Augmented Reality has not yet fully arrived in our everyday life. And in the marketing industry, too, AR is far from being the norm. But once such innovative technologies become available to a broad market, it will drive development – and adoption – further forward. So what can we expect from augmented reality? We asked our CEO Kim Engels for an assessment.
Kim, how has AR developed recently in the field of marketing and how far can this development go?
Kim Engels: Technology has been evolving a lot lately - and in different directions. With their (face) filters, social media and especially Snapchat and TikTok have made a lasting contribution to advancing the topic. At the same time, the area of product visualization has received more attention, which has long led a shadowy existence compared to the other areas. The development in the area of devices has also played a role, because Google and Apple have recently invested a lot in their frameworks.
Thanks to the greater acceptance of 5G and Superphones, we now have a basis for bringing AR to the market across the board, even for complex projects.
I think the development will still make some progress and we will still see great innovations here. Both in market development and in our development. Of course we still have some big plans here.
Which business goals can augmented reality support?
Kim Engels: I see AR as a key topic in various areas. For one thing, it's a fantastic way to generate awareness, as interacting with AR models draws a lot of attention.
But it also has a massive impact in the areas of consideration and sales. Studies by, for example, Snap see a 60% higher chance of a sale for products with which users had an AR interaction during their customer journey. Of course, the same also applies to topics that are not product-related: interactive formats for games, voting or lead generation. So we have AR touchpoints in almost all areas of the customer journey.
With the launch of Converto Augmented, Converto is among the pioneers in the DACH region. AR has long been an issue within the online marketing industry, but what about the customer side? Is there a lot of educational work to be done?
Kim Engels: Yes, we clearly see ourselves as pioneers and also as market preparers for the topic of augmented technology. And of course we also take on the role of innovator. Educational work is actually not necessary, augmented reality is absolutely present among our customers. The availability of the models is often more of a challenge. We have solved this by offering the option of creating the 3D models yourself. This helps enormously, especially when the data is not available or has to be obtained in product development.
Apart from that, we mainly observe enthusiasm and see the willingness to try something new. We are already discussing the next steps with some customers and are considering how we can map even more complex models and interactions. So it's more in the direction of: How can augmented reality be used even better within the entire customer journey?
And this is where our further developments come into play. We are already planning some things to improve the analysis of the ads to show how the users interact with the ads and the products.
You want to know more about Augmented Reality?
And here a blog article with 5 application examples and advantages of augmented reality in marketing.
If you have any questions, email us at info@converto.com or call us + 41 43 255 20 10.