Paradigm Shift: Marketing in an era of Augmented reality
The digital enviornment mandates brands to be omnipresent ,where they create experiences at all times and Often when we discuss about the future trends in marketing and and mention technologies, virtual reality and augmented reality are often mentioned in the same breath.
While,VR uses 360-degree video to move you from your current surroundings and into a new digital enviornment. AR transforms your current surroundings by adding digital information to your line of vision. VR replaces your reality, while AR transforms it.Unlike virtual reality, AR doesn’t require a headset, which makes it easier to adopt. The technology overlays digital content onto the real world in front of you, altering the existing space – all you need is a smartphone and forward-facing camera in hand.
In a world where we’re all vying for each other’s attention, AR grabs a hold and doesn’t let go. From the basic to the bizarre, from entertaining to enlightening, these virtual experiences have the potential to engage audiences in new and exciting ways that they’re curious to explore.
Brands are finding it difficult to stand out and reach their targeted audience. Social media, print ads, and online marketing need to evolve to stay relevant. Which is why marketers are recognizing augmented and virtual reality to reach audiences.
Today when 38 percent of the world is active in one social platform or the other more and more brands are turning their focus on digital presence. While these sprint is causing more brands use social media in the traditional form we are all accustomed to it is creating a clutter and the ones who want to stay ahead of the curve are slowly incorporating AR to the entire consumer experience.
The perfect merging of the world of technology and business is what social media represents, and when the world is trying to woo tech saavy mellinnials technologies like AR creates stickiness even before the prospects walk into a brick and mortar store.
Most marketeers believe augmented reality means adding something to the real world that isn’t there. But there is an abundance of opportunity that lies in using AR to subtract items from view and help consumers focus on specific retail products lost in visual clutter. Viz; imagine walking in a store wearing a VR Glass and being able to only see low cholestrol,glutin free or sugar free items on the shelves or only a particular brand on display.
If this sounds SkyFi Google Lens aims to make your smartphone’s camera even smarter by being able to accurately identify most objects by sight. If your AR glasses are looking at a company’s product at retail, the manufacturer will know the exact moment of the potential sale and can offer incentives based on your location, past purchase history and length of time making the purchase decision.
The use of Augmented Reality on mobile devices provides a niche and engaging way for marketers to reach their target audience – it’s quick, easy and very interactive.
How augmented reality can market to consumers is virtually limitless. By taking the interactivity of online marketing and applying it to the real world; AR can blur the lines of what an advertisement is. Multinational brands can use AR to display their products on any surface or person. Clothing retailers using augmented reality as a virtual fitting room can help consumers see how something looks on them before adding it to their shopping cart.
Moreover,If brands could create a virtual experiences in a digital /social enviornment buying decisions are guaranteed to increase,not only because someone was looking forward to buying, but because they stumbled upon it and had the money to spend or what we call impulse buying.The use of AR will become more and more mainstream and essential to customer engagement, with users being able to walk around and place furniture,décor,electronics and other objects into the settings of their home/office .
While AR technology is still in its infancy, it is beginning to catch on and the almost limitless possibilities it presents mean that it has huge potential. As companies such as Google and Facebook continue to develop AR viewing technology and app developers continue to refine software, it is likely that AR will soon become an established and vital tool of any digital marketing campaign. By keeping up-to-date with developments in the AR industry and planning how you can incorporate augmented reality into your future marketing campaigns, you can keep from falling behind in the digital marketplace.
With explosion of new media and technologies, economic uncertainty, and greater competition between brands, have changed the way brands and customers interact. Customer relationship has shifted from production to consumption. It has gravitated from the sphere of rationality to the realm of desire and from the objective to the subjective. In this era of instant gratification, material satisfaction is so easily attained that emotional and experiential fulfillment is now the true challenge for marketers.
We do live in exciting times where things change within the blink of an eye. Where the real and digital world often mearges .Today, speed-to-market with the right message at the right time through the right channel, while creating experiences which are meaningful and personal is important and augmented reality has already started to play a significant role, but as they say fun has just begun.