How augmented reality can improve your business
Augmented reality (AR) offers multiple opportunities to make products and brands more appealing.
It is a highly interactive, surprising, economical and versatile technology, as it adapts to all types of devices.
For this reason, augmented reality marketing campaigns can be a great tool to bring our brand closer to the public and improve our business.
As we have already mentioned, one of the main advantages of augmented reality is that it is a very adaptable technology.
For this reason, augmented reality marketing campaigns can be launched using a wide variety of formats and devices.
In this article, we show you some of the many ways you can use AR to improve your business.
Storytelling with augmented reality: let your marketing campaign speak for you.
In marketing, storytelling consists of creating a message designed to make users understand and emotionally connect with a brand, product or service.
One of the keys to storytelling is to make users identify with the message and, consequently, with the brand or the advertised product.
Undoubtedly, augmented reality offers a wide range of possibilities in terms of storytelling.
Because it is such an interactive technology, consumers are immersed in the message.
Moreover, unlike virtual reality, it does not require glasses or other complicated devices.
On the contrary, all it takes is a telephone, something within the reach of the vast majority of people today, for such a campaign to work.
For this reason, storytelling in augmented reality marketing is close, natural and immersive.
Once you have decided to carry out a storytelling campaign in AR, the only thing left to do is to create the appropriate messages.
These messages, these stories, can be simple or complex, short or long, more or less immersive… it all depends on the objective you want to achieve with these stories.
The Swiss agency Takondi, for example, developed an application in which, focusing on a fashion catalog, the user can access a video of the making of the photo shoot.
It also allows the online purchase of the products shown in the magazine.
This campaign is the paradigm of the use of storytelling in an augmented reality marketing campaign.
First of all, it allows the user to “get to know” the model they are seeing in the magazine, to see how she acts in a more natural way than in a posed model.
Secondly, because it allows you to quickly and directly access what you really want: to buy the products shown in the catalog.
The packaging with AR, ideal for creating surprising experiences.
Brands are aware of the importance of taking care of packaging to improve business.
A product’s packaging is the first contact that consumers have with it.
On the other hand, brands are increasingly trying to make the interaction with the packaging a fundamental part of the user experience of a product.
Augmented reality allows brands to go further and put packaging at the center of the campaign.
The versatility of augmented reality allows it to interact with virtually any object in our physical environment.
Therefore, this technology allows any user to experience augmented reality through their cell phone and the packaging of our product.
Thus, we can make it possible for consumers to interact with the final product even before they open it.
There are multiple examples of brands that have carried out marketing campaigns using augmented reality in the packaging of their products.
Whisky brand Shackleton launched a limited edition of its product, the box of which displayed an interactive infographic using AR.
This infographic explains to the user the fascinating history of the brand’s origins.
In this example, we see how augmented reality manages to mix packaging marketing with storytelling.
This ability to create immersive, surprising and interactive experiences is where the true potential of augmented reality marketing lies.
Augmented reality marketing, the best option to boost your business e-commerce.
Fortunately, today online shopping is almost as commonplace as going down to the bakery to buy bread.
However, not too many years ago, there was still a great deal of skepticism towards e-commerce.
For this reason, these types of stores did a great job in building trust with users.
Return guarantees, secure payment methods, fast and free shipping…
All these advantages were very important for users to finally trust online stores.
However, e-commerce still has certain disadvantages compared to traditional physical stores.
Most importantly, the inability to see, touch and test the product prior to purchase.
In this sense, augmented reality offers a unique opportunity to overcome this barrier.
Thanks to AR apps, users can see how a T-shirt would look on them or visualize whether a particular table would look good with the dining room decor.
In this area, many brands have carried out marketing actions in augmented reality to reassure their consumers.
Ikea, for example, launched Ikea Place in 2017.
It is an application that allows us to see, on the screen of our phone, how the products in its catalog would look in the different rooms of our home.
Augmented reality in fairs and events.
Trade fairs and events are unique venues for showcasing new products and services.
In this type of venue, making a good impression on the audience is a particularly important factor.
In addition, in this type of events, where we have small stands, we do not have enough space to show certain products.
RA is a technology that can solve all these problems .
First of all, thanks to its innovative and surprising nature, it allows us to showcase our products in a unique way.
We can even create an interactive experience to increase the success of our presentation.
On the other hand, augmented reality allows us to show specific products in virtual spaces.
Similar to how Ikea Places does it, we can, for example, show fair attendees large pieces of industrial machinery, automobiles, infrastructure, etc.
Gamification with augmented reality, the ultimate interactive experience.
While storytelling allows the creation of interactive experiences, gamification takes this premise one step further.
These types of applications, instead of explaining a story to users, turn them directly into protagonists and present them with challenges.
When we talk about gamification and augmented reality, it is inevitable to think of Pokémon Go, one of the most popular video games of recent years.
Therefore, we see that augmented reality has great potential to generate satisfying gamification experiences.
In an augmented reality marketing campaign, we can, for example, create photo filters for users to share on social networks.
On the other hand, interactive elements can be displayed on the screens of their smartphones.
The possibilities in this regard are wide-ranging, although they all share a common denominator:
the ability to generate highly immersive, interactive and surprising experiences.
From TwoReality we continue creating the best content and applications for different devices, tell us about your project.