Why Adopt AR For Advertising

Businesses that use AR and VR solutions have different objectives. But what they have in common is a will to represent their brand in a more interactive and entertaining way. One probably heard of AR and VR games, at least Pokemon GO made quite a stir . But even businesses not related to entertainment can efficiently utilize the possibilities these technologies provide.

Businesses advertise their products and services, and these ads can be spiced up with Augmented Reality development.

Reasons to consider AR development for ads

According to the report, the worldwide spending on advertising is expected to reach over $335 billion in 2020. Imagine the possibilities in this field, where the number of mobile AR users rises from year to year too. Connecting these two facts we see that AR advertising is can definitely be a thing, and here is why. Below one will find the reasons for adopting AR development for advertisement: an emotional connection with the customers, decreased costs, and re-engagement.

1 Emotional Connection

AR makes average ads immersive, thus helping marketers create a tight connection with a person who sees it. This is achieved thanks to the interactivity AR provides for users.

The AR marker can be placed on outdoor advertising so that passers-by can scan it and be involved in an interactive experience right there. Other places are catalogs, restaurant menus, product packaging, and so on.

The users are likely to feel that they are playing an entertaining game rather than being convinced to buy a product. This experience is more positive and will build a better image of a brand. And as is known, people are loyal to brands that provide customers with positive emotions.

For example, Pizza Hut has a menu complemented with AR. The customers need to scan a trigger image with the Ogle app, and then browse through the menu with 3D meals and place a direct order right here. The process of ordering thus feels like a game, and real-like images of meals make customers even hungrier.

2 Cut Costs

Digital ads still can not overtake traditional formats, like print ones. There are numbers of popular and commercially successful print magazines that sell pages for advertisement, and it is expensive – an ad can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. So choosing digital ads can save one’s budget.

If a business creates a marker-based AR advertisement, it will trigger only if the user scans a marker – a special image that starts an AR experience. It means businesses still need to buy a place in a magazine to print a marker. But if companies opt for a markerless augmented reality development of an ad, no marker needed. A customer’s location will work as a trigger to show him an ad in the application. Besides, one app can be utilized to run different marketing campaigns and show diverse ads. This is dramatically cheaper than traditional ads and the ones that utilize marker-based AR.

3 Re-engagement

A huge benefit of AR is its ability to repetitively engage users in the same activities. Usually, this process is used in games to keep the audience active and motivate them to return to the app. This repetitiveness is extremely cost-effective for advertising, and AR can provide businesses with it.

AR games, like above mentioned Pokemon Go, become viral and build a strong audience of people that return to the app over and over again, thus creating a solid space for ads. Businesses take advantage of such repeated exposure and also save marketing budgets.

This is a new way how consumers find and buy products, and businesses can either miss them of take advantage of new approaches. Brands that utilize augmented reality development to create AR experiences can establish a more robust connection with the audience and reach a large number of consumers, who will interact with ads more than once.

The two things that hold AR in advertising back are low overall adoption rates and a high buy-in price. But as the number of progressive businesses grows along with the amount of mobile AR users, it is clear that these obstacles will in time disappear. What is more important is all these benefits that AR brings: engages a larger audience, entertains it, encourages to return, saves advertisement budgets, and more. All benefits if utilized for advertisement campaigns can increasingly boost ad profits.

Melissa Thompson
Melissa Thompson writes about a wide range of topics, revealing interesting things we didn't know before. She is a freelance USA Today producer, and a Technorati contributor.