Harnessing Augmented Reality for Marketing Innovation
The discussions presented in these pages analyze the role of augmented reality marketing in consumer engagement using Profitable Realities as a case study. It begins by tracing the evolution of augmented reality technology, through the phases of consumer engagement that augury its prospective impact. Focus then shifts to the nature of AR marketing strategies and the profile of the target audience, before confronting the challenges that an AR campaign is likely to encounter. The exploration continues by identifying the key performance indicators that determine success, and examines the processes by which evolving campaigns incorporate consumer feedback to adapt and improve. Insights from the case suggest a set of considerations vital to sensing and seizing future trends in AR marketing.
The case study pivots on a dimension not yet sufficiently addressed by recent literature: the efficient, profitable deployment of limited AR resources. By concentrating on outcomes measurable in monetary and commercial terms, it reveals signals of success not normally visible to academicians. Comparative assessment with traditional marketing yields balance sheets in which augmented reality emerges as a lighter, more engaging, and more cost-effective option.
The Evolution of Augmented Reality Technology
Augmented Reality is not new. Its use goes back to the sixties when Ivan Sutherland developed a head-mounted display system.
More recently, many companies harnessed the technology combining it with smartphones. One of the most famous examples in marketing was PokemonGo, a gaming app that allowed its players to collect, catch and battle their Pokemon anywhere, anytime.
Understanding Consumer Engagement through AR
AR marketing is the application of augmented reality technology to influence consumer behavior in a B2C context with a commercial objective. The focus of any AR marketing campaign can be related to a specific area of the marketing mix, for example product, price, place or promotion. Using AR technologies there are many ways in which a marketing offer can be presented to the market to encourage a consumer to buy—such as information, offer, discount or buying motivation. Augmented reality has been shown to change the way consumers buy, often increasing emotional appeal.
Effectively harnessing augmented reality to delight the consumer has resulted in products and services that out-sell and outperform those marketed with traditional approaches during the first order of market entry. AR technology enables the subtle delivery of brand messages, provides a tool for differentiation, and facilitates the transmission of information to consumers otherwise considered “difficult.” VR approaches—such as delivering the experiential thrills of sport or concert crowd excitement—can be employed in parallel with the AR approach to marketing to further enhance the overall consumer experience and the opportunity for future brand connection and loyalty. AR can empower the consumer, accelerating experiential consumption and providing tools for creative expression, enhanced social engagement, and the wish to share and impress others with experiences in both virtual and real worlds. When consumers have many options to consider before selecting a desired product or service, AR functionality can accelerate the decision-making process by simulating opportunities normally available with face-to-face evaluation, such as virtual try-before-you-buy experiences.
Case Study Overview: Profitable Realities
Profitable Realities is a recent AR marketing case study that investigates how augmented reality technology can be harnessed to gain commercial benefits from marketing campaigns. The case study covers the Profitable Realities AR system of an Irish book distributor and retailer that supplies an online platform for selling secondhand textbooks, targeting and engaging students with relevant messages and virtual challenges. The case study suggests that AR marketing can make a significant contribution to increasing brand recognition and customer base, reducing stock, and increasing sales. The research introduces the five stages of AR marketing: identifying the target audience, creating an interactive experience, designing a contextual message, personalizing the message, and gamifying the experience. It discusses the limitations of current AR technology and the marketing implementation process, concluding that although AR offers a distinctive and engaging way of attracting commercial value, a larger target audience with affordable AR devices is needed to meet well-being and societal challenges.
Augmented reality systems superimpose interactive computer-generated content or information onto the user’s awareness of the real world, frequently by employing a mobile device with a camera and screen. The major players within the smartphone business have been engaged in competitive efforts to develop cutting-edge AR capability, and the resonance with the public has been demonstrated through the enthusiastic reception of such smartphone applications as Pokémon Go, Snapchat, and Instagram filters. AR addresses the increasing desire for sensory immersive experiences by engaging consumers at deeper levels and inducing feelings of joy, involvement, amazement, and appeal. Overcoming the limitations of traditional marketing approaches, AR marketing allows brands and companies the ability to offer interactive experiences combined with contextual messages—i.e., content that takes into account the location and profile of each user in order to present custom-fit information and services. As a result, depending on the specific context, businesses can enter customized conversations with their customers or potential customers, keeping them attracted and captivated in a digital eco-system that is both entertaining and deeply personal.
AR Marketing Strategies Employed
Augmented Reality Marketing: A Case Study on Profitable Realities
A detailed examination of Profitable Realities demonstrates how AR interactive experiences effectively attract and assemble the right target group for a company’s product or service. The marketing approach, when applied successfully, guarantees the highest possible number of potential customers gainful for the business of a company.
