Go Hard On Augmented Reality

Pre-COVID, for more than ten years of my career, the onset of October meant I was launching 2-5 new campaigns a month, minimum. 4Q 2022 has been dismal by comparison. Pandemic recovery has somehow seemingly diminished the volume of campaigns launching in hopes of massive 'holiday' returns. Blame it on inflation, recession, the war in Ukraine, volatile markets, Elon's purchase of Twitter or Kanye West's daily tirade on everything and everyone.

This article is for marketers, sitting on ad spend, waiting to see how their Black Friday and Cyber Monday campaigns deliver to plan and outcomes.

Here are my recommendations for how best to spend those remaining ad dollars, while delivering fresh insights, revenue impact and brand new creative innovation back into your organization.

Go Hard On Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality has emerged as a digital mainstay with unlimited opportunity and potential. According to Apple, ‘Augmented Reality transforms how we work, learn, play, shop and connect with the world around us. It's the perfect way to visualize things that would be impossible or impractical to see otherwise’.?

With Augmented Reality being so lucrative for brands, implementing Augmented Reality filters into your content mix across all social channels, then integrating the experience into your OTT and TV creative is worth its weight in gold. Augmented Reality filters should be a social content standard.

For The Teams In The Back

Augmented Reality technology combines audio, video, graphics and software with smartphones or headsets, cameras and location software to implement 3D graphics in real-time.?

Augmented Reality experiences can be easily integrated into social content programming and accessed via a web url, image, within a channel (Snapchat, Tiktok, Instagram) or a QR code.

The Awe of Innovation

Consumers expect an impactful experience with any brand and companies are now challenged to meet new customer needs as well as their expectations.?AR has proven its ability to transform consumers' receptivity of marketing messaging, and lived experience with a brand.?

Planning concepts which exceed consumer’s expectations with surprise and delight moments designed inform, ignite and inspire action and affinity for your brand is what sets our team apart. When paired with AR capabilities, users can port these wondrous experiences anywhere. From OTT to OOH to mobile, social and beyond, high-fidelity customer experiences, when offered to millions of people are hard for competitors to imitate.??

What can I do with (x) dollars? Here's how I would answer today:

How I would spend $25k:

• Two (2) product, offer, brand or seasonality themed Augmented Reality filters
• Dual-purpose: Use your filters as ad creative on your paid media campaigns
• Convert filters to ad content with a supporting paid media spend

How I would spend $50k:

• Three or more (3+) product, offer, brand or seasonality themed Augmented Reality filters
• Dual-purpose: Use your filters as ad creative on your paid media campaigns
• Tailor each of your 3 augmented reality filter designs to the audiences most important to the brand.

Use purchase intent data from your e-commerce website, existing database of customers and their lookalike audience, deploy each filter against those audiences to uncover which audience drives the most engagement, spend $5-$8k on each audience. Yes, you can divide the paid budget across social channels and platforms.

How I would spend $100k:

• One (1) immersive event
• Three or more (3+) product, offer, brand or seasonality themed Augmented Reality filters
• Tailor each of your augmented reality filter designs to the audiences most important to the brand.
• All remaining budget strategically applied across paid media platforms
• Use remaining budget as an opportunity to leverage a creative partnership with an artist, or the likeness of an influencer to drive Reach.

What are you waiting for?

According to the Impact of Augmented Reality on Retail report,

71% of shoppers said that they would shop more often if they could use Augmented Reality, 61% said they prefer to shop with stores that have Augmented Reality over those without it, and 77% of Augmented Reality users said they use it to see product differences, such as possible variations of colors and styles.?

All of the above.

Miroma Project Factory has a proven track record in both augmented and virtual reality innovation. We design and execute web-based experiences, mobile apps and immersive digital out-of-home experiences consumers love. As you can see below, our creative team loves to design and deliver wacky, innovative and wonderfully fun ideas.

Proud of our team.

Snapchat has a Partners program that?recognizes industry-leading companies which help advertisers creatively connect with their communities in new ways. From strategic collaboration to creative execution and optimization, our team is proud to be apart of their select group of partners.

Don’t miss the opportunity to flex your brand’s creative muscle this year. Have a look at our Augmented Reality showreel and lets schedule a time to scope your brand concepts. Grab some time on my calendar fast?here.

I would be remiss to not mention timelines for execution. Depending on the design and channel, Augmented Reality filters can take 1-2 weeks to deliver. The sooner we talk, the better your outcomes.

Futures so bright.

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I acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the lands on which I work and extend my deep respects.

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