Augmented Reality (AR) can be understood by the means that it hides some kind of digitally-created contents and matters into the one using the real-world environment, for example, striking sales and inventory data against products in store counters. Examples of Augmented Reality can be- Pokémon Go, Smart Glasses, HMD (Head Mounted Display). In simple context, Augmented Reality is capable, dynamic and influential because it locates the digital matters in connection with the physical world and combines both of them. Not only one can see what is going around, but can also interact with the digital information about the thing happening around.
Augmented Reality combines real & digital world together, providing the ability to interact with vicinity based on the digital information
Digital Marketing has been through a high increase with several search engines and social platforms giving out great responses from advertisers dealing with. The competing and ambitious nature of advertisement sometime also goes through downs besides ups, with the nature of returns on dollar advertising, causing the total interest rate to drop undoubtedly automatically. This problem has however made the room for augmented reality into the up surging field as the original and initial advertising options.
Augmented Reality have been in use by most sorted company Coca-Cola, which has partnered with Alipay, which is the China’s famous Mobile Payment App affiliated with Alibaba Group, this was covered with a high-technological element, i.e. Augmented Reality in the form of two animation clay dolls, which resembles local folk art tradition of China, and in around 1.5 to 2 weeks, the millions of people have been found who have watched the AR Animated video of the dolls, and also they have received some or the other small gifts from the Alipay mobile payment app. This way Augmented Reality is helping making way to raise the digital marketing scenario of companies.
Let me explain you the mechanism in another way. Alipay being a mobile payment app let its users to pay for their different needs through it. For this, people used to scan the QR code before paying, and also when Alipay collaborated with Coca-Cola, it made people scan the animated dolls caricatures anywhere they find them on any kind of ad or on packages. Scanning of the images or the QR code unlocks the function of Augmented Reality and the cartoons mixes with the real world and user were able to view them through their mobile phones, the same function of AR also works with Pokémon Go.
Augmented Reality is also been its minority and beginning phase with Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc. and have begun with the first monotony of the devices and their software development technologies, may be they are more toward looking a way to develop some kind of wearable Augment Reality gadgets to work in much better ways. They are looking forward to incorporate and proportionate digitally associated lives of people. Augmented Reality will help to lower the inflation rate which is costing too high to the companies in the Advertisements, ultimately only reaching half of the people comparing with the paying cost rates.
A mandatory challenge by Augmented Reality will be how it helps the advertisers in dealing with the ads and reaching more number of people and paying less as compared to before they used to deal with. Augmented Reality will all vanish the ways used by advertisers in displaying their ads for reaching more number of people, like there will be no video pre-rolls, no banners/headers, etc. AR technology will head towards making better environment along with Virtual Reality (VR), which will drive and poke people view more advertising content and composition. The 3-Dimensional vision of AR will make the ad to pop up and run directly to the user in between their online games and online surfing, which will push them to get interacted with it, in form of in-game advertising.
Some example will make the process more understandable. Like a student is online at a virtual book stall and came across a set of books of the author your follow which displays the content of interest. At that point, Augmented Reality (AR) will recognize that book and will automatically send you suggestions regarding the purchase of that same author’s book or set of books from one or two online purchasing sites, like Amazon, etc. Then clicking on a simple yes or no will make lead to complete or cancel the transaction. Same way if you are playing a VR game or watching a movie, the AR software installed on your VR hardware will help and suggest the best placement of ads and the relevant things to do and watch which will fall in between the movie and game.
Augmented Reality broadens in the way that it makes the people interact with the real world through the use of their smart phones. Now how can I let my readers not explain the famous Augmented-Reality based game, the Pokémon Go, which drove many people crazy for it from all age groups, which merged the Digital world as well as the physical world, which made the having more interest in such a new concept. The game used the smartphone technology to get into the real world of Pokémon’s, which was no doubt famous among people from years.