Profitable Realities challenges the prevailing belief that AR marketing is budget-intensive. Instead, it is an innovative marketing strategy that connects the right target group with the right product or service affordably and apace, also enabling the creation of personal AR experiences. Contrary to popular opinion, augmented reality initiatives need not be costly, time-consuming, or challenging to manage.
A comprehensive case study of Profitable Realities supports its efficacy as a strategic AR marketing tool. This analysis includes a compilation of critical key performance indicators, supported by data from the intervention and results of a consumer feedback survey. The section on the Use of AR consequently refers to the Target Group.
Interactive Experiences
Augmented reality marketing strategies offer marketers opportunities for differentiation by delivering an interactive experience. These strategies accelerate a consumer’s involvement, intensify engagement with an offering, and increase the possibility of an emotional bond between a customer and a brand or product. At the same time, the level of personalization that can be achieved in an augmented reality marketing experience is enormous. Through messaging and gamification, marketers can ultimately increase returns on investment by either selling more with less effort or by achieving the same or greater results at lower costs.
One fully-fledged, proven concept of augmented reality involving all these elements is represented by Profitable Realities, a business evolution platform created to support individuals, business owners, entrepreneurs, and companies—especially small and medium enterprises. It provides direct value downloadable at the first click of the application on a mobile phone. The platform can deliver both cost reduction and increased company income for Target Audiences in more than forty countries.
Personalization Techniques
Personalization ensures that target audiences receive the augmented experience that appeals to their specific wants, needs, and tastes. One way this is achieved is through an account setup before a game.
Personal information is collected during account setup and mapped to imported songs, which are then stored in an internal private list. The list creates a tailored reward system for target market players of each game. In Polaroid Swing Outside, for example, if a player unlocks a new Polamatic swing photo reward, the new reward will attach to the player’s song. In Polaroid Swing Inside, when a player copies their swing photo clip to Instagram Stories, the newly created swing photo in Stories is auto-attached to the player’s song in the internal list.
Gamification Elements
Marketing based on augmented reality can often involve gamification, where game elements are engaged to motivate the target audience and maintain interest in the marketing campaign or product. Profitable Realities achieves this effect by enabling competition between groups of customers that can be based locally or worldwide. A company wishing to market a product can effectively challenge the globe or any city to engage with its content. Introducing competition into augmented reality offers an additional possibility for engaging the target audience, which can ultimately increase the chances of making the augmented reality-based marketing campaign one of the most successful, memorable, and viral experiences ever launched.
Analysis of the target audience indicates that most individuals interested in Pokémon Go are singles aged 18–25, regardless of gender. Pregnant women and senior citizens are the least likely to use such extended realities. Hence, these advanced technologies are often underestimated in traditional marketing campaigns because they only focus on the needs of larger population segments. A product or company inaugurated using augmented or mixed reality should be marketed in its early stages to a target audience that can help increase awareness. Market leaders include Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, IBM, Intel, and Samsung. Analysis of products and services related to augmented or mixed reality marketed by these companies reveals that actual differences in cost and conversion rate may be similar or even lower than those of a traditional marketing campaign.
Target Audience Analysis
Understanding the target audience is crucial when implementing marketing strategies involving augmented reality (AR) experiences. Profitable Realities offers a comprehensive analysis of AR marketing initiatives within diverse consumer groups. For instance, a survey conducted among 7,887 online shoppers revealed that 61% of Millennials desired more immersive and impactful shopping experiences. Moreover, 63% of smartphone users indicated a greater likelihood of making a purchase after engaging with an AR experience in physical stores.
The penetration of AR technology among consumers is also notable. While only 30% of U.S. customers have utilized AR capabilities, over half of marketers report an integration of immersive experiences within their strategies. Although recent technological advances in smartphones and consumer appetites have catalyzed greater adoption of AR retail experiences, designers still confront several challenges. These obstacles encompass technological constraints, content needs, time pressures, and budget limitations. By understanding audience expectations and preferences, marketers can better navigate these challenges and leverage AR to enhance consumer interaction.
Demographic Insights
Augmented Reality (AR) mixers thrive on engaging large numbers of visitors. Azteca Corp. has facilitated venues for thousands and is designing its software to handle ten thousand within a community game. Conversely, smaller, more intimate mixes in North Bay suggest that an absolute minimum of five participants is required to stimulate user interaction and morphing activities. The threshold varies according to the game and platform employed. In this analysis, the targeted community exceeds fifty, with the business model premised on sustaining regular, ongoing engagement.
