Revolutionizing Marketing Strategies with AR/VR: Insights from an Experiential Martech Company

For the longest time, businesses have relied on traditional means of advertising, like putting an ad on a billboard to market their products. While it was effective in the past, today's audience wants a little more when it comes to learning about different products or services. Thus, brands have turned to experiential marketing to give them ways to engage with the products instead of just researching them online. And while there are several technologies available, here is how experiential marketing agencies are using AR and VR to change the way your customers interact with your brand.

What is an Experiential Marketing Company?

An experiential marketing agency is a company that brands hire to create interactive marketing campaigns to promote their products or services. These campaigns are different from regular campaigns because when the audience experiences them, they get to directly interact with the business's product or service. This interaction often takes place through different technologies like augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and more. The technology that is used isn't the focus; rather, the goal is to create an experience that isn't just engaging, but also fun so that the customer enjoys receiving the information and actually considers buying the product or service.

Why are AR and VR Becoming Popular in Experiential Marketing?

Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) are getting popular among brands because they are increasingly becoming more accessible while also being capable of creating interactive and immersive experiences. In AR, digital assets like objects, animations, effects, etc., are brought into the real world through using smartphones, tablets, or smart glasses. The benefit of using AR in marketing is that there are several different types of it; as such, a brand could choose whether they wish to use web-based AR, app-based AR, marker-based AR, markerless AR, projection-based AR, superimposition-based AR, or location-based AR. Thus, having so many options means that a brand could choose the type of AR for marketing based on what works best for their project and is capable of delivering a seamless experience to their audience.

When it comes to VR, instead of bringing digital elements to the real world, it creates a virtual 3D simulation of an environment and puts the user in it to give them an immersive experience. In such campaigns, immersiveness is a top priority; as such, it uses dedicated hardware like VR headsets for the user to access the VR content. Here, the user gets teleported to a virtual dimension while being in the same place as when they wore the headset. For example, an automotive brand could use VR to give its customers virtual test drives of their latest vehicles. They could even offer them different options to customize their car, like changing its color, spoilers, rims, and more. Typically, AR experiences are suitable for larger audiences, while VR experiences are good for smaller audiences.

How to Choose an Experiential Marketing Agency

Businesses go for experiential marketing companies because of their expertise. As such, a brand can simply hire an agency to take care of the campaign strategy, technology used, the content needed, and its execution. There isn't a singular deciding factor that one could use to finalize an experiential marketing company, as it comes down to their campaign's needs and preferences; however, these are some factors that a brand could consider when making their choice:

Creative and Technological Capabilities

An experiential marketing agency's creative and technological capabilities help a brand evaluate whether the company that they are about to hire can understand their product and integrate relevant technologies for its campaign. Thus, they should be able to come up with a strategy that reaches the right target audience while making the most of the technology used, like interactive displays, AR, VR, 3D visualization, or AI, to name a few. A business must also factor in things like how much experience the agency has with a particular technology, how fast they can integrate it with their projects for the campaign, and their ability to scale it.

Content Expertise

The success of an experiential marketing campaign relies heavily on the content of the experience. For example, if a brand opts for an AR experience, then it is important that the agency comes up with a solution that isn't just easy to access for the audience but also entertaining. As such, the digital 3d models should be visually appealing while well-optimized; any animations should be smooth, the audience should easily be able to access it both in terms of starting the experience on their device, and the user journey shouldn't be overly complicated. All of these factors make or break the user's experience; thus, content expertise is one of the most important deciding factors when choosing an agency.

Industry Experience

Finally, industry experience is something that helps brands easily select an experiential marketing company. It comes down to two major factors: their years of experience in the industry and their past projects. Typically, the longer they have been in the industry, the more projects they should have to show. However, that isn't the only factor to consider; a business could also look into the projects to see how closely they align with their own projects. Thus, if an agency's past project was a success, there is a high chance that if you choose such an agency, it would also be successful for your project since they already have experience working on something similar.

To sum it up, brands hire experiential marketing companies to create campaigns that give their audience interactive and immersive experiences. These campaigns can use different kinds of technologies like projection mapping, touchscreen interfaces, holographic displays, motion tracking, or even some popular technologies like AR  and VR. These solutions can target large audiences, allowing them to connect with brands emotionally. However, it is important for a business to choose these agencies carefully, as that decides how good results they get from the campaign. This is why you should work with Ink In Caps for all your AR and VR experiential marketing needs. We have over 8 years of experience in this sector and several projects to show for it. Contact us to book a demo now!