Innovative Ways to Use AR in Your Marketing Strategy
In 2012, Tupac hosted a concert at Coachella. This shouldn’t have been an unusual occurrence. After all, artists hold concerts every day.
Yet, when Tupac arose from beneath the stage, an audible gasp shot up from the crowd, and they fell silent. Because, well, Tupac had been gone for years.
He was imagined back to life through the use of hologram technology, and the following performance left the crowd dumbstruck. That is the potential of Augmented Reality (AR) for your business.
So, how can you harness the power of AR in your marketing strategy?
In Customer Service
In 2016, Xerox was staring down the barrel of a massive problem.
Since they entered office spaces, printers and scanners had been the bane of every office department. But, when one machine holds up the hopes and dreams of office efficiency, technical failures inevitably occur.
So, Xerox put their heads together and invested in Fieldbit, an AR software that can project media into the user’s physical space. The result? Office workers were able to harness AR to see digital projections (images, video, audio) of directions and manuals, as an expert walked them through it. The ROI was impressive.
There was a 76% resolution rate.
Building your brand trust is vital for referral marketing, and AR should be a crucial tool in your companies digital strategy. But AR doesn’t stop the innovation train at just customer assistance.
Try Before You Buy
Social media mavens, influencers, all of these will be the realm of Generation Z, who by now are anywhere between 12–27 years old. Why does that matter for AR?
Well, 54% of Generational Z consumers loved trying new things when they came out. And with the slow strangulation of physical stores, AR looks to be the next revolution in “try before you buy.” Just look at how some of these companies are working their AR magic:
What Furniture and Jewelry Did
Home Depot was in the AR game as far back as 2013, with their app that allowed you to try out that new sofa by projecting it into your living room. Now, your customers could see how their jazzy new furniture looked in their swanky new bachelor pad before committing to it.
Jewelry brand Kendra Scott pulled a similar tactic in 2020 by allowing customers to snap on virtual earrings. This strategy zeroes in on something that we have had every since our romps on the rusty elementary school jungle gym:
“The Playground Effect.”
Play, Explore, AR!
Billed as the way in which we value the chance to safely explore and express ourselves creatively, manifesting itself in the “safe” playground atmosphere.
As adults, we bring this psychological need into our purchasing decisions, where the intoxicating effects of climbing the jungle gym manifests in how we can change the colors or shape of various products before buying.
But one question may be plaguing your mind: how can I invest in the technology to join the AR craze. Well, customers have already done the heavy lifting.
Wassup!
It was a moment in time when everyone remembered where they were when it happened. It stood with the greatest moments in human history, on par with the moon landing: The 1999 Budweiser Wassup! Ad.
But on a serious note, it did show how phone technology is prominent in every house, even back in 1999. So, while VR requires the investment in pricey peripherals, AR technology already lies in the hands of your consumers, which utilize smartphone tech. This makes it way more accessible than its VR counterpart (which can eat into your wallet at a costly $3,500 per headset).
If you want to develop propriety software, then that could be a costly venture. But there are plenty of tech companies with technology that you can adapt to fit your means.
So how can you wield the power of AR to push the image of your brand?
Brand Storytelling
A Pikachu in the streets, a dancing polar bear in your living room, or bustin’ hip thrusts with Michael Jackson.
AR is presenting marketing companies with new ways to push their brand in innovative ways. Pokemon GO allowed you to hunt pokemon, transforming your drab world into a colorful one.
Jadu transforms your humble home into a concert venue through duets with holograms of famous musicians. Through this hip interactivity, the age of lip-syncing on TikTok becomes obsolete (finally!). But behind this tech wizardry lies the true gem that salivating marketers are waiting to mine:
Data.
AR and Data Collection
AR works in a very special way that allows you to mine data in new ways, pushing the boundaries of how you can personalize your campaigns. Interaction is key to understanding how data collection works, from engagement on certain CTA, to like buttons, etc. But these are all conscious decisions that customers make, such as Pokemon GO asking for access to your location. This location tracking lets you know if the user is from Podunk Town, Texas, or cosmopolitan Austin.
But what about if you could mine unconscious decisions?
The New Like Button
AR, especially with smart glasses, is just a collection of sensors and displays that blend together to alter the physical world in mind-bending ways. Through those sensors, marketers are gifted an unconscious “like button.”
The sensors are laced neural displays that pick up on how long a customer might linger on a certain projection. Without even knowing it, they have just gift-wrapped you a key element of data — product preference.
Sneaky, isn’t it? But it’s just one of the ways that you can mine a cart full of first-party data, enabling you to tailor your campaigns to who it is actually engaging.
So, Where Does This Lead You?
To innovate. The AR industry is growing by the second, with it well on its way to planting 1 billion devices in homes around the world. As such, the future of advertising lies in the virtual world. Like Tupac at Coachella, you can rise up from the stage and dazzle your customers.
Or, you can choose to be relegated to the dusty space underneath, hiding from innovation.
Good thing that you have someone in your corner, huh?
For more advice on how to stay ahead of the curve, check out more of my thoughts here!
