Page 10 - AeM_April_2021

RESEARCH, ANALYSIS & TRENDS

Future

impact

of AR in

marketing

Augmented Reality (AR) has been talked about in Amazon integrates AR in product pages: as mentioned,
marketing for years and there are already some after text, images and video, augmented reality is now
exciting applications, so why do most marketers included in the Amazon app as well. This may be trivial
still believe that it is just expensive gadgetry? for household items, but when it comes to interior de-
sign or furniture, it starts to get interesting.
Just look at the lifestyle brand Gucci, with a very exclu-
sive target group, which already sells shoes via aug- Sony is cagey about the PlayStation 5 (PS5) and has
mented reality on Snapchat. The Italians have certainly chosen a similar approach to Amazon for the presenta-
intensively evaluated which channel and which technol- tion of the PS5—only the package is virtual. Sony pub-
ogy could be worthwhile whereby the number of 180 lishes a Snapchat Lens that allows users to place the
million people using AR on Snapchat were probably the PS5 on their own living room table and take show-off
decisive factor, besides the fact of easy handling with screenshots of it. Several other brands have already
just a single swipe. In addition, AR is nowadays not done the same. In 2018, for instance, BMW collected
only found in Snapchat, but also on Facebook, Insta- ‘pictures’ of the X2 in a wide variety of scenarios, even
gram, YouTube, Google Maps, Google Search and in though the car was not yet on the market.
Android and iOS anyway.
Google brings AR into shopping: most people are famil-
Hence, there are plenty more examples which could iar with Google's AR animals (if not, simply goggle the
revise preformed opinions on augmented reality: "Emperor Penguin" on your smartphone and look for
the button "View in 3D"), but now Google is bringing the
Apple scans rooms and people: The iPhone 12 is all function to Google Shopping. With Volvo there is a
about augmented reality. Even before the official demo case in which the AR view of the Volvo is not
presentation, there was a lot of AR mystery to see, sim- only used to look at the object of desire from all direc-
ilar to the PlayStation 5. What the Americans then tions, but it can even be configured.
launched however, will definitely impact app developers
intensively these days. We are talking about the LiDAR AR without any software: The makers of AugmentifyIt
scanner, a 3D scanner that is part of the camera, which implement AR applications that run directly in the
can use objects that it recognizes in order to map real- browser with relatively little effort. The user scans a QR
istic proportions in the scan. The scanner knows that a code and reaches a landing page with AR phrases and
coffee table is 40 cm high, a washing machine closer to all kinds of call-to-actions.
60 cm, so that it is possible to place products in the
room, just like at IKEA or Amazon. But you can also With expected revenue of up to $25 billion by 2025, the
measure a room or an object/person in the room, for future of augmented reality seems to be bright. The
example, which is a real useful application for AR in e- gaming industry will remain the most relevant driver,
commerce. but practical uses of AR such as those used by the
healthcare, real estate and engineering industries will
also gain traction. ◊

By MediaBUZZ

10 April 2021: Immersive Technologies in Marketing