The North Bay consumer group is perceived as educated, with one in six holding a college degree and a median age of twenty-nine, indicating both youthfulness and income-generating potential. The business demographic encompasses post-secondary students seeking part-time employment. Survey data reveal that a significant majority—67 percent.
Psychographic Profiles
Combining Deide Scheepers’ skills and passion for marketing and Chris Hopkins’ sales and project management background, Profitable Realities was established in 2017. The company concentrates on Augmented Reality Marketing that incorporates a distinctly South African feel. The particular project, Profitable Realities, focuses on relocating the launch in the digital space of Makro’s physical store openings through the application of augmented reality. The intention is to keep customers involved yet safe during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Various Customer profiles were created to investigate the possible users of the Profitable Realities marketing approach. Combined with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and a Target Audience Analysis, these profiles are a point of reference for determining the target audience. The first profile represents the customer described by business and Marketing Manager, Ashley Tonkin. According to Tonkin, the Makro customer is a “Middle Income to Upmarket Inner City Trade customer who is looking for everyday low prices in a one-stop shop environment” that is fun to shop in and where customers can expect expert service and support, a wide choice of branded products, a warm friendly smile, and a genuine interest in their needs; the customer must feel they are getting a good deal and ‘value for money’.” The second customer profile represents a typical Makro shopper; Croce is described as a Single Income family with children or a Young, Traditional family with a busy, active lifestyle, always looking for a good deal and wanting to shop conveniently and affordably.
Implementation Challenges in AR Marketing
Implementing Augmented Reality (AR) marketing strategies entails multiple technical and usability challenges which, if not addressed, can degrade user experience and discourage adoption. The core of the challenge lies in the immaturity of key technologies. Dynamic recognition systems that enable environment-responsive AR interactions are often absent, as contemporary AR toolkits predominantly focus on well-lit, static-recognition scenarios. Additionally, the use of slow or low-resolution cameras on user devices can undermine the seamless performance that marketers strive to achieve. Hardware limitations—insufficient RAM and processing power in smartphones or tablets—translate to sluggish AR rendering and interaction. The unavailability of device GPS on some platforms inhibits location-based services integral to many AR applications. Moreover, the absence of integrated accelerometers and gyroscopes in certain devices further restricts context-aware interactions necessary for compelling AR experiences.
Beyond technology, human factors heavily influence the reception of AR marketing efforts. Surveys reveal that users often associate AR with high costs, risk of privacy infringement, and practical shortcomings such as unreliability. Inconvenience stemming from worrisome privacy policies and complex user interfaces can lead to abandonment of the AR application altogether. Respondents also indicate that difficult anonymity guarantees and convoluted authentication processes reduce their willingness to engage. Cost remains a prominent deterrent, exacerbated by the perceived imbalance between investment and delivered value. Marketers, therefore, must balance craftsmanship, appropriateness, and cost with end-user perceptions to position AR advertising content for success.
Technical Limitations
The Implementing stage undergoes considerable technical limitations impacting the development itself. At the start of the project, the defined 3D model format was OBJ, which was later switched to FBX when the second implementation version started growing. During this period, the target application changed from Android Mobile (Java language) to 64-bit Windows PCs (C# language).
Some generated models had to be changed, not only to deal with the changes in formats but also because an OBJ model is created with multiple maps, making it available for any purpose, and it includes meshes with thousands of polygons; on the contrary, the FBX model is made with one map and mesh with just a few polygons. Additionally, basic Internet access was configured within the application to connect databases and upload user statistics.
User Adoption Barriers
Augmented Reality (AR) technologies have introduced new marketing possibilities. While technical limitations affect the successful implementation of AR experiences, potential users must also find their use appealing and easy enough for rapid adoption. User behavior may therefore define a temporary adoption barrier for the successful use of AR marketing.
Although AR has yet to become a mass-market instrument, a significant number of people actively use AR applications daily, and the level of awareness and people’s willingness to consider using AR in the near future is also high. Through a targeted survey, consumer feedback assessed the use of AR, the acceptance of mobile AR marketing, and hence the reasons behind the current growth rates.
Measuring Success: Key Performance Indicators
Together with timeline, budget and Scope of Work, a project’s success KPIs are often presented in the project proposal and agreement documents. They are there to verify if the business or marketing objectives have been met, according to the client requirements. Key performance indicators hence also control important stakeholder expectations. They should be narrow-targeted to particular business goals and measurable with the selected analytics tools. Moderately but strategically chosen KPIs allow for focused efforts without creating endless reports.
