Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality in Experiential Marketing
“The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing”
- Tom Fishburne, 2017
A marketer’s job is to bring the product into consumer’s consciousness and create a desire within them to buy the product or service you are advertising. It is about drawing in customers and keeping them engaged with the company. For the longest time, marketing has been focused on the print media, only to be disrupted by radio and television advertising once the technology was adopted.
Today’s marketing mix is vastly divided between the internet, social media, personalized, targeted marketing via email, smartphone push notifications, or dedicated applications. There are many ways to influence consumer psychology as technology evolves in our fast-paced, ever-changing world. But perhaps the most powerful of all? Experiential marketing. Here, we find a special role for emerging technologies such as augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). How can marketers leverage VR and AR to craft the direct experience of the consumer?
Let’s dive in, starting with current landscape of VR options.
Virtual Reality (VR) and The Apple Vision Pro
As the opening quote stated, the customer shouldn't feel marketed to. Instead, they should enjoy their time, and this is where experiential marketing comes into play. Imagine you are tasked with selling the customer a journey and experience to a beautiful, exotic island. How better to sell it than as an experience? Instead of having a flat screen showing a 2D image of what it should look like, imagine the ability to teleport your customer to this place for a short while, allowing them to look around for themselves in a virtual world representation of what they can experience first-hand.
This is enabled through virtual reality (VR), a technology leveraging specialized hardware such as a headset with two screens and speakers. Therefore, the VR headset allows the user to look around in a digital simulation of the real world or alterations of it to create a special experience in which the user, through certain controllers, can not only see something in 3D in life-like size but also get a feel of it by being able to manipulate the world if the programmed world allows for it.
While the first VR headset was developed as early as 1968 by a student at the University of Utah, the technology hasn’t been adopted in the mainstream market yet. The limiting factor has been that to be worn on users’ heads comfortably and without causing headaches, the technology needs to be miniaturized and properly calibrated. The first turning point was in 2014 when Meta, back then still called Facebook, bought Oculus for $2 billion.
Oculus specialized in creating high-quality VR headsets for use with a personal computer back then. Meta is now offering the Quest as a standalone headset for under $500 compared to the early $1200 headsets in 2014. While other companies, such as Apple, have just released their own headset with the Apple Vision Pro, it is at a much higher price point.
As it is still a novelty for many customers, it can be a unique experience customers won’t forget. With a growing push of companies into VR (Meta and Apple Vision Pro and Quest 3), as both platforms are smaller than smartphones, the chance to get a successful app and linked virality or recognition is much higher compared to the saturated smartphone market. In November 2023, there were over 38,000 new app publications in the Apple app store alone, which equals over 1000 apps per day. If this number is compared with the only 600 apps in total Apple has announced for the Vision Pro, the chance of visibility is much higher.
Experiential Marketing Applications for Augmented Reality (AR)
If VR is too expensive for your company, you could still create an experience by using Augmented Reality (AR). The technology allows overlaying or displaying images and videos over the real world, projecting digital objects into the real world. The biggest known app using AR is the application Pokémon Go, which allows users to capture famous pocket monsters in the real world by projecting them using a smartphone camera.
Additionally, Ikea launched an app that allows users to portray how their products would look in the user's home without the need to buy and return unwanted furniture. Giving the customer time to browse the vast catalog out of the comfort of their own home.
As customers are increasingly exposed to marketing daily, it becomes crucial to stand out. Customers do not only want it from companies; they expect it, as a study by McKinsey showed that 71% of customers expect companies to have a personalized experience for them. Not only that, but personalization helped with 40% higher growth compared to companies that did not use personalization. These experiences provide heightened personalization through curating the consumer’s worldview through AR or VR.
Additionally, the nature of the technology allows you to guide the customer’s attention specifically to what you want them to see. It furthermore allows for tracking, enabling you to gather data to understand your customer better and improve the experience for your customer, like classical analytics, but with technologies such as eye tracking, you can understand what is capturing customers’ attention and keep it. What is working and what isn’t?
For example, Apple is using AR to allow customers to look at products before they are released to get a feel for their look in their own homes. Moreover, they enable users to see how an Apple watch with a desired band looks directly on the user's wrist wherever they are. This helps the company to create a relationship with the product and get a sense of how it would look on them, increasing the likelihood of sales.
Digital marketing aims to create virality, creating the sensation that a video, an image, or a product is spreading through word-of-mouth and social media, getting people to share the product for being new or unique without paying influencers to promote the brand. It does not need to be incredibly popular with everyone, but it can reach the targeted demographic to get new customers and create awareness of your brand’s offering.
Therefore, a novel experiential activation that stands out amongst the other offerings has a higher chance of sparking customers' interest and willingness to tell friends, family, and followers about it, spreading awareness of your offering, and encouraging others to engage with it.
Amazon has created its Phygital, Amazon Go stores with many different sensors and cameras to give customers a cashier-less experience. The customer can walk in, scan their Amazon account in with their phone, grab an item, leave the store, and get automatically billed on that account. While initially criticized for automating jobs, this unique experiential approach has been widely discussed and shared on social media, and provides immense promise for future retail design.
Future Applications for VR, AR, and Emerging Technologies
We’ve just scratched the surface of experiential marketing. Imagine your company is a store where you put on AR glasses linked to your account with your shopping list guiding you through the store in the most efficient way while showing specific target ads such as personalized discounts to drive sales while creating a memorable experience for your customer, which distinguishes your brand from others.
Specialized showcases and other visualized attention grabbers. The more complex the product or experience you offer, the more cost-saving a simulated yet high-quality experience could provide value for you and your customers, increasing engagement and sales. So, what unforgettable experience will you offer your customers using AR or VR to leverage the power of experiential marketing?
Photo by Bram Van Oost via Unsplash
About The Author
Emilio Schmidt has been a technology enthusiast since childhood, fascinated by its potential uses. He began his career in the gaming industry, focusing on serious and educational games and virtual reality projects. His fascination with technology deepened during his studies in Berlin, a passion evident in his student projects. Emilio is driven by a desire to explore new technologies and leverage existing ones. He earned his BBA degree from HULT International Business School in London and is currently pursuing his master's degree in Boston. This allows him to explore his passion for technology within a global context.
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