The Current State of AR in Marketing and Advertising

Get your foot in the door NOW, before it’s too late!

The word is out, Augmented Reality is here and the demand for AR enabled content is growing day by day. Brand Awareness is one of the most successfully explored corners of the exciting new extended reality market. Some more daring brands have jumped headfirst into the market this last year, with incredibly successful results.

Mercedes: https://www.mobilemarketer.com/news/mercedes-benz-revs-up-instagram-ar-filters-in-millennial-campaign/554115/

Pepsi: https://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/pepsi-goes-instagram-heavy-summer-campaign/2172636

Nike: https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/fashion-tech/virtual-fashion-digital-products

What is most exciting about this immersive revolution to the already aging digital advertising ecosystem is the ability to play with the world around the consumer, drawing in people to a world where a brand’s attitude can shape an entire experience. Burger King’s hilariously cheeky “Burn that Ad” campaign helped set this new standard, combining the brand’s time-tested ‘flame broiled’ message with a hidden surprise beneath virtually combustible McDonald’s ads. Cross-medium promotional opportunities arise when AR technology is further leveraged to make print advertisements come to life.

With this much early stage success, why haven’t we seen greater adoption of AR?

The greatest barrier to massive adoption in the AR industry is not the underlying technology itself, but instead it is the capabilities of traditional agencies to operate in a digitally augmented world.

According to a survey conducted by Unity, one of the leading developer platforms which AR creators base their creations on, approximately 24% of respondents in traditional advertising creative roles found that the technology of AR was a barrier to entry, while about 1/3 of respondents felt cost was also a prohibitive factor.

What these numbers show is not that costs and technology prohibit AR adoption in campaigns. The sheer number of successful global campaigns shows that this isn’t the case. The responses show that most creative agencies are not equipped with the right skill-sets or the right tools to understand the new medium. What they can’t understand, they can’t effectively deploy, which results in AR being sidelined in favor of seemingly safer digital marketing campaign tools.

The time is coming to stop listening to the advice of your creative retainer and start asking questions from the actual development shops building campaigns for clients around the world. Learn about this new space now, before it quickly becomes too late. 

Facebook's Spark AR platform offers lists of qualified partners to help you, see them all here!