Table of Contents for Marketing with Augmented Reality (AR): Examples & Guide
- What is augmented reality, explained simply?
- How does augmented reality work?
- Danthree Studio: Enhance your digital marketing with our augmented reality animations
- Benefits of Augmented Reality in Product Marketing
- What is the difference between augmented reality and virtual reality?
- What is mixed reality?
- Can you retrofit augmented reality for your online store?
- Do I need a separate app for augmented reality?
- Examples of AR Apps
- FAQ
What is augmented reality, explained simply?
Augmented Reality (AR) is a modern technology that integrates digital information and objects into the real-world environment. By superimposing images, animations, or 3D models onto images or videos of the real world, an augmented reality is created. This can be used for entertainment or to illustrate products and processes.
How does augmented reality work?
In augmented reality experiences, digital content—such as images, animations, or 3D models (for example, USDZ3D model files on Apple devices)—is projected onto the real world in real time.
This technology uses specialized software and sensors to track the user's position and perspective in the real world. This creates an interactive and immersive experience (augmented reality) that bridges the physical and digital worlds.
Danthree Studio: Enhance your digital marketing with our augmented reality animations
Our 3D Rendering Studio Danthree Studio creates Augmented Reality animations and 3D services for the furniture, home & living industry.
With our custom-made visualizations and animations, you can easily integrate AR into your online store and take your digital marketing to the next level. Our AR models allow customers to experience products in augmented reality before they buy them. As a result, you’ll see an increase in sales and be able to boost customer satisfaction.
If you'd like to incorporate augmented reality models into your marketing, please feel free to contact us. Request a no-obligation quote.
Benefits of Augmented Reality in Product Marketing
Augmented reality marketing offers numerous benefits for online stores and brands, including:
- Expanding the Product Offering: AR opens up new possibilities for product development and presentation. Companies can showcase their products in innovative ways and create virtual showrooms.
- Increasing brand awareness: Augmented reality marketing evokes emotions, inspires potential buyers, and, above all, sticks in their memory. Viewers are more likely to remember interactive animations than boring product visuals. Thus, you can also increase your brand awareness with the help of AR and CGI.
- Fewer Returns: Satisfied customers, of course, rarely return products. So you can also use AR to lower your return rate.
- Increased Customer Satisfaction: In the furniture, home, and living industry, the use of AR in marketing is particularly effective. This technology allows customers to see, even before making a purchase, how a piece of furniture, an interior design element, or a home decor item will look in their own living space. This ensures that customers already know what to look forward to and are truly satisfied with the products they ultimately purchase.
What is the difference between augmented reality and virtual reality?
The main difference between augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) is that AR enhances the real world, while VR creates an entirely new world.
Example:For example, when youwear VR glasses, you see an environment that has nothing to do with the real world—it’s completely virtual. There are also AR glasses. However, when you look through AR glasses, you see a product superimposed onto the real environment you’re looking at. So you see part of the real world and part of virtual objects.
What is mixed reality?
Mixed Reality (MR) is also referred to as hybrid reality, as it is a combination of the real and virtual worlds in which real and digital objects are displayed together in real time. Mixed Reality is often equated with Augmented Reality. However, there is a subtle difference: In augmented reality, it is always clear to the user what is real and what is virtual. In mixed reality, however, the overlay can blend with the real world.
Can you retrofit augmented reality for your online store?
Yes, you can retrofit Augmented Reality for an existing online shop. You can contact a CGI studio like Danthree Studio to have high-quality Augmented Reality renderings created for your online shop.
You can replace or expand your regular product visuals with AR product displays, virtual showrooms or interactive 3D product configurators.
Online shops with 3D features like Augmented Reality animations often attract more attention and generate more sales than online shops that only advertise with regular product visuals.
By the way:You can also create augmented reality ads (i.e., ads with AR) to enhance your marketing.
Digital Marketing with Augmented Reality in the Home & Living Sector
Do I need a separate app for augmented reality marketing?
Augmented reality can be experienced in various ways. There are so-called AR glasses and AR headsets—such as the Oculus Quest, Microsoft HoloLens, or Magic Leap One—that project digital content directly into the user’s field of view. By the way, we’ve also written a separate article about the Apple Vision Pro AR glasses.
Alternatively, you can also display the virtual objects in the camera app on your smartphone or tablet. To do this, you can use apps or QR codes, for example.
For large companies with repeat customers, it could definitely be worth developing a mobile marketing app that uses AR. Take the IKEA app, for example, which lets customers view digital furniture pieces through their smartphone camera.
However, developing a new app is, of course, both costly and time-consuming. In addition, customers who only shop at a store occasionally may not want to download a separate app for that store. In this situation, it may be more user-friendly to integrate the AR feature directly into the e-commerce platform.
At Danthree Studio, we provide our augmented reality features in the form of a QR code, so customers simply need to scan the code with their smartphone to access the feature. For brands or manufacturers who want to share their own AR models, we offer our free AR QR code generator —a tool that’s ready to use right away.
Examples of AR Apps
1. IKEA Creative App
Many companies are developing apps that allow customers to visualize their products in augmented reality. AR apps are perfect for furniture manufacturers, as they let customers “try out” the furniture in their own homes. A great example of marketing with augmented reality is the IKEA Kreativ app (or the older version, the IKEA Place app).
2. Pokémon GO
Video games, such as the mobile game Pokémon GO, also use augmented reality to provide users with an entertaining gaming experience. Pokémon GO is an AR-based game, and the entire game—in which you have to search for virtual Pokémon in the real world—wouldn't be possible at all without augmented reality.
3. Google Maps Live View
Google Maps and other navigation apps alsouse AR technology to overlay navigation instructions or information about points of interest directly onto the real-world environment. On Google Maps, this is also called Live View.
4. L’Oréal’s Virtual Makeup Try-On AR App
The popular brand L’Oréal Paris has revolutionized the beauty industry with its Virtual Make-Up Try-On app. Your smartphone camera recognizes your face and applies the makeup virtually, so you know exactly what looks good on you. Augmented reality is a huge help, especially when it comes to makeup, where it’s not uncommon to have dozens of different shades for a single product.
5. Snapchat:
In addition, many social media apps also use augmented reality. On Snapchat, you can use digital filters or add virtual objects to a real photo or video. The same is now true for numerous other social media apps, such as Facebook and Instagram.
6. ASOS See My Fit App
ASOSis one of the world’s leading fashion retailers and is also at the forefront of augmented reality. With the augmented reality app See My Fit (fit assistant), users can view outfits on different models in various sizes. Similar apps have already been developed by Nike, Adidas, Topshop, and other major fashion brands—proof that CGI has a place in the fashion industry, too!
In addition, augmented reality is also used in many other fields—including construction, architecture, product development, and even healthcare.
Augmented Reality Bathroom Visualization
Conclusion: Incorporate augmented reality into your marketing and stay one step ahead of the competition!
Augmented reality has become an indispensable part of visual marketing using CGI. With this technology, you can present your products not only in a realistic way, but also in an entertaining one. Customers also get a clear idea of what the product will actually look like.
This is a clear advantage, especially in the home and living industry. It’s no coincidence that even IKEA has launched an app that allows customers to view virtual pieces of furniture in their own homes. When it comes to furniture and interior design in particular, it’s important to customers that the products fit into their environment and complement their other furniture well.
The result? More sales, higher customer satisfaction, and fewer returns.
But how do you do it? It's simple: Our CGI studio Danthree Studio can create digital product animations for your furniture, home & living company and visualize furniture, decorative objects and even entire interiors or exterior scenes for you in 3D.
