What is Augmented Reality Marketing? 

Augmented Reality refers to merging virtual elements into real-world situations. Augmented Reality Marketing harnesses the technical components of Augmented Reality (AR) to create engaging promotions and marketing campaigns. AR is highly beneficial in marketing as it creates an immersive experience for the consumer. The gap between brand and consumer is closed as interaction is enhanced in a completely new way.

As an Augmented Reality Agency, we specialise in creating AR promotions that use the full potential of Augmented Reality.

Benefits of Augmented Reality

There are many benefits to employing Augmented Reality.

– It provides an immersive way to remotely/digitally sample products, experiences and services. This allows consumers to test/try products digitally before purchasing. IKEA have used AR to allow customers to test out furniture in their home.

– Augmented Reality makes existing media work harder and provides an interactive, immersive layer to print, packaging, OOH, social media, TV and email. Adding an AR feature can completely transform an otherwise dull post/billboard.

– It improves brand awareness. Creating AR promotions increases the visibility of your brand and improves consumer perception.

– AR experiences are memorable and often create organic social media moments which make them highly effective.

– Augmented Reality is relevant to younger shoppers and consumers, especially ‘Generation Z’. AR promotions can help reach a new generation of consumers.

Types of Augmented Reality Experiences

There are two main avenues of AR experiences.

1. Tracked or as a digital overlay on something defined. For example your face, packaging, your car etc. In this case, consumers point their camera at the object to access the AR experience. We created an AR digital overlay for Ballymaloe Foods and had great results.

or

Magically appear in your worldview. In this format, one opens their camera and the AR appears in your world naturally. We created an augmented reality treasure hunt for the charity Pine2Pink to raise money and awareness of breast cancer.

In terms of formats they tend to take the form of:

Games/Mini Games: A 3D game is created using augmented reality projected on the world around you.

Portals – Portals are 3D events where consumers can walk into something immersive.

Try-ons – This allows consumers to sample something before buying for example L’Oreal Cosmetic Filter or the IKEA furniture visualisation.

Packaging experiences – Shoppers scan packaging, logos or QR codes to experience a game or competition experience. We have curated a list of our favourite AR packaging.

3D objects – Products can be experienced or sampled in 3D. This is especially effective for watches/jewellery, and product walk-throughs.

Visual search – This is where shoppers scan products to learn more and unlock rewards.

Retail assistance – Similar to visual search but where shoppers use AR to navigate the in-store environment.

Creating an Augmented Reality Promotion.

Once you decide that an AR experience promotional is something you would like to implement, we must decide on the mode and prizes. These tangible or digital prizes are usually rewarded for consumer interaction. As we know the bigger the prize fund, the more entries you will get.

There are many different options for AR promotions for example: scannable packaging, games, portals, treasure hunts, and face filters. We can help you decide on the perfect format and create something fun that people will want to use by leveraging the unique strengths of AR.

We also build it in a way that makes it easy to receive people’s details and run prize draws in line with your T&Cs.

Once we have established the prize fund and a compelling AR experience we can make a very engaging and memorable promotional mechanic.

Integration:

Augmented Reality campaigns work best when integrated seamlessly into a brand’s wider communications strategy and promoted to the right audience.

Understanding where and how people will access the experience goes a long way towards ensuring that the promotional is tailored to the brief, target market and context.

FAQs

What is the role of AR?

Augmented reality has many benefits such as increased brand awareness, increased purchases and amplifying existing comms.

What is the business problem that AR will solve?

AR can solve many problems that may arise in marketing. For example, AR can allow a consumer to sample a look or clothing before purchase. Furthermore, it provides an excellent product and experience visualisation complying with the “show don’t tell”  technique. It allows for an immersive experience and can easily be added to the packaging.

Who is the target audience? 

This is important so we can understand where they will discover the experience. For example, should we include the AR on-pack, through email, in-store, at an event, or through comms/ads?

Why will they care?

It is often helpful to include a persuasive element to encourage engagement such as discount codes, shareable content, games or filters.

What is the Call To Action?

We want consumers to interact with the Augmented Reality component so we include a call to action.  There are many different options such as: ‘click here to access’ or a QR code or include a competition to encourage interaction.

What creative assets are available?

As an augmented reality agency, we judge how best to curate a creative AR to meet brand goals. There are many aspects to this such as 2D/ 3D components. We can also ascertain if we have any existing assets to reduce costs.

What platforms?

It is important to decide what platforms will be the most effective. This is dependent on the file size, mobile signal, wifi requirements and shareability.

Get in Touch to create your own campaign.