Augmented reality (AR) is a bustling new landscape for audience engagement and a majority of users actually enjoy advertising on the platform. According to SuperData’s new mobile augmented reality (AR) report, brands can no longer ignore this demographic, but not all AR users are the same.
SuperData estimates the AR market to be over one billion users. These figures were calculated using information from proprietary data sharing partnerships, consumer studies, web and search analytics, publicly announced revenue and sales figures and information from trusted industry sources, SuperData explained.
Two in three AR users view augmented reality ads at least once per month, the report suggests, and 74 percent of those that see ads share them with their social media followers. It should come as no surprise, then that the most popular type of AR mobile app is social media at 84 percent, with companies like Snapchat and Instagram’s wide array of filters and camera effects.
When it comes to AR advertising, most users in SuperData’s study consider the format a good thing, perhaps because of the novelty—56 percent of users see them as a creative use of technology.
That’s good news for Shazam, which launched its AR marketing tools last March. Since then, the tech has been used to promote a number of brands from whisky brand Glenlivet and grocery chain Asda to Michael Jackon’s album “Scream” and Netflix’s Stranger Things.
Ecommerce brands like Amazon and furniture retailer Wayfair are also engaging users with AR formats. The standard Wayfair app lets users apply “stickers” to their spaces—2D silhouettes of furniture items that users can zoom in and out on to imagine how they’d fit into their spaces.
According to SuperData, the largest AR demographic is women between the ages of 18 and 34. To reach this segment, the study recommends using AR social features. In-game advertising, on the other hand, would likely be more effective for reaching men of the same age.
Digi-Capital forecasts that AR (mobile AR, smartglasses) could approach three and a half billion installed base and $85 billion to $90 billion revenue within five years. Consumers spent $3.4 billion last year on augmented, mixed and virtual reality in 2017, according to SuperData.
