Using augmented reality correctly in marketing

It is actually not entirely correct to speak of a marketing trend. According to the renowned trend research company Gartner, augmented, mixed and virtual reality are officially no longer hype but have now established themselves as technology.

This is important because AR is no longer just a trend or a fun gimmick, but offers companies clearly measurable added value in a wide variety of situations. And is here to stay.

When we talk about augmented reality, it must be clear that we are talking about a new technology that is far more than just funny Snapchat filters or Pokémon Go. Similar to the establishment of the mobile internet, the AR breakthrough gives us a completely new technological platform that bridges the gap between the real and digital worlds. And this opens up an infinite number of new possibilities. Possibilities, of which we would like to present a few exciting marketing concepts to you.

The term augmented reality means nothing more than a reality enhanced with digital information. AR makes it easy to bring static things to life with animations and additional information and thus create interactive experiences.

A good example of this is the Murten diorama in the National Museum in Zurich. The model consisting of 600 pewter soldiers shows the Battle of Murten in 1476 and requires a great deal of imagination on the part of the visitor to understand the course of the battle. Thanks to augmented reality, the diorama has recently been brought to life, giving visitors the opportunity to retrace the battle step by step as if they were part of it themselves.

Who remembers the hype surrounding Pokémon Go, which captivated the entire western world for a summer, tying us all to our smartphones and generating record sales for power bank manufacturers? Exactly. The idea of combining games with the real world hit like a bomb. Our experience and a look at the App Store show that The topic is only just picking up speed and new AR games are being released every day.

Particularly interesting for marketers: it doesn’t have to be a specially programmed app. AR technology is now so advanced that fun AR games can also be implemented in the browser. A good example of this was the OK Goal campaign in the (planned) summer of the 2020 European Championships: a QR code on the energy drink can took users to a web-based football game where they had to try to beat the goalkeeper as many times as possible. There were great prizes to be won.

All it takes is a swipe of the smartphone and things as banal as printed flyers or business cards suddenly take on a life of their own. Additional information can easily be provided, a product can be presented in 3D directly on the flyer or an elevator pitch for the company can be presented to the man or woman via a 3D video on the business card. A marketing message brought to life in this way is much more memorable!

Thanks to augmented reality, online shoppers can now view products in the comfort of their own home before making a purchase – at the touch of a button and without the hassle of sending parcels back and forth. You can immediately see whether the picture will fit on the sofa, the plant on the windowsill or the barbecue on the balcony. For online stores, this has the advantage that their customers make better purchasing decisions and the returns rate decreases significantly.

But the best is yet to come: nowadays, it is no longer necessary to program a complex shopping app – thanks to Web AR, you can easily add AR functionality to your store.

Certain topics are simply too complex to explain to a wide audience in just a few sentences. It can help to illustrate complicated topics in animated AR scenes and send viewers on an immersive journey that they can control from A to Z themselves. Another advantage of augmented reality is that users can move freely around the model and thus place the focus exactly where they want it. Instead of simply presenting them with a marketing message, you offer them the opportunity to discover an object or a story for themselves and interact with it.