In a survey conducted among mobile marketers with a completed AR campaign, about 70 percent identified sales increase, revenue increase and online traffic as key performance indicators. From the same group, around 50 percent consider lead generation and app installs important, while app engagement and brand awareness are each selected by approximately 40 percent of respondents. It is evident that the majority of marketers actively use AR to generate concrete revenues and leads. Brand awareness and engagement are still significant for less than half of the participants. The results are expected as the survey is based on professional experiences rather than academic interests. The profile of the responding marketers will be discussed in detail in the next chapter.
Engagement Metrics
Monitoring consumer interactions with mobile apps has also been considered by businesses as a KPI to check the performance of their campaign. Lots of consumers are willing to give their personal information in exchange for a cool experience. One Percent of shoppers are especially prone to making their information available. Businesses can use these interactions provided by the 3D camera, such as trying branded clothes or cosmetics, to find other possible products for buyers. Branded 3D environments can increase engagement and provide surprising consumer behavior with persistent tracking. Moreover, such applications increase the possibility of frequent engagement in consumers by opening product catalogs or pushing their information.
Customer Participation AR can also allow customers or users to create machine-generated or human-generated content. For instance, an AR collaboration such as the crazy talking Avatar on the X-box can create human-generated content that further allows users to broadcast, share, and consequently engage in games, news, or topics. The loud mouth avatars can also have ads attached for revenue, especially when the audience reaches an optimum size. On the other hand, digital graffiti walls in nightlife pubs and bars can use the consumers’ content to promote digital graffiti artists in tourism or art events. These artists often collect micro-donations for digital graffitis or other forms of street art, which is a symbiotic relationship between consumer-generated content and its promotion by venues.
Return on Investment
ROIs in AR MarketingReviewing AR marketing KPIs clarifies which key performance indicators and ratios provide insight into AR marketing success.45 Important KPIs include cost per click, click-through rate, social shares, customer acquisition cost, conversion rate, and return on investment. Among these measures, return on investment (ROI) is recommended. Calculating ROI with net profit divided by marketing cost affirms the profitability of a marketing endeavor. In an AR marketing setting, ROI calculation requires determining the marketing cost and the net profit resulting from the campaign. Given the importance of KPIs, especially ROI, it seems valuable to demonstrate their applications and calculations. Using a Profitable Realities scenario for real data simplifies the tasks of storytelling, relating back to the target audience. Such a discussion naturally leads to an evaluative assessment of AR marketing through Profitable Realities, where a final remarks section addresses insights gained and promising development directions.
Consumer Feedback and Adaptation
Since Profitable Realities is during the solution period, progress comes in the form of consumer feedback. In ―Consumer Perceptions of Augmented Reality Advertising: An Experimental Approach,‖ Jerry Toetenel and Dennis Moes analyze consumer reactions to AR marketing based on a different project survey. They conclude that ―interactive experiences and personalization are likely to increase the consumer response, while a high realism in AR advertisements does not have a direct impact on the consumer’s attitude toward the advertisement.‖ Aware of potential overimplementation, the team experimented with controlling consumer reactions by balancing interactive content and visual detail. Because the Target Audience section shows that gamers tend to overreact, they introduced a gamification element into the concept.―An Empirical Study on Consumers’ Acceptance of Augmented Reality Ads in China—Using Consumer Perceived Value Theory,‖ by Chaoyong Tian, Yi Liu, Humphrey Nwokeji, and Michael Platzer, found that informational and hedonic values play a very important role in the online shopping environment. Recognizing the importance of ―value perception,‖ the team highlighted informative and engaging experiences simultaneously. The results of these studies informed the first iteration of the concept and the prototype.
A questionnaire was then sent to potential consumers in China, collecting 151 responses about preliminary prototypes and concepts. The results indicated that consumers preferred the informative animation, perceived augmented reality ads as more useful, and considered the gamification element less interesting. Of course, these findings also showed the need to optimize the concept, which led to the design being refined accordingly. With the project still functioning in the solution phase, this survey data was used to better define, select, and develop the AR marketing solution.
Survey Results
Within the Prospect of Augmented Reality Marketing Several Traits Are Considered, Including Target Audience, Target Product, and. Details of the Survey Is Presented Later Target Product Interaction, Complexity, and Implementation Difficulties. Profitable Realities Is a Project Designed to Illustrate and Explore the Benefits of Augmented Reality Marketing. The Project, Its Method, Implementation, and Results Are Examined in Five Chapters: Background, Approach, Play-and-Play, Results, and Future. The First Chapter Provides a Brief Introduction to the Survey and the AR Concept. The Approach Is Addressed in Methods and in Play-and-Play, the Strategy Utilised by Profitable Realities. The Results and Limitations Are Summarised in the Fourth Chapter, and an Outline of Future Prospects Is Given as a Conclusion.
