How Augmented Reality is Revolutionizing Product Packaging
Packaging covers or accommodates a product and helps to market and differentiate it. But the role of packaging is changing because it incorporates latest technologies that make it interactive and dynamic. One of those technologies is augmented reality (AR). According to Jenny Stanley, managing director at Appetite Creative, AR may be used as a dynamic marketing platform to reinforce the shopper experience and supply latest entry points for communicating with customers.
What is Augmented Reality?
In AR, the user experiences enhancements to the physical world around them. AR technology delivers these enhancements with computer-generated input. Essentially, it represents a gathering point for the digital and physical world. The key to AR is responsiveness, allowing users to interact with digital technology that responds to their actions, superimposing audio, video, and graphics onto the world as they see it.
Types of AR Triggers for Product Packaging
There are three kinds of AR triggers that may be applied to product packaging:
- Marker-based AR, also generally known as recognition-based or image recognition technology, which requires a selected marker to trigger the augmentation.
- Markerless AR, which relies on smartphone features but offers the user more control, allowing them to put the content where they select.
- Location-based AR, which ties augmentation to a selected place by reading a tool’s data from its camera, GPS, digital compass, or accelerometer.
Benefits of AR for Product Packaging
AR offers major benefits for