Augmented Reality (AR) is proving to be highly successful through Snapchat, which changes human face into dog’s hybrid face, cat’s face or cat’s voice, and alongside rapidly transitioning into business applications. Let us look how it works for Digital Marketing-
- Improving the buying experience– Companies should make the use of AR technologies in developing tools for shoppers who required quick response in product search or product information gaining ahead of other complementary searches. For instance, where some stores lacks staff which remains available for answering questions of customers, which makes customer to wait for someone to answer their question. In such cases, AR technology will allow customer to scan a product of that store, and get all the related information of the scanned product in one place making things much simpler.
- Advance and increase the customer service– You yourself must have gone through that irritating times of getting hold for several minutes while calling the customer service phone to get solve any query. Like if you are facing any kind of network issue, then rather than calling the customer service, you can point your smart phone in front of your router which will provide you with troubleshooting the problems opening the FAQ sessions regarding the network issue being faced, and will let you answer its question, like have you correctly pressed the button? Is the light blinking properly?, and sorts like this.
- Interactive advertisement– Augmented Reality helps advertisers and marketers to transit their brands, products directly to the customers. AR will let people think and visualize how brands and products can be their friends in real day to day life.
The big use of Augmented Reality (AR) technology is through Cameras in smartphones, which has seen a high increase of use of cameras, and people use their cameras and smartphones throughout the day to interact and show their emotions and moods, etc. as compared to voice and text messages. This step has opened the new dimensions for AR technologies to interact with users, making a system of smartphone-based AR. Big companies like Facebook, Google, Apple are heading towards their own AR technologies on big scales. AR has been seen used everywhere and in near future it will surely grow incredibly.
AR is a technology which overlaps a computer generated image on the user’s point of view towards the real world. The smartphone camera allows user to create a new era in user’s experience, which has led the use of Snapchat so popular among teenagers nowadays. Augmented Reality (AR) creates a new way to interact and connect with users/consumers, with an interactive approach where the advertiser/marketer will be the participant in the conversation activity, rather a whole company involved in the conversation or delivering a particular message to let reach the people.
The use of AR technology have shown a great interest of customers in clothing sector, by brand designer like Tommy Hilfiger, who have used the Augmented Reality Technology software in the form of a smart mirror, which he used in their fitting/trial room. This smart mirror enables a customer to try a whole new outfit according to body shape and size without dragging and carrying dresses/clothes into the fitting room and truing it one by one. The smart mirror upon scanning and recognizing the customer’s body, will start displaying outfits in the mirror, making it useful and easier for the customer to select their preferable outfit from the store. Some more AR technology based ways to improve the digital marketing through use of smart mirrors in near future-
- Magic mirror for health check-up
- Magic mirror which can record and store all your things right from the wardrobe like shoes, clothes, accessories
- AR Glasses (to view both real and virtual world)
- Gaming through AR and VR technologies
- Packaging of products- Ingredients and how to use should be communicated to the consumer via AR, leading to less printing in the packaging.
Augmented Reality is really going to show a great increase and hiking in the near future in almost everything around and change the way of viewing things. Its uses in Medicine, Healthcare, Retail, Gaming, Designing, Traveling, Industrial uses, etc. will make it the first choice for advertisers and Digital marketers making the Internet in a new world of reality without any type of loss. Augmented Reality is crucial for marketers to give their users a great experience and keep up their interest level and increase their ways through AR technologies.
Now I would like to conclude my lines. We must be now aware that digital marketing is acceptably to have many applications for both the marketers and the consumers in so many ways. Investments done for the emergence of Augmented Reality sections and divisions in business have lead it to a better growth, with consumers showing more interest in it and also the business owners, marketers and industry leaders finds Augmented Reality to open opportunities for high level of growth. Moreover, Augmented Reality technology have also altered and modified the ways how products and services used to developed and delivered, which ultimately increase the productivity levels of the company and acts as a path between all the forms of media which are already in use and what changes will be made in the use after inheriting the Augmented reality technology.