The Survey Describes Augmented Reality and Marketing, Proceeds to Their Combination and the Use of AR in Marketing, Lists the Advantages and Disadvantages of AR Marketing, and Presents the Results of the Target-Audience Survey. Augmented Reality Enhances the User’s Perception of Reality by Adding Extra Information to the Observed Objects. The Information Must Appear as Part of the Reality and Be Latitude-indexed; Otherwise It Belongs to the Virtual-Reality Category. Virtual Reality Is a Simulation That Replaces the Actual Environment with a Generated Recreation. Using Technologies Such as GPS, Compass, Accelerometer, Proximity Sensors, Digital Cameras, and Others in Combination Allows Placing the Augmented Information at a Specific Point of Space, Appearance Area, or Object. One of the Key Advantages of Augmented Reality Is Its Ability to Re-create Reality in a Higher Dimension. This Capability Allows Users to Tackle Different Problems, Including Marketing-Campaign-Related Challenges.
Iterative Design Process
Augmented reality (AR) can dramatically change how people connect, share, experience, consume, purchase, and even evaluate products and their brands. Location-based AR marketing provides a step change in the engagement between consumer, product, and brand. Profitable Realities supports brands and marketers with their own scalable tech platform: real people can create actionable content that responds quickly to the market and consumers get an entertainment-led experience that re-engages them. Nine core case studies have been analysed in order to validate the marketing performance of this approach. The results indicate that AR is a very powerful marketing tool but that process, building brand awareness whilst also building sales, is probably more important. Key performance indicators include engagement, cost per impression, cost per engagement, and sales generated.
To perform an iterative design process, briefing packages were sent to the target audience for a controlled, conditional evaluation. Their feedback was analysed and new briefs created for subsequent iterations. The research shows that AR is a very useful and viable marketing tool that does indeed build brand awareness, whilst at the same time building brand sales. Location, combined with sound design and brand synergy, is critical. Also, the need for high-market penetration, combined with the requirements for a connected journey and social sharing, results in a process that encourages consumers to contribute real, dynamic, and constantly up-to-date content. This combination brings the promise of an excellent cost per impression, cost per engagement, and ultimately a functional cost per sales generated.
Future Trends in AR Marketing
Augmented reality continues to evolve as a marketing tool. Improvements in headset technology and processing power have enabled glossier graphics and more fulfilling mechanics to bear the message to the consumer in a way more akin to the real world. As production becomes more accessible, so will the quantity of advertising campaigns in the medium increase, making it necessary for each campaign to be personalized for a certain market niche rather than mass produced. The never-ending arms race between companies and consumers will see AR’s science-fiction potential continually realized, gradually creating a distinct alternative to traditional advertising.
Marketing in AR adapts techniques that would not be imaginable in traditional media, such as geolocation and narration. New touchpoints appear to support marketing campaigns and can benefit from game mechanics or scientific phenomena of the real world. The result is a very high degree of consumer interaction with the campaign. AR marketing through a personal device adapts also to the point-of-sale environment or to e-commerce. Measuring the results of an AR campaign involves the usual parameters of any marketing operation, mainly financial indicators. Its excellence lies especially in the ability to measure how many consumers have experienced the campaign, a value difficult to gather in traditional channels. These new possibilities open AR to a much wider spectrum of campaigns beyond experiential, such as games or coupons.
Emerging Technologies
Embedded AR technology has been started to used in marketing products and services. Marketing strategies of some of these companies have been focused on creating an interactive experience for their consumers (Jarvis 2017). The innovative approach enables a company to improve marketing and to play advertising games with customer prospects. The central idea is to engage the target consumer so that the impact of marketing or advertisement is being created on the customers’ mind. AR-development tools adds the gamification elements such as AR-picture or counter in the game with which users can interact with the content and drive the desired action towards the game. Augmented Reality can be described as an interactive experience of a real-world environment where the objects appearing in the real world are enhanced by computer-generated perceptual information, sometimes across multiple sensory modalities; visual, auditory, haptic, somatosensory, and olfactory. A pertinent research question is: How can marketers design AR marketing to create an interactive experience and engage the target consumer in order to increase sales, brand awareness and loyalty of the consumers?
