must be accessible. After many years, the AR Kit finally brings this to the table. The number of people with a smartphone or other device which is suitable for Augmented Reality has risen, and most AR-apps are usable by following only a few easy steps.

Examples of AR use

Examples of AR use

To empower the aforementioned advantages, I will mention a few interesting uses of Augmented Reality below. Try them yourself!

MLB. Not yet launched, but still very interesting is an update that will be added in America in the app for the Major League Baseball. This app will change the way of how people experience sports in a stadium, with the help of Augmented Reality statistics of players, including pictures and other information will be projected on the field. With AR, the MLB adds more experience to a live match.

Magicplan. A nice example of what technology is capable of is the foundation of Magicplan. By means of Augmented Reality, users can measure the dimensions of a room to not only measure the room (or objects) but also to generate accurate maps of space.

Neon. Neon is a promising project where people can easily find their friends at busy places such as festivals. Based on GPS coordinates from you and your friends, the app uses Augmented Reality to project a big marker on the target place of your friends. Ideal for a busy summer festival, right?

Interactive business card. Get Hooked has also developed an app in the past with which one of her clients could easily tell her brands’ story in a new way. Because what is easier than a business card that tells the brands’ story itself? We made sure that all customers of Oliver IT heard the same powerful story, despite the account manager!

Now what?

At Get Hooked we are always interested in new technology and especially the (marketing) usages these bring. We already developed the above-mentioned example to tell the story of a client through Augmented Reality in a fun manner, and we enjoy exploring AR technologies with our clients to be able to get their stories or products across in a new and interactive way. We would like to invite you to come and have a brainstorming session with us to see how AR can boost your brand or marketing campaign!