AR apps often have a ‘wow factor’ that can keep users entertained for hours – but this excitement is often short-lived and doesn't lead to action. Canvas8 spoke to marketing professor Dr. Chris Hinsch to learn how a nostalgic touch can inspire people to act upon their experiences with this tech.
Scope
In a bid to inspire children to make the world a better place, Nestlé Milkybar launched an AR-activated ‘promise’ campaign across India in January 2021. Selected packs of the brand’s chocolate bars will feature certain acts of goodwill (e.g. recycle more, plant trees, or learn more), with children able to scan the pack using their parents’ mobile phone and watch those values come to life. The campaign is just one example of how AR is gaining ground among both brands and consumers, with the overall augmented reality market set to be worth more than $140 billion by 2025, while estimates suggest that spending on AR advertising will surpass $8 billion by 2024.
As the technology becomes increasingly advanced, AR is embedding itself into people’s day-to-day lives – whether that’s in marketing campaigns or within new products. At CES 2021, for instance, Panasonic Automotive unveiled its innovative 4K AR HUD solution – a system that projects visuals on to the driver’s line of sight to reduce distractions and increase safety while driving. “COVID-19, social isolation, the lack of travel, and the lack of being able to get in big groups has skyrocketed the importance of these technologies,” explains Dr. Chris Hinsch, a co-author of ‘Nostalgia beats the wow effect: Inspiration, awe, and meaningful associations in augmented reality marketing’. Yet while people largely view AR as a tool for entertainment, he notes that “what marketers really care about is the action – about changing people’s attitudes, behaviours, or relationship with a brand.”
Although awareness and adoption of AR is growing, brands still face barriers in implementing the technology within their campaigns. Research has found that 26% of US and UK creatives who’ve not used AR in ads are concerned about the ‘perceived consumer fear to try new things’, while one in five are unsure of how it can be fit into their campaigns. However, considering that 78% of ad creatives have a positive opinion about using AR in advertising, the future success of this technology may lie in how brands and marketers overcome financial and technical barriers and demonstrate their ability to create relevant and useful tools for consumers. Canvas8 spoke to Dr. Hinsch to understand how interactions with AR can evolve from simply inspiring awe in users to encouraging them to take action with a brand.
Why is this topic important to understand?
I see augmented reality as an extension of social media. In many ways, the technology is doing very similar things to social media, but from a psychological and manipulation perspective, it has fewer negative elements. As the technology gets more advanced, it’s going to feel more and more ‘real’ to people, so for marketers and brands, it’s going to become an increasingly important area of investigation if they want to understand how people actually engage with it.
There’s already research in this space that looks at this idea of inspiration in augmented reality and how AR can inspire positive brand behaviours. When we talk about ‘inspiration’ here, we’re referring to an emotional element that’s almost like an internal motivation. It’s a feeling that moves you. But we know that inspiration isn’t just one construct – it’s far more complex. It can be broken down into two key parts: a feeling of being ‘inspired by’ and a feeling of being ‘inspired to’. In order for people to take action with a brand, they need to be ‘inspired to’ – that’s a higher level of inspiration. And this is where we saw AR as a good platform to explore that feeling. Specifically, what we were trying to uncover was what processes led that internal inspiration,being inspired by an external action.
How did you go about conducting your research?
We hypothesised that two factors mediate this feeling of being ‘inspired to’, where people actually purchase a product or become a brand ambassador, for instance. Those two factors are what we call the ‘wow effect’ – or what others call awe – and the second is a nostalgia component. If we look at a lot of the AR apps out there at the moment, they recycle or rehabilitate dead or dormant brands. Pokémon Go is a prime example.
The research was conducted in malls, where we simply asked people to spare ten minutes in exchange for taking part in the experiment, along with a small incentive. We had people answer a battery of questions around baseline demographics and trait-level and state-level measures to get an understanding of their attitudes before starting the experiment. We then used the Lego Playgrounds app and had them engage with physical Lego while the app superimposed animations on top of their creations. We had them play with that for five minutes or so and then had them answer the same questions as before so that we could compare state- and trait-level attitudes. Some of the statements they were questioned about included ‘this app inspired me in some way’, ‘this app stimulated my thinking’, and ‘this app gave me new ideas and views’.
What were your key findings?
We know that inspiration is a big reason why people are engaging with these technologies. They want to be inspired and to think outside of their day-to-day mental schemas that define how the world works. A big part of AR is virtual, but it's also real, which means that people can become inspired in ways that they aren't used to. But when we break inspiration down into the psychological versus the behavioural aspects, we find that the ‘wow effect’ doesn’t really translate much of that psychological inspiration into behaviour. It made people feel good and excited, but this sense of awe isn’t the driving force to get people to act. Instead, nostalgia was much more influential in linking those feelings of inspiration into action – whether that’s influencing word-of-mouth or actual purchasing behaviour.
Perhaps a limitation of our research was that Lego is a legacy brand. These feelings of nostalgia are strong – Pokémon Go also illustrates that. So, are we going to find strong effects with perhaps less-loved brands? I think that’s interesting because there are all kinds of brands laying dormant after a surge in popularity decades ago, but we see that AR might offer an opportunity to resuscitate some of them and make them valuable again.
Insights and opportunities
Unlock educational role of AR to change mindsets
AR isn’t just useful in marketing. It can also be a powerful tool for educators or parents to adopt when supporting their children’s learning. A study from VTech found that 85% of parents of kids aged 3-12 are impressed by the speed at which children pick up new tech, while the changes enforced by the COVID-19 pandemic mean that emerging technologies (such as AI, AR, and VR) may be the future of education. In this space, National Geographic launched an immersive dinosaur AR filter for Instagram that visualised scientific discoveries, like the revelation that the spinosaurus was a marine creature. The feature not only entertained children while their parents might be otherwise occupied, but it also educated them.
Nostalgia will drive adoption
The pandemic has driven people to seek out sentimentality to alleviate stress, as highlighted by the fact that 44% of Britons surveyed in April 2020 said that looking back to the past had made them feel happy over the previous two weeks. It’s partly why Pokémon GO! saw a resurgence in 2020, with the game amassing $1.92 billion in revenue over the year – an annual record. Similarly, Wallace and Gromit announced a reboot with the launch of its AR storytelling app, where players act as employees of the character’s business and are tasked to fix up the city of Bristol. Dr. Hinsch suggests that there's an opportunity for brands to resurrect cultural favourites with a modern twist using AR.
AR can deepen connections to both brands and products
According to research published in the Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, AR is a powerful driver of purchasing behaviour. The study found that shoppers have more positive associations to possible purchases when using AR technology within the shopping experience. Similarly, Shopify has found that products accompanied by 3D/AR content have a 94% higher conversion rate than products that are not accompanied by digital enhancement. The Aglet app is one example of how the tech can upgrade e-commerce journeys. Within three weeks of launching, the Pokémon Go-style shopping app for sneakerheads gained 30,000-plus players, which Dr. Hinsch believes might be down to the AR activation drawing consumers’ intrigue. By gamifying the real world and integrating a shopping element, Aglet has shown how emerging technologies can facilitate stronger connections between consumers and products/brands