Predicted Consumer Behavior
Changes in purchasing behavior caused by AR are not yet fully understood; the AR of the future may not be aimed at the customers that can already use it, but rather at a new and wider audience. It can be assumed, after evaluating a large number of surveys on this topic, that the time still needed for acceptance is both long and difficult to predict. In the near future, the constant increase in offers will be accompanied by an increase in demand, but that point does not seem to be very close in time or space. Although several studies suggest that AR is an effective marketing tool, not only for increasing brand awareness and brand favorability, but also for affecting purchase intention, it must be borne in mind that not all groups of consumers respond equally to it. Sensory and imagination-oriented consumers with a low level of technology readiness tend to enjoy and benefit from it the most.
AR can influence consumers’ purchase intention and the willingness to pay a higher price; however, when choosing a product, not only the common criteria, such as price, brand or quality, must be considered, but also the possibilities offered by AR, which influences the perceived usefulness and experiential value of the product. Research shows that consumers consider AR more useful when they shop for their personal pleasure or the pleasure of others, but not when making purchases primarily for the satisfaction of others. For the future, it can be assumed that personality traits affect the acceptance of advertising and, at the same time, influence the impressions of advertising containing AR content.
Comparative Analysis with Traditional Marketing
Despite the demonstrated effectiveness of augmented reality marketing, traditional tools such as TV, radio, magazine, and banner advertising remain popular due to their global reach. The imminent challenge is to amplify AR’s engagement metrics, steering customers toward tactile interaction with products and shortening the purchasing cycle. For manufacturers, the cost-effective promotion of ever-changing products remains a priority; AR offers an alternative that may address these demands.
Target audience analysis suggests that well-designed AR marketing strategies can shift perceptions of the planning and digital advertising industries, currently viewed as dull, unfashionable, and unimaginative, by integrating elements of fun, excitement, and technology. Beyond enhanced engagement, the underlying objective is to improve return on investment and provide a dynamic platform for future growth. Nonetheless, two central questions persist: Is augmented reality marketing easier and more cost-effective than traditional marketing? What benefits does it offer to prospective customers relative to conventional methods?
Cost-Effectiveness
Interactive AR strategies offer consumers unique experiences not achievable with traditional media. By mixing reality with the virtual world, Profitable Realities keeps online products fresh and is capable of meeting both customers’ and clients’ needs precisely. Gamification excuses the consumer from paying attention and allows for less direct advertising. Gamifying the experience caters to the spirit of the consumer, driving results with a consumer-friendly approach.
The customization and gamification of the experience target different audiences optimally through targeted messaging and individual content created especially for each audience subgroup. This method saves time and budget during the implementation of communication for different business areas. Although AR is expensive to implement, it manages to reduce costs by increasing sales, boosting brand awareness, and enhancing customer loyalty. According to an analysis by Statista, approximately 80 percent of companies report a positive return on investment from their AR activities.
Engagement Levels
Approaches to Boosting Consumer Engagement. Surprisingly, success in Augmented Reality (AR) advertising does not rely exclusively on realism or technical complexity. Instead, engaging experiences generally arise from a mix of various media elements. For example, research suggests that to increase consumer interest, touch experiences should be paired with pleasant vibrations accompanied by sounds, whether natural (such as rain or wind) or artificial (similar to a song or theme). Other strategies include diversifying the content throughout campaigns and gamifying the experience with leaderboards and prizes.
Profitable Realities. AR apps that focus solely on commercial benefits—such as offering fantastic experiences for a global audience or providing brands with cost savings—tend to fail. Engagement levels measure the interaction of Target Audiences with AR activities. In marketing, data can be cross-analyzed to yield insights into the actual behavior of target consumers.
Legal and Ethical Considerations in AR Marketing
Augmented Reality applications in marketing are raising several ethical and legal questions, from consumer protection to privacy and data use. As consumers transfer more personal and context data to augmented reality devices, legal and ethical questions become more important and have a direct impact on revenue. It is believed that large legal (and ethical) concerns regarding AR can negatively affect user adoption rates, and that actually introducing the applications (enforcing privacy requirements and controls) will positively influence use.
Consumers are generally interested in using AR mobile marketing applications, but they are concerned about the applications possibly exhibiting unwanted behavior. One of these is the use of collected personal and identity data. The use of precise location data, the constant tracking aspect of AR applications, and the amount of personal data needed to properly function are also of prime concern to potential users. Many consumers are more willing to accept data use if it is not shared, and most want options regarding what is collected. Coincidentally, the lack of options for users strongly affects the willingness to give private data to AR. Recent regulation calls for smart devices to have more management options for the collection and sharing of private information.
