Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality & Digital Marketing

"Virtual reality" as well as "augmented reality" are well known to us as buzz words of 2017-2018. But does it mean that these technologies are not on the rise anymore? As for me, I would argue that these technologies have not reached their peak yet and are going to become more influential over the next years. Same is argued in Statista forecasts that predict the market to rise by 845% from 2019 to 2022.

We have to think what does it mean to Digital Marketing. 25% of professionals in the field stipulate that virtual reality will be the technology that will drive the most change in the coming two years. But how exactly these technologies can be used? They were already used by Coca-Cola that launched an AR campaign in China in 2018. That time in 2 weeks 6.6 million people viewed the animation. Somehow we are still do not use these technologies enough. I suppose it is due to society being resistant to habit change. I do still remember myself thinking that social networks is something new and useless and was trying to postpone registration as long as possible. But now almost no one can imagine his/her life without Facebook and/or Linkedin, right?

One strong reason to believe that VR & AR are going to be popular is the trend of people be more and more engaged with video and easily consumable content. While AR & VR have the same benefits, they are also even more fun. Moreover, they help customer to interact with the brand more and make purchase decisions easier. Ikea sees an opportunity in this field and helps people see a piece of furniture in their current interior by using VR. You do not have to overuse your imagination anymore.

Additional rational is that users appreciate and even expect to have personalised experience. AR & VR definitely made to provide immersive and controlled experience that can easily be tailored on the basis of preference. 

However, there is at least one challenge for expansion of VR, which is the need to have a particular equipment to be able to be engaged. AR on the other hand, is in a great position, because mobile device is enough to be able to be involved. And we know for a fact that mobile usage is rising.

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