I believe that many of us are aware of AR, whether it is; the IKEA app where we can see how a piece of furniture looks in all different settings, Sephora with their virtual cosmetic products which allow you to see how the cosmetics look before purchase, or the extensive use of AR in Snapchat, Instagram; and recently, Facebook tries lured more business through the capabilities of AR and AI.
Moreover, for those of us interested in the automotive industries, Porsche – Mission E and Mercedes-Benz dealership app, have also delved into AR.
AR has become significantly popular. With just two letters, “AR”, google search can generate more than 740 million results in “All” areas and 30 million results in the “News” section (as of 09/05/2018).
You might be asking yourself, why does every company in different industries want to have its hands on AR? Here are some reasons:
1. High level of mobile phone usage facilitates AR and its company to be exposed to customers:
2. Research by Microsoft found that human attention span was approximately eight seconds and decreasing 88 percent every year but an AR video can capture people attention on an average of 75 seconds.
3. Statistically, 77% of consumers would like to use AR to preview product diversities (colour, style, etc.).
- 61% of the consumers are more likely to make purchases at e-stores that offer AR.
- 40% of the customers are willing to pay more after preview a products via AR.
- 45% of customers admitted AR assists their decision making process.
4. Like other traditional marketing videos, AR video contents are sharable and have chances to go viral. Moreover, a company will get better brand awareness and recognition from electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) and “earned media”.
AR is playing an important role in this digital century. In my opinion, having AR today can help a company stay ahead from its competitors; however, having AR in the future will be a standard for almost every company.
Leave a comment below to let me know your opinion about this topic.
Thank you for your reading.
eMarketing 2018: Opportunities & Challenges 