Effective digital marketing relies on the effective use of powerful technology to connect with the customer and no technology is as powerful as AR. AR has seen incredible success in recent years as the accessibility to the technology has grown dramatically thanks to the IoT. With powerful frameworks and creative tools, there can be built unparalleled augmented reality experiences also for iOS and iPadOS with the help of specialists who can have extensive and in-depth experience.
The mobile platform specifically has benefited the most from AR as the success of apps like Pokemon Go has shown. For effective digital marketing, nothing is as useful as social media as AR continues to integrate with the platforms.
AR is social
Augmented reality is already a mainstream technology in the social media world. Augmented reality can make your Instagram videos look more interesting, give you a nice polished look in SnapChat, and an intriguing character addition in TikTok. The use has become so mainstream that many social media users don’t even think about the tech behind the video filters and AR models.
Facebook’s push for mixed reality
A few years ago, Facebook announced that it was hard at work developing a VR world, a social space where you can teleport to a friend’s house or visit an exotic locale via satellite imaging or just fight with swords using generated avatars. While the promise and the pitch were quite well worked out, the details were not and we still are not in a post-social VR world.
However, Facebook has embraced the technology after acquiring Oculus Rift, the VR startup juggernaut.
Instagram filters, Snapchat, TikTok stickers
While Facebook may lag, there are already successful implementations of social VR, allowing users to meet up in digital locales, hangout, and watch movies. Undoubtedly mixed reality apps will become interwoven into the fabric of our digital social lives.
AR is immersive and engaging content marketing
Digital marketing is about content these days. You want to engage your users with engaging and enriching content, not just sales copy. However, creating truly engaging content requires a great deal of effort. And still, it’s a gamble whether or not your content will resonate.
Augmented reality provides digital marketers with a unique opportunity to elicit real emotional engagement with branded content.
Sephora’s beauty app, which helps users try on fun makeup styles with generated filters, and IKEA’s furniture placement app that helps users decorate their home before they buy furniture are wonderful examples of exciting and immersive content. They provide customers unique experiences that have a lasting impact on their perception of those brands.
Augmented reality is value-generative and fun for your customers
Finally, we have the most successful implementation of AR as a prime example of how augmented reality can engage us, enhance the stories we share, and propel a brand into the pop culture conscious: Pokémon GO.
With billions of dollars and hours of play generated, Pokémon proves that AR is not only a user-friendly technology, but that it is also a deeply motivating medium. Effective digital marketing uses AR to make shopping easier for the consumer while also providing stand-alone value in the form of a useful app. AR’s value comes in many forms and effective digital marketing campaigns utilize the technology to its fullest to create engaging experiences for their users.
AR is used frequently for things like photo filters and placeable avatars that allow users to alter their appearance and interact with each other. This provides a prime opportunity for marketers to engage with their audience by creating AR software that encourages or assists in the social experience of the users.
The value of AR in the social media space is made evident by Facebook’s push into the AR market as they are confident in the power of AR as a social facilitator and business tool. Businesses such as IKEA and Sephora have used AR to outstanding effect through applications that encourage customers to interact with the brand.
IKEA uses AR through its app that allows users to place IKEA furniture throughout their physical space and then pick up said furniture at their nearest store or have it delivered. This is a great example of using AR technology in an engaging way that is both entertaining and utilitarian. Sephora uses AR to alter the appearance of the customer directly by allowing them to test different products without having to go into a store.
Romy Toma-Catauta works in the marketing field and is passionate about writing on remote work, business, interior design, and psychology.
