#SMLive: Adhvith Dhuddu decodes AR's importance in the Marketing Funnel

As technology progresses to fuel the ways AR can be used for marketing, Adhvith Dhuddu puts forth ideas for brands to make the most of it.

Trying on a product before making a purchase is one of the most essential experiences of the buying experience. With COVID-19 shaking up the Marketing Funnel for brands, the importance of Augmented Reality (AR) is bound to grow. To understand the various use-case scenarios of AR, Adhvith Dhuddu, Founder & CEO, AliveNow took the audiences of #SMLive through the various stages of the process and how AR fits in, to help enhance purchase intent of the consumers.

Creating desire

The Marketing Funnel begins at the Awareness and Interest stages where the consumer gets to understand the product and get familiarised with the brand. Using AR games and quizzes, OTT and gaming platform brands can engage potential consumers.

If an OTT brand were to ignite interest in their latest franchise movie offering, they could create a quiz around the characters featured in the titles before, giving consumers a chance to find which they resemble most. It is very likely that fans would get together into sharing such content.

Product evaluation

The next steps are Consideration, Intent and Evaluation. This is where AR can be used by brands in the retail, e-commerce, auto and FMCG sectors can use AR to create product try-on, exploration and education experiences for potential consumers.

For a brand that sells eyewear products, lenses can be used to recreate the look a consumer could get if they were to buy and use the product. Same could go for hats. An AR experience could also be created for a brand selling cereal where food grains are falling from the top of the screen to the bottom end and the users have to gulp down as many as they can with their mouth.

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Driving purchase

The Evaluation (overlap with the earlier bunching of stages) and Purchase stages are where Facebook AR Ads and Snap Lens Ads can be used to create specific AR Ad products to drive purchase. According to the data points mentioned by Adhvith Dhuddu in his presentation, AR-enabled product visualisation results in 60-100% increase in purchase intent.

"When it comes to AR, people are looking at an experience that's immersive, top quality and engaging," he says adding that it is important for brands to invest in 3D designs and understand that AR is Augmented Reality and not something that is close to Actual Reality. Though technological advancements may help better experiences over time, this is likely to stay true for a long time to come.

Pros and cons

Two spaces where AR is currently being used are Education and Human Resources. Augmented Reality experiences can help brands create immersive teaching and learning experiences. For HR, it can help new recruits better familiarise with their new office than with a simple brochure as well as amp up training sessions.

Duddu feels edtech and fintech sectors can make the most of AR in creating immersive and engaging experiences to nudge consumers into downloading applications to learn or make a purchase. The most shortcoming of AR at the moment is that there is sufficient technological setup available to successfully make use of full-body tracking. This is something that is often disappointing to know for fashion brands, he says.