You Can’t Spell Marketing Without AR
AR is taking over social media.
To get the basics out of the way, Augmented Reality (AR) is an interactive experience that enhances and alters the real-world environment by seamlessly weaving in an immersive layer of digital information. It allows you to augment your surroundings and interact with virtual objects. It’s a classic case of “now you see me, now you don’t”.
Let’s take it up a notch — Social AR. AR is taking over social media and we are all blatantly aware of it. A hyper-immersive technology like Augmented Reality is available to the common man on his mobile phone at all times. Surprisingly, you don’t need any fancy equipment or paid app to access this. Social AR is available on the social networking apps that you use every single day. Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok — They all have it.
A social AR experience — whether you call it a filter, an effect, or a lens — lets you curate interactive user-generated content and post it on the platform (in the form of a story, a message, an ad, TikTok, or a reel) for your followers to see.
It may seem like Augmented Reality Experiences came out of nowhere and created a buzz in the marketing industry. But the truth is, they’ve been around for quite some time now. Snapchat released Lens Studio back in 2017. Instagram and Facebook opened Spark AR studio to the public in 2019. And more recently, TikTok came up with Effect House in 2022.
Why are all these huge platforms hopping onto the AR wagon? And why should you include Social AR in your marketing strategy?
Here’s why -
Powerful Storytelling: It is no secret that storytelling is the most powerful way to grow your brand. After all, stories are the easiest way for us humans to make sense of this world. AR helps you get your message across in a powerful, personal, and interactive way. This is a medium where your story has 70% more memorability as compared to non-AR advertising mediums.
Massive Engagement: A person spends an average of 75 secs on an AR experience. This makes them more engaging than any other form of content (including video!). This is because of the high level of personalization and interactivity it portrays. AR helps you reach the audience that ends up ignoring your static posts by inducing curiosity and providing value.
Increases Brand Awareness: You put up a story using your branded filter/ effect/ lens. One of your followers sees it and they put it up on their story and then one of their followers sees it and they put it up on their story and then …. You get me, right? It’s a snowball effect for sure. In no time, you have attracted organic traffic to your business by making your users your brand ambassadors.
Endless Possibilities: AR is much more than puppy faces and flower crowns. The possibilities and capabilities are truly endless. Apply makeup to your face? Let your customers try on your new range of sunglasses? Play a game? Animate your product packaging? Place a piece of furniture in your potential client’s house? You name it, you got it! AR can help you inform, visualize, gamify, personalize, entertain, and so much more.
Fully Customizable: AR experiences can be fully customized according to your brand needs and the current campaign. With appropriate research, you can come up with an idea that will exactly fit your target audience’s needs. Apart from the customization, AR experiences are easily accessible. It is no longer a niche market. You don’t need to have a huge budget or a big timeline to get one for your brand.
Are you ready to explore the potential of AR yet?
