With the flux of information and advertisement that floods our mobiles, malls and roads, marketing is becoming evermore an important aspect of any business, small or large. The American Marketing Association defined Marketing as “the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.” The marketing trends changes every year as this industry embraces technological advances and always finds a way of integrating it. Today Augmented Reality is a hype in marketing. It allows businesses to enhance customer experience by overlaying visual information over regular objects. This action increases the 3 most important objectives in marketing: brand awareness, customer engagement, and the perceived value of service/product/brand.

Augmented Reality Experience

“61% of shoppers prefer stores which offer augmented reality experiences. If shoppers could experience product in AR, 71% would return more often and 40% would pay more.” — Retail Perceptions. Because it’s marketing goldmine for companies desiring to target and retain Millennials (born between 1980 and 1994), Gen Z (the newest generation, born between 1995 and 2015) and even an important slice of Gen X (born between 1965 – 1979), who are tech-savvy and are already familiar with the AR technology through apps like Snapchat. It is no wonder that Pepsi launched an AR campaign in London’s bus stops that entertained commuters back in 2014! The bus shelter launched people in a fun world of aliens, UFOs, and robots taking over their actual surroundings. This example highlights the importance of brand awareness and how AR serves in increasing it even among well established companies.

Why AR is Important to customer’s Experience?

When fashion retailer Moosejaw launched an AR app, powered X-ray, to view its print catalogs. The app got over 250,000 downloads. Moreover the sales increased by 37% due to the initiative (Marxent Labs).  It adds a sense of excitement to the process which appeals to a greater number of customers. This shows how important it has become to customers to be engaged, entertained, and educated before they’d complete a sale. This engagement defines the relationship quality between brand and customer which directly impacts customer retention, a key in a company’s success.

Expected Growth in the Future

Although the cumulative aspect of customer satisfaction is considered a complete state only after purchase (Sweeney and Soutar, 2001), a perceived value occurs at various stages of the purchase process, including the pre-purchase stage (Woodruff, 1997). This sits at the core of AR marketing. Brands that are innovative provide customers with interesting experiences which boosts the perceived value of said brands. In the study mentioned, 40% of respondents were willing to pay more for products that could be experienced through AR. This shows a direct causal relationship between the use of AR in marketing and perceived value.  Augmented Reality is so popular and efficient right now, its growth is expected to reach $117.4 billion by 2022!

Effectiveness!

Augmented Reality is so versatile that it can find its implementation in all kinds of industry and it is the future of marketing. Whether you’re a business owner or a freelance marketer, this is what you need to know about Augmented Reality in marketing: Bridging the Gap Between Physical and Virtual:

The key to effective AR marketing involves blurring the line between physical and virtual experiences. Virtual experiences are convenient, fast, and technologically impressive, but they are also impersonal. Physical experiences, on the other hand, are immersive and memorable, but lack the sophistication or efficiency of digital tech. Your goal, when you choose to market with AR technology, should be to capitalize on all these qualities and make up for the weaknesses on both sides.