How Brands Use Immersive Augmented Reality Services To Keep Their Audience Engaged

Marketing today is more than just capturing your audience's attention; you also need to deliver an experience that they can remember. While there are several factors that come into play and various ways to achieve this, one of the most common techniques that businesses are recently using is keeping the audience engaged. This is where immersive augmented reality services get to shine.

A recent report by Clutch on “The AR/VR Advantage” suggests that “Consumers are increasingly using AR (58%) before making a purchase.” As such, these are solutions used by brands to bring digital elements into the real world.

The best part is that to create an AR experience, you don't need a full-fledged experience center. Even small businesses can benefit from it because AR can be experienced using smartphones, which almost everyone has today. As such, how your AR campaign performs comes down to how well it is made. Here are some concepts that every business, no matter its size, should know about immersive AR services.

What Are Immersive Augmented Reality Services?

Immersive Augmented Reality (AR) services are simply solutions or "services" that experiential marketing agencies provide to businesses while making use of AR technology to deliver an immersive experience while showcasing a brand's products or services to their audience. This could be achieved by overlaying various animations, virtual objects, or any piece of information onto the real-world environments by using smartphones, tablets, or AR glasses.

What separates AR services from VR is that the latter stands for virtual reality; thus, it creates a complete virtual environment and has various interactable objects or spaces for the user to play with. However, with AR, it adds digital elements to the real world using a smartphone or similar device. It is great to give the user an idea of what the object designed in AR would look like in the real world.

The most common types of services that are used here include WebAR and app-based AR. Both of these serve different purposes, where WebAR is better used when you need to quickly present your AR showcase, as it runs directly on a web browser using URLs or QR codes. These are readily available; however, they offer limited functionality. App-based AR is better to use when you need additional features. You need to install a separate app for it, but it is capable of a lot more things than what webAR solutions could offer.

For example, a furniture store could use AR technology to sell furniture online by allowing buyers to select chairs, sofas, beds, and more, then use AR to see how they would look in their room. This not only makes the experience immersive but also gives buyers a clear idea of what to expect when they receive the product.

The above was just one example; here are some other popular types of services that Modern AR has to offer:

• Interactive product demos
• AR-powered experience centers
• Educational AR visualizations
• Interactive museum tours
• Automotive product configurators

Why Are More Businesses Starting to Invest in Immersive Augmented Reality (AR)?

It isn't enough to give buyers a boring presentation or a showcase; they want to be more than an audience and want to actively interact with the product or service that they are interested in. This is where AR is used to make an experience immersive; these are some of the advantages it has to offer:

• Increased Engagement
• Helps retain information better
• Stronger brand recall
• Gives insightful data on customers' behavior and interaction patterns

The above advantages are backed up by several different studies. For example, Vogue Business’ report on “Fashion and beauty brands are taking AR more seriously” included one of the key takeaways: “On e-commerce sites, viewing 3D models in AR increases conversion by up to 250 per cent”. Similarly, Snapchat for Business’ “The Next Inflection Point” report highlights that “65% of AR consumers spanning countries and ages use AR to have fun. The majority are discovering AR through social / communications apps.”

Industries that Benefit from Immersive Augmented Reality

Retail

The retail industry can get very creative when it comes to making use of immersive augmented reality services. For example, in the fashion sector, brands could make use of AR-Powered interactive mirrors. This technology allows them to let customers try out things like make-up, eyewear, or other accessories without actually putting them on. Thus, by using the mirror, they could "apply" different products, and the reflection would show what it would look like on the customer if they actually used the product. 

Real Estate

When it comes to property marketing, the real estate agents can benefit from AR by using techniques like virtual staging, interactive floor plans, and more. For example, with the help of AR, potential buyers could virtually stage and place furniture or other objects in different areas of their home, like the living room, hall, drawing room, etc. This entirely removes the need to stage a showflat, getting rid of the staging costs while also giving the buyer customization options, giving them the ability to decorate their new home as per their taste.

AR in Automotive

Automotive is one of those industries that, upon initial inspection, looks like it has no use for AR but can, in fact, actually be used to improve the driver's experience. One of the most common applications of AR here is the Augmented Reality Heads Up Display, or the AR HUD. This projects various information like the car's current speed, the road's speed limit, directions, and more directly to the windshield.

It is useful because the driver doesn't have to look away from the road and can easily access all of the relevant information in front of them on their windshield. It makes use of various sensors and cameras to find out the car's location on the road, the surrounding cars around it, and more, to give the driver the most accurate information.

Another popular application of AR in this sector can be seen with AR 360-degree virtual showrooms. It allows potential buyers to explore the vehicle from different angles, change colors, interact with different key features, and more without even using physical models.

Education & Training

AR can be very easily integrated into educational and training programs. For example, students could learn better when information about complex subjects is presented in a gamified or interactive manner. This allows them to engage with the concepts instead of just memorizing them. Similarly, when it comes to professional training, employers could give workers smart glasses to simplify giving assembly or installation instructions for specifically intricate products.

To conclude, Augmented Reality is evolving the way businesses communicate and engage with their customers. It gives them more options to present their products or services in an interactive manner that was limited or not available before. Be it the retail sector, real estate, automotive, or any other industry, when implemented right, immersive AR experiences can yield impressive results. But more importantly, as consumer expectations increase and they look for more interactive and personalized experiences, brands that fail to adopt immersive tech like AR are bound to lose their attention, dwell time, and eventually market share to competitors who do. Immersive AR is no longer an addition to your project’s marketing pipeline, but something that gives you an edge over the competition.

Want to bring your brand's vision to life? Contact our team of experts at Ink In Caps and book a demo now. No matter if you are looking for an experiential campaign or an interactive experience center, our immersive augmented reality services will help turn your audience into active participants and connect with your brand in ways that weren't possible before!