Privacy Concerns
Anonymity is an ever-increasing concern in our hyperconnected world. The immersive nature of the AR marketing technique raises a number of privacy concerns, and the exponential growth of AR and wearable AR devices will spur the development of solutions and requirements. Researchers have addressed fragments of the privacy threats that stem from AR. For instance, the privacy-sensitivity of the sensory data collected by AR glasses needs to be examined. A comprehensive review and classification of AR privacy threats shed light on those threats and sketch possible solutions. Indeed, the usage of Augmented-Reality and other Future Spatial Interfaces to enhance the experience of visiting new cities raises several concerns (both cultural and privacy-related). Many of us are concerned about being tracked using smartphones when visiting places and finding a parking spot. We have felt the hesitation to open social media platforms and share photos because the hunted tourists are the preferred target for crime.
This Augmented-Reality Technology takes all these concerns seriously and introduces several techniques to address them. Virtual Scenes and Virtual Parking Slots around the user allow them not only to preserve privacy but also to disassociate dangerous crowds from physical presence.
Regulatory Compliance
Before embarking on any Milestone or Post-Milestone activity, one should determine which permits, approvals or licenses are required for any component of the Milestone. The cost and time required to obtain and comply with such permits, approvals and licenses should be accounted for in the schedule or Project Budget. Among the factors to consider are: (a) residency obligations for obtaining a business license in a specific State; (b) interaction or obtaining business permits for the proposed activity from other Federal, State, local, or foreign government agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, Homeland Security or the Department of State; (c) the need to register with a city, state, or local licensing authority; (d) other sources of information, such as the Small Business Administration and the U.S. Embassy; and (e) obtaining an Employer Identification Number (EIN) for tax purposes.
Flipping a regulatory switch can have consequences in areas such as environmental protection, Water and Air Quality, Natural Resources, Noise Pollution, and Biological Protection. Non-compliance Information Source links are provided for gathering information about the applicable regulations and a contact person who can provide further assistance. Both the Government Regulations and Support Services sections of the Directory of Federal Assistance may be sources of valuable information. Before undertaking a Milestone or Post-Milestone activity one should analyze the associated risk, cost, complexity, and level of non-compliance consequence by carefully using the Risk Management Model (RMM) Rating Tool.
Case Study Results and Insights
Consumers require more than a simple product or service; in numerous occasions, they demand an experience. This apparent paradox provides specialized marketing teams with a complex challenge: create a unique offer that meets or exceeds customers’ expectations. The challenge becomes even more complex when a customer’s attention is required—all their senses must be enticed as to eliminate any possible source of disgust or boredom towards the brand. Marketing strategies should encompass visual, auditive, tactile, smell, and, in the case of restaurants, taste. This is where extended reality technologies can help. Indeed, virtual reality can develop complete sensory experiences; mixed reality can take food to the next level with superimposing additional augmented information about it; augmented reality can create an immersive environment for the user without losing a sense of reality. Although all three types are important, this analysis is specifically centred around augmented reality.
Marketing strategies focus on the services or products that a specific company wants to sell; with this in mind, some of the most important aspects that must be taken into account can be summarized in 1) what is going to be sold, 2) who the product or service is intended for, and 3) how a customer is going to be attracted to make the sale happen. The first point is essential for creative teams to conceive the experience correctly and link it to the commercial proposal, the second is important to focus resources on a specific demographic, and the third refers to the tools used for marketing related aims. Data from these aspects can be gathered through surveys, which will permit the generation of useful insights for future strategic decisions.
Sales Performance
Profitable Realities Profitable Realities is an online distributor of digital TV services promoting Interactive Marketing, which can provide services worldwide. The company attracts investors searching for a promising and quick return on investment, who become part of the Beneficiary Club, a Social Club that offers profits in long-term development and economy news. The use of Augmented Reality experiences is a suitable means of explaining and spreading the dynamics of the Biz Model, emphasizing speed, immediacy, and ease of understanding to enhance the investor’s emotional sphere. From these premises, the search for relationships between the dynamics of Augmented Reality marketing and the increase in sales of Target companies was born.
The experiences were conducted online and promoted through main social networks and search engines, conveying Augmented Reality to the mass market and involving various user targets. The definition of the Target Audience arises from an analysis of the sale of the company’s products and services in relation to the market diagnosed with a high use of consumers of these services. Target was identified between 25 and 45 years, corresponding to the age range with the greatest presence and use of social media platforms; materialist people always looking for good deals for their life; extraverted, unscrupulous, careless, and uncontrolled consumers, the ones who never save money for emergency. The positioning of Augmented Reality marketing strategies is defined at the level of Interactive, Personalisation, and Gamification. The strengths of these applications are represented by the dynamics of interaction, contact, involvement, and loyalty of End Users.
