Are you crazy about Pokémon Go recently? Are you busy searching for creatures all the time and capturing them by tapping on the ball and flicking it up towards the Pokémon as if it is in the real world? Are you familiar with the scenario? Let’s see a video first.
In fact, McDonald’s promoted its fry boxes during the 2014 World Cup exactly in the same way. “Consumers were able to align their smartphones with a graphic element on the box, triggering an interactive overlay which appeared to jump out at them. Consumers could continue to interact on their phones by flicking a finger to shoot a goal within the display.”(Refers to Why Augmented Reality Marketing Will Be Huge in 2015, by NewsCred) So this technique – augmented reality, is not that unfamiliar to us since it has been already applied to the marketing world.
What is augmented reality marketing
As you have seen from the above, augmented reality provides companies an opportunity to combine various elements (especially the visual ones and the motion ones) to attract their customers in a more fantastic way, usually through the apps.
What are the shining points
You will get the points by imagining the following scene – It’s my favorite one.
From the video we can see that IKEA has made it possible for its customers to have a previous look about how the new furniture fit in their home. It’s very useful. What’s more, it brings a lot of pleasure in a family because the family members get to take amusing pictures by this function. It seems that they are enjoying the moments and I think it’s a good way for a company to engage their customers as well. Furthermore, the video conveys messages which echo the brand mantra of IKEA – best design (brand function), family (descriptive modifier), fun (emotional modifier). Therefore, IKEA is advocating its brand culture by the means of exploring augmented reality to some extent. In a word, augmented reality is a powerful tool which is truly multi-functional and innovative, helping companies to attain multiple goals at the same time.
What is holding it back
It’s not about creating something new uncertainly but enhancing the existing experience. Therefore the challenge for the marketers to implement it is that whether augmented reality can always add values. Customers won’t scan every product when they are shopping – so it’s critical for marketers to figure out the contexts in which their customers are willing to do this and finally spend the money on their goods.
It’s fashionable but also promising in the long term
It’s true that for entrepreneurs and investors, AR and VR are the catchwords like big data in their mouths in the past two years. Then you may think of the famous saying, “Big data is like teenage sex: everyone talks about it, nobody really knows how to do it, everyone thinks everyone else is doing it, so everyone claims they are doing it…” However, from my point of view, AR is another story, different from big data. It’s like a magic which could help you to realize your dreams – trying on different clothes and different makeups, going to all the places in the world and having all the furniture at home – and in turn, the companies sell their products.
Why I would recommend it
Let’s have a look at some numbers below.
Refers to Why Virtual And Augmented Reality is A Ripe Target For Marketers, by David Bolton
As we talked before, augmented reality gives emotional footprint, which can not be replaced or surpassed by other current techniques. AR is far beyond shooting a goal in a game or an app. It contains a world that your customers may not want to leave even for a while in the future. And it is worth mentioning that there are some augmented reality softwares offering services to the companies for marketing purposes, which makes it accessible for everyone who desires to tap on this technology. Last but not least, will you forget the fact that Pokemon Go craze sees Nintendo share price increase 86% in a week adding 15 billion to the company value? I don’t think you will.
After all, it’s not that easy to get tired of your Pokémon right?
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