1000 Apps in September 2017 alone

This is the eleventh of 20 daily ‘thoughts’ examining the trends in marketing in 2018 and beyond.Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, suggests that augmented reality is about to ‘change everything’:“Simply put, we believe augmented reality is going to change the way we use technology forever. We’re already seeing things that will transform the way you work, play, connect and learn.”

In 2017, more than a thousand Apps were released on iOS 11 (the Apple platform) alone.

Wikipedia defines augmented reality (AR) as, ‘an interactive experience of a real-world environment whereby the objects that reside in the real-world are “augmented” by computer-generated perceptual information, sometimes across multiple sensory modalities, including visual, auditory, haptic, somatosensory, and olfactory.’

Whether augmented reality involves ‘augmenting’ or ‘changing’ reality is open to debate, but there is little doubt that the use of AR in marketing and communication has been significant and will continue to increase in the months and years ahead.

So, what is the value of AR and why is it growing in popularity? Wikipedia suggests, ‘the primary value of augmented reality is that it brings components of the digital world into a person’s perception of the real world, and does so not as a simple display of data, but through the integration of immersive sensations that are perceived as natural parts of an environment’.

In essence, AR creates what we can only otherwise imagine. It changes reality in a way that augments our imagination. To date, applications of augmented reality have included:

Augmented reality can cost-effectively:

There are many augmented reality tools on the market today. These include:

INSIGHT

Keep an open mind and stay abreast of the range of new technologies available to marketers. Have a look at the growing number of AR tools and the growing trend towards using AR to enhance content in advertising.AR tools are readily available online, many of them on mobile devices. The costs involved are lower thank you might think.

AR can change content in a way that enables your target audience to better apply their creative capabilities and imagine what might be.

SOURCES OF CORE DATA

Smart Insights, The Drum, Social Media Week, CSR matters, Louder Milk, Forbes, Quicksprout, Wider Funnel, Trends and Insights, Core DNA, Digital Current