How can AR be effectively integrated into your 360° marketing strategy?

Before you think about integrating AR into a marketing activation, take a step back and think first about how you can help your app find success in a marketing context. At SEED, our mantra is quality over quantity, not the most common approach to digital product design. We value forging intimate, authentic connections with our users––it’s about building a strong community, vs. pushing out yet another one-click wonder.

While many studios rely on gimmicky content to promote their apps, I strongly believe that a 360° marketing strategy cannot make up for a lousy digital experience. You could pour millions into a marketing campaign, but if users feel like they’re simply downloading advertising content or some gimmick, you’ll have a hard time gaining mass adoption.

So before you explore building the campaign around the product, you need to understand the underlying reasons why people choose to download an app.

Any app should contain value, which for digital users typically means: occupy my time or solve a problem. This means that the application must feel rewarding and have sustained value to be of continued interest to users.

Take augmented reality. This technology has focused too long on meaningless visuals and a lack of substance, totally missing the utility potential of the software. AR needs to be the mechanism that disseminates content, not the content itself. This, for example, could be the use of AR as a game mechanic, as an x-ray tool for packaging, as a menu translator…the opportunities are endless.

A second challenge is the general sentiment of ‘once burned, twice shy’ when it comes to speaking to brands about app development. When communicating with brands and consumers about AR, we’ve had has had some unusual responses––AR is considered old hat by some, and bizarre wizardry to others.

Building a successful activation with new technology requires you to strike the right balance for those who are simultaneously unimpressed, intimidated or confused.

We’ve identified some basic human responses central to evoking interest, attention and recidivism. In a quickly evolving digital environment, users have become accustomed to being delighted, surprised, amazed and entertained by their digital content. As a content developer, we set out to target one or more of these reactions from users and have identified high rates of contact and recidivism in our results.

Through several activations, we have successfully measured 5-8 minutes of contact time per session with users on average interacting on 4 separate occasions with the product. With a total linger time of upwards of 20 minutes, we have strong evidence that we’re able to create deep, meaningful engagements with users.

Where marketers and brands go from here will depend very much on the value proposition of quality over quantity when it comes to digital marketing experience.

 

SEED is recognized as one of top AR/VR Companies on DesignRush