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Augmented Reality: Designing Immersive Experiences That Maximize Consumer…

- - - - One type of engagement occurs when consumers act towards inanimate objects
        
        In augmented reality experiences, these actions can include, for example, watching how a product is embedded in an entertaining 3D landscape (e.g., McDonald’s Track My Maccas), changing the color of a digital couch (e.g., IKEA catalogue), or pretending to pet a cheetah
        
        Virtual reality researchers differentiate between three types of actions – perception, ma-nipulation, and interaction that incrementally increase how immersive an experience is perceived to be by users.
        
        We apply this thinking to augmented reality and intro-duce the term affordance to describe the types of actions that are available to users of an AR ini-tiative.
        
        Many AR campaigns, especially those that fall within the active print paradigm, only af-ford consumers the opportunity to passively perceive content
        
        While these campaigns might successfully generate brand exposure and interest, especially if they are novel (e.g., a large installation, sophisticated content), they squander an opportunity to further engage customers via higher-level actions.
        
        The highest level of user-brand engagement is achieved when an AR initiative affords users with the ability to interact with AR content. For example, in Pepsi Max’s Monster Mirror campaign, unsuspecting visitors are transformed – via magic mirrors in public washrooms – into werewolves and other monsters.
        
        However, marketers can increase user-brand en-gagement by affording consumers with the mere perception they are interacting with AR content. This type of “pretend interaction” is well facilitated by the magic mirror paradigm, because consumers are able to observe themselves in relation to AR content.
    - - Consumer engagement is also strengthened when branded con-tent is inserted into and/or facilitates interactions between members of an online community
        
        Marketers can thus aim to generate user-user engage-ment, through their AR initiative, by enabling users to interact with other users of the same AR layer
        
        For this to happen, a user’s actions toward AR content (i.e., manipulations or interactions) must be consequential for other users, in that these other users are able to perceive the new or altered AR content and even act upon it in return
        
        In other words, user-user engage-ment is enabled by some form of sociability that allows for social interactions between either a specific group of users or among all users.
        
        Increasing the level of sociability is a powerful way to add value to an AR initiative, as it embeds the branded content into consumers’ conversations
        
        Augmented reality can facilitate in-terpersonal and even affectionate relationships between two people, as shown in the Lacta exam-ple, and it can strengthen brand communities, as exemplified in the BOS campaign.
        
        In either case, an AR campaign that integrates elements of sociability deepens the linking power (Cova 1997) of a brand, creating strong relationships that draw customers in and encourage them to re-turn time and again.
    - - A third type of consumer engagement emerges through the relationships that exist between users and bystanders
        
        While user-user engagement requires planning to increase the sociability of an AR experience, creating opportunities for user-bystander engagement can be more easily achieved by providing users with the opportunity to create artifacts that they can share in their social networks
        
        Artifacts are records of users’ actions within an AR layer (e.g., images, status updates, and tweets) that are observable to bystanders who are not (currently) participating in that AR experience.
        
        Artifact creation is routinely built-in to many AR initiatives.
        
        For example, users can share a snapshot of their digitally decorated pint of Guinness on Facebook, or tweet about their high score achieved in Cadbury’s Quacksmack game. However, these types of artifacts are unlikely to result in sustained user-bystander engagement because they do not offer much practical or social value to either the user or bystander.
        
        Research on viral marketing (e.g., Berger 2013; Kaplan & Haenlein 2011) suggests that messages which provide the sender with social currency or identity value are more likely to be shared, and that receivers are more likely to investigate messages that provide practical value, are surprising, or trigger an emotional response.
        
        At best, artifacts that provide value to users and bystanders can even help an AR campaign to “go viral” (Kaplan & Haenlein 2011), especially when bystanders are so intrigued by the artifacts that they decide to participate in the experience themselves and create their own artifacts.
- - - - Augmented reality initiatives should be consumer-experience driven, rather than technology driven.
        
        Marketers’ efforts should be guided by consumer insights about unique, stimulating, and valuable experiences that are made possible by AR technologies
        
        AR experiences that fail to meet or exceed con-sumer expectations may also impair brand image, waste resources, and imperil future programs involving AR or other emerging marketing technologies.
    - - Marketers should focus their attention on nourishing consumer engagement, rather than being overly consumed with producing the flashiest, biggest, or costliest AR campaign
        
        Architects of these campaigns can design AR content in ways that provide sufficient time and space for con-sumers to insert themselves into the narrative of the AR experience. This can be achieved, for example, by having AR content approach the users’ vantage point: Pepsi Max depicts a tiger running towards a bus shelter from a far enough distance that it gives commuters time to per-ceive the animal and insert themselves into the narrative by running away from it.
        
