Re-imagining Advertising with Mixed Reality
Augmented and Virtual Reality Use Cases for advertising and marketing that are possible Today!
Augmented Reality is the stuff of science fiction! It allows mixing digital objects with the real world, opening the door to countless content and marketing possibilities. In this piece, I will focus on the advertising and branding use cases of augmented reality technology that are possible today.
Just as we moved from print and radio ads to television, to search and social, mixed reality is the next step in the evolution of brand communication. With mixed reality we can create interactive, personalised experiences that are unique to each user, and that the users can share with their connections.
But what about the devices?
It is a common misconception is that you need specialised equipment and expensive hardware to use AR. While such cutting edge hardware exists, the device you need to dive into the world of augmented reality is likely already in your pockets — your smartphone.
Both Apple and Android smartphones support a wide variety of augmented reality experiences. Recent estimates put the number of AR capable smartphones to over 1.8 billion worldwide. If you have an Android or iOS device that is less than 18 months old, you likely own an AR capable device.
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AR and VR are becoming more and more mainstream each day. Any brand or agency that gets in early and understands the potential and the possibilities, and also the challenges and limitations, shall be much better poised for the next step when the technology becomes more mainstream and ingrained in consumer behaviour.
Mixed Reality Use Cases for the Advertising industry:
I have structured these use cases in 4 groups:
- AR in Social media
- In-Room AR
- Screen-based VR
- Location based AR experiences
1. AR in Social Media:
All the social media majors have already integrated or are in the process of integrating some augmented reality offerings on their platforms.
Facebook and Instagram have AR face-tracking built in, that allows for creating filters and masks. This offers possibilities for brands to allow potential customers to try out their products directly on their phones, like the example of Ray Ban sunglasses below.
Snapchat has long offered the possibility of creating custom lenses and filters that can be used by brands to similar effect.
In January 2020, Pinterest followed by launching ‘Try-On’, an AR functionality in the Pinterest app that offers users the possibility to virtually try on cosmetics from top brands, with other categories coming soon.
Tiktok is planning to release their new augmented reality ad format in Q3 2020. It will allow creators to easily place advertising in their videos and get paid for their content by the advertiser. As it is an AR based solution, this ad format shall be interactive, personalised and unique to each user who views it.
As this technology gathers steam, expect all other social media platforms to follow suit.
2. In Room AR:
In room AR experiences are a bit more complicated to create, but offer many more possibilities for brands and marketers. One classic example of this use case is the IKEA app, that offers potential customers the possibility of placing virtual furniture in their homes to try before ordering the real thing.
Another great example is the Dulux color visualiser app. Check out the video below.
Here is a great example of the consumer education use case built by CERN to help people understand how the big bang came about.
This kind of applications can add interactive, digital objects to the room that the user is in, and blur the boundary between the real and virtual. They can be used for product demonstration, as well as usage training and education. Surprisingly, these are not yet used extensively in advertising.
3. Screen based VR:
Screen-based VR does not add digital objects in your room, but transports you virtually to another place in your smartphone or computer screen. The user can move or scroll around the screen to have an immersive 360° experience.
Red Bull was an early adopter, creating a 360° video experience of the Red Bull F1 team.
Research at Google shows that 360° videos motivates users to watch, interact, share and subscribe more compared to traditional videos.
In spite of this, 360° video and screen based VR are not yet widely used in the advertising industry. The typical use cases for the moment are virtual museums, tourism experiences, etc.
Advertisers can use this technology to create immersive experiences of places that they would like their customers to visit, like branded environments, or places that their brand resonates with.
Here are links to some screen-based VR experiences that we created at ARdictive (https://ardictive.com)
4. Location-based AR experiences:
Location based AR experiences are the most complex to build, but offer a unique, contextual experience that is tied to a particular location. The application recognises the location either through GPS, image, or feature point recognition, and overlays digital content that the user can interact with.
Typical use cases include treasure hunt applications, event maps and applications, tourism experiences, etc. This is new technology, and there are not too many examples out there yet.
Here is an example of a location based application that we built for an art exhibition. The idea was to turn a group art exhibition into a solo exhibition of the artist that the visitor is interested in.
Conclusion:
Advertisers and brands should go where their consumers are. And more and more, these consumers are using AR/VR.
Augmented and Virtual reality technologies are becoming more accessible each day, and there are already use cases today that the advertising industry and their clients can benefit from.
That said, there is a significant learning curve when it comes to deploying these experiences, and advertisers and their agencies are understandably hesitant to invest in the talent and technology that is needed.
At ARdictive we have experimented with and deployed experiences in all the use cases listed above, and are available to support agencies and brands in navigating these waters.
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