Total Immersion: Cross Realities to shape omnichannel marketing
The world of virtual and augmented reality has redefined immersive experiences for consumers, making leading brands pause and reflect on their omnichannel engagement with a new lens. Extended reality or Cross reality (which broadly refers to AR, VR, and MR, or Mixed Reality) is no longer confined to the realms of gamers and Gen Z. Accelerated by the pandemic, more and more brands across different industries are turning to augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) to enhance their experience, making cross realities (XR) consumers more common for people of all ages and genders.
Are we moving towards a cross-reality? Definitely. At the end of the day, XR consumers want technology to provide a new experience or dimension, as well as new solutions that make their life easier and problem-solving faster. The stay-at-home focus of 2020 has led brands to experiment with new ways to attract, engage and interact with XR consumers. And meant consumers looked for new ways to recreate physical experiences at home. The results of this cross-over are compelling.
As more brands across diverse industries turn to new tech to enhance the XR customer journey, it’s becoming more accessible and commonplace. This is broadening the profile of the typical XR consumer which has only been accelerated by the pandemic, which forced more people across all generations to take their daily lives online.
This is particularly true of the AR market, given it has much broader applications. AR experiences tend to be more accessible and don’t typically require users to change their behavior. VR on the other hand is currently more confined to the communications and entertainment sectors as users often need to wear goggles or headsets to access it.
How has the pandemic accelerated Cross Reality phenomena?
Before the pandemic, consumers often visited stores to view, touch, and feel products before buying them online. This ability to see and feel a product before purchasing it on a digital platform was paramount. The restrictions in the pandemic meant that live experiences had to become virtual.
In the retail and consumer goods sector, AR experiences help XR consumers to virtually ‘touch and feel’ products without having to venture into stores.
XR consumers are an opportunity for brands
Imagine a future where customers no longer have to click-through pages of static product images. Instead, they can select a product type, then interactively click their way to make purchase decisions. They could even try it on or see what it might look like in their home. Or perhaps you start selling a new, entirely virtual product line in virtual worlds. Given GfK data shows that 22.5% of global consumers plan to buy a standalone VR headset “in the next year or two”, this world is becoming entirely conceivable.
Industry trends reveal that marketers now expect to use AR and VR more in the near future. And as 5G becomes more commonplace, accessing this type of content will be easier.
Another interesting concept is metaverse: a digital twin of our world which will become a much larger platform in the future. Using the metaverse, brands can provide more tailored, personalized, and meaningful experiences, as the nature of the metaverse is uniquely experienced by every individual user in their own digital universe. Bloomberg currently estimates that the metaverse is already worth $800 billion. Much like how the internet and social media platforms changed our world in the early 2000s, the metaverse promises to do the same – and extended reality technology is powering it all.
Unlocking the real potential of XR means making experiences as easy and seamless as possible to XR consumers, so they don’t think they’re doing anything different. Given the evolving consumer landscape, brands must see their customers in three dimensions (3D customers). This means combining insights that tell us what people are doing (quantitative and sales data), why they are doing it (qualitative and attitudinal data), and identifying all the major influences that also impact people’s purchasing decisions (personal values, income, life stage, lifestyle, etc.).
This is just the beginning of AR and VR technology. In the next five years, it carries the potential to change marketing strategies in unprecedented ways. With the blurring of lines between virtual and physical realities, there is a need to address the concerns of XR consumers by increasing awareness, bridging technological skill gaps, attending to issues of data privacy and safety, and creating pricing segments in order to make the technology accessible to all.
About the author:
Nikhil Mathur, Managing Director India & Head Data Partnership & Innovation-APAC, GfK