Multiple choice tests, offer selection, e-commerce, video instructions, Game interactive and 360° video are the Augmented Reality experiences selected for the implementation of these AR marketing dynamics, aimed at different User Targets of Profitable Realities. In turn, the strategic potential of these interactive platforms is achieved through the processing of contrasts within SWOT analysis and the examination of the barriers in the innovation processes analysed by the literature. To measure the interactive, personalised, and gamified AR experience in its effectiveness for New Media Marketing, Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are selected among the most recognised mainly in academic research and used as standard for the measure of these marketing strategies. KPI such as sales, number of contacts, interaction rates, social engagement/referral, interaction time, brand awareness/intention, and ROI tend to be the indicators considered for the assessment of marketing investments. These indicators are used to analyse the User satisfaction levels of the experience through a Google Forms survey expressed on a five-point Likert scale, according to a selection made among the recommendations of similar surveys in the literature.
Brand Awareness Impact
The utilisation of AR as a marketing tool, as demonstrated by the examined case study, has a considerable impact on brand awareness. Nevertheless, the businesses involved are aware that KPIs such as sales and ROI assist management in evaluating the investment benefits. Spontaneous consumer engagement with the interactive experience is less important to these companies than the overall appeal of the technology and its capability to acquire data enabling personalised marketing in the future. AR’s application in marketing can be defined by four main groups of marketing goals and activities: Making the marketing environment more interactive and creating fun games, promotion and prizes which use the product as a medium; engaging consumers through interaction to transmit product-related messages, product benefits or brand credibility; personalising packages to provide customised products to the end consumer; and using gamification to activate consumers, especially in-store.
Some companies concentrate on all or certain aspects of these categories; however, their primary focus is usually one main goal. In the case of Profitable Realities, the core app functionality is focused on gamification, consumer engagement, and the personalisation of the instant win mechanism, which is key to the marketing objective of the tool. Marketing and creative teams pay particular attention to triggering consumers’ interest and generating attention around the games and prizes. Target audience research allows the company to identify the demographic most inclined to adopt the new technology and adjust the marketing communication accordingly. Consumer feedback is gathered through various channels, including consumer surveys, which provide valuable insights for future development.
Lessons Learned from Profitable Realities
The case study on Profitable Realities highlights several lessons valuable to pioneers of augmented reality marketing. These teachings cover core AR marketing strategies; target-audience considerations; challenges encountered; assessment methods; future trends; and legal and ethical dimensions.
Augmented reality elevates marketing by staging interactive experiences, personalizing communications, and injecting gamification. Crucial lessons in defining the target audience cover age, sex, income, education, personality, values, and comfort with technology. Despite impressive results, augmented reality is not free of technical barriers, advertiser concerns, nor end-user apprehensions. Key performance indicators spotlight factors such as user engagement, interaction time, AR-supported sales, loyalty, and return on investment. Feedback from consumers and partners is essential to shaping future trends and capabilities. Lastly, odometers note the speed of changing laws and ethical requirements—factors demanding investigator attention and counters booming marketing enthusiasm.
Additional teachings emerge from comparing augmented reality with traditional marketing. Where a traditional coupon campaign costs $160,000 and generates $2.5 million in new sales, the augmented reality equivalent demands just $12,000 but supplies a staggering $35.75 million.
Conclusion
A precedent for achieving higher levels of consumer engagement can reorientulate the expectations set for marketing campaigns and their relative performance in relation to traditional marketing. Insights gathered from empirical evidence surface multiple qualitative and quantitative criteria that affect the deployment of augmented reality applications from a marketing perspective. Understanding the impact of augmented reality on marketing at a detailed level along with its relationship with consumer engagement require the benefits and limitations of these applications to be assessed. Public perceptions of augmented reality indicate a generally positive attitude, suggesting its potential as an innovative and powerful marketing technique that engages the consumer, which can be further improved through the deployment of small-scale pilot projects. These preliminary small-scale coding projects offer several limitations and challenges, which must be considered when performing a full-scale deployment.
Survey analysis shows that interactive experiences, gamified incentives, smooth integration into the customer journey, and personalizing the experience for the consumer through location- and time-based information are the most effective elements of any augmented reality marketing campaign. Practical results highlight the potential benefits of relying on key performance indicators to evaluate engagement and demonstrate the advantage of using consumer feedback to adapt an application during and after its deployment. The Amazon AR View analysis reinforces augmented reality’s distinction from traditional marketing, evidencing the relatively low cost involved and offering a new marketing channel that connects customers directly to various product pages, thereby providing immediate purchasing options. The research can be extended by incorporating relevant legal requirements and by designing additional case studies to explore specific aspects of augmented reality marketing within varied contexts and different countries.