        Allowing for greater sociability, or the creation of intriguing artifacts, through these means are simple and cost-effective ways how marketers can optimize AR experiences for consumers.
    - - Our discussion on the role of artifacts in catalyzing word-of-mouth implies that marketers should also keep an additional target audience in mind: potential participants who receive these artifacts.
        
        This line of thinking has implications for primary audi-ence selection, since marketers should aim to identify users who are more likely to create addi-tional awareness and expand the reach of an AR campaign through sharing artifacts in their so-cial networks.
    - - Marketers can maximize AR’s potential by thoughtfully integrating it into an overall marketing program.
        
        For exam-ple, artifacts that fulfill users’ self-presentation goals are more likely to be shared on social me-dia, generating word-of-mouth for the brand.
        
        Clever campaigns are also frequently discussed in trade magazines and online blogs. Marketers can boost the reach and return of their AR invest-ment by creating supportive campaign elements.
        
        Marketers can use product packaging, advertising, and in-store displays to encourage consumers to download and use AR applications. When an AR experience is rooted in one particular place (e.g. Volkswagen’s Juiced Up campaign in Toronto), it may even be help-ful to employ brand ambassadors to encourage passersby to try the AR experience.
        
        Finally, it is important to recall that AR’s usefulness is not limited to marketing commu-nications. Augmented reality can enhance retail experiences or be an integral part of product of-ferings (e.g., enhanced ski goggles). AR can also be used to cultivate brand communities because it offers new ways to foster relationships between consumers, brands and spaces. Significantly, AR can help mobile marketers overcome the challenges associated with limited digital “real es-tate” (Shankar et al. 2010) by extending the screen into the real world.
    - - The power of AR lies in its unique ability to intertwine digital in-formation with the physical world; however, this also makes it vulnerable to threats that market-ers must proactively manage.
        
        In addition to the risk that the background can conflict with poorly integrated AR content, mar-keters should also be mindful of how the brand meanings they plan to craft via AR can be sub-verted by activists and competitors.
        
        If potential threats exist, marketers should take action to mitigate these risks or relocate their AR initiative to a new location.
        
        Once settled on a location, marketers must attempt to manage the spaces in which their AR programs will be experienced.
        
        Marketers might, thus, design the space to ensure visibility and maintain open space around the in-store installation.
        
        Finally, in addition to safeguarding brand image through space planning, marketers should also neutralize threats to their brand through appropriate content management strategies that enable them to moderate and shape digital contributions in ways that user content supports a positive brand image.
    - - AR campaigns should be guided by marketer goals.
        
        For example, if brand aware-ness is an objective, marketers should plan for qualities that can enhance awareness, such as a public setting, an automatic trigger, a shared screen experience, and a plethora of artifact options for users.
        
        In contrast, if supporting a brand community is a goal, marketers should consider AR initiatives that afford opportunities for manipulating or interacting with content, as well as that allow users to contribute with additional content
        
        Incorporating sociability would also be im-portant, since the linking value it generates would motivate users to return to an AR layer. Fur-thermore, marketers would benefit from designing experiences for individuals’ devices, such as smart phones, since they are better designed for response-input (e.g., commenting).
    - - To design an optimal AR experience, marketers must en-sure that their initiative is consistent with a brand’s intended brand image
    - - Marketers should design valuable AR programs that entice con-sumers to try, and re-visit, AR experiences.
        
        Especially when consumers are in control of the trig-ger decision, marketers need to present them with attractive reasons to activate the AR layer themselves
        
        Yet, controlling the trigger decision does not absolve marketers from providing value, as they risk irritating consum-ers if the initiative does not deliver informational, entertainment, social, or identity value
        
        Our framework suggests many ways how marketers can create value for consumers via augmented reality. For example, integrating augmented content with physical background factors can provide informational value about marketplace offerings and how they might fit into a con-sumer’s life (e.g. Ikea catalogue). Interactive experiences that allow users to choose, manipulate, or respond to marketer or user-generated content can offer entertainment value (e.g., Cadbury’s Quacksmack). Sociable AR experiences enable consumers to develop social relationships with other users (e.g., BOS Iced Tea), and artifacts that facilitate self-presentation goals can help con-sumers to construct their identities (e.g., Total Film). Marketers who are able to deliver value to consumers can attract them to AR programs and face less risk of offending them through cam-paigns that are perceived to be intrusive or jarring.