All marketers around the world are facing the difficulty of being heard. New products emerge every day, and the competition to be the number one is fiercer than ever. How to make sure your product or service is what the audience thinks of first when a need or want arises?
To reach that, you need to make your messages memorable. Not even the best quality or best price will take you on top of the charts.
AR marketing is the way to go in the experience economy
For almost two decades, we've been living in the experience economy. Instead of goods and services, consumers are asking for experiences. The highest quality or the lowest price isn't the central point of a product anymore. Customers are searching for value.
Value is something personal to each different individual. Value is created when a person feels connected to a product or a service.
In the Welcome to the Experience Economy article by Harvard Business Review, the experience economy is described as following: commodities are fungible, goods tangible, services intangible, and experiences memorable. (Sure, this is an old article, but I think this still stands.)
Your marketing acts are the first thing your audience will see, and we all know the importance of first impressions. So, you might consider making your first impression something to remember. Augmented reality can help in making such a simple thing as a banner ad into a memorable brand experience, and create value to the recipient.
What is stored or encoded into memory is 70% higher for AR experiences
Mindshare UK and Zappar conducted a study "Layered" in 2018 on how AR affects the brain. The study found that memory encoding is 70% higher with AR. AR also drives higher levels of visual attention, and elicits a surprise response in the brain, compared to a non-AR experience.
In Simon Sinek's TEDx talk, "Start With Why," a universal and straightforward idea is, "People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it." By introducing your WHY to your audience, you increase your chance to be remembered. You can add your WHY to your campaign easily with AR, as AR content has wider limits to what it can be. For example, AR in packaging is a great way to tell a story in a way that wouldn't be possible with traditional labels.
If any type of branding or communication is to be effective, it needs to be encoded into long-term memory. Otherwise, it will have little to no impact on any of our future actions.
Reach 3 billion people around the globe
Augmented reality sounds like something not many people can experience. Actually, almost all modern smartphones are legit AR devices. With Apple and Google continuously developing their AR adaptabilities, there are 3 billion chances for your AR content to be discovered in pockets globally. Of course, depending on your campaign concept.
ARtillery Intelligence, Mobile AR Device Penetration Breakdown, July 2020.
Engage your audience with AR
AR marketing is at it's best as a part of something bigger. You can easily create more value and better results for your campaign by adding an AR aspect. AR is more efficient than many other marketing channels, so by adding AR into your marketing mix, you increase the chance of your message getting through. As you probably know, your marketing efforts work best when your message is seen and heard on multiple channels and platforms.
All in all, with AR marketing, you can rocket your campaigns into the stars and beyond. As long as you keep in mind that not planning will take you nowhere. Be considerate about your AR content. Don't do it just for the fun of it - implement it as a part of your marketing mix and build your brand into something memorable. Go beyond the flying whale.
