Augmented Reality changing the Consumer Experience
Augmented Reality (AR) refers to a technology that enables you to experience a real-life situation with computer-generated digital visuals. It provides a good user experience by making them imagine what’s not there through these visuals.
Augmented Reality is changing the way we look at the world and things around us. It creates a unique experience in our environment with creative visuals, texts, sounds, graphics to give an appealing real-life experience.
Augmented Reality is sometimes confused with Virtual Reality (VR). However, there exists a slight difference between the two.
Virtual Reality refers to an imaginary environment that is created through computer-generated tools, which allow the users to immerse themselves in the experience and interact with it entirely. For VR, users are often taken to an isolated environment and provided with headgears that they can sink into. VR can be popularly seen, making a significant change in the gaming industry with headgears that lets you control your virtual environment.
On the other hand, in Augmented Reality, users get to experience objects and visuals that are added digitally over the real environment that exists. It allows users to customize and enhance their on-going experience with multiple features. Don't use plagiarised sources.Get your custom essay just from $11/page
An example of AR is the popular game Pokémon Go which captured a lot of attention in the past few years. One hundred million users were enjoying the game and catching the characters in their own environment.
Applications like Snapchat and Instagram are changing the way users look at their environment with the help of AR. It creates lenses that can be used by users to design unique, creative images, and videos. These are known to build excitement and keep the users engaged.
A recent incident that created a lot of engagement during Diwali was a unique festive campaign launched by Snapchat in collaboration with the major mobile phone company One Plus. It made use of Augmented Reality to create lenses and filters of popular areas and light them up for a beautiful visual experience. The objective of the campaign was to deliver a unique experience to people away from home during the festival of lights. Users could experience the lit-up visuals of four popular places all over the world during Diwali. The sites covered in the campaign were the Taj Mahal, Gateway of India, London Bridge, and Eiffel tower.
The response came in massive numbers with Indians all over the world sharing their pictures and videos in these destinations that gave a sense of being close to home during the festive season.
How is Augmented Reality changing the shopping experience?
Augmented Reality has brought a shift in the way shopping is done now. It was earlier challenging to shop for a few things as there was no clarity on how certain products will look and feel in real life. However, with progress in the field of AR, this has now become a reality.
Shoppers can not only get a 360 view of the products they’re planning to buy online, but they can also try it out virtually, which helps in decision making and has proved to increase the sales by around 71%.
Ikea Place helps its shoppers pick the right furniture for their homes with distinctive features of AR. It creates visuals of the furniture and showcases how it would look in their homes. This helps clear the hesitation and helps to make the right decision without physically visiting the shop. For products like furniture, it becomes incredibly beneficial since it is a commodity not easily bought online.
Some brands even let its users pick outfits as per their wish and customize the experience virtually to help them understand the real look. It allows you to choose your favorite colors, styles, designs, and accessories and gives you an end look that enables you to compare. This is a feature that is expected to be widely popular in the retail industry as a virtual dressing room.
Augmented Reality is greatly used in the beauty industry with brands like L’Oréal and Sephora that lets the user try out various makeup by recognizing the face and showing the results. This has proved to be effective as it helps the users understand the close to Reality of the products or even share it on social media.
Another famous example of AR that can be cited is real-time social media interaction that went wildly viral. The campaign showcased a hanger that collects likes from social media contacts. The shoppers, while shopping, can log into the app and place it in front of a product, to view the number of likes on it and which of their friends like the product. It proved to have a great impact on influencing customers to buy the most popular products and stay trendy.
The scope of AR is vast and exciting and is fast changing the industry by selling not just products but a pleasant experience. The coming years are going to see the presence of AR in a larger number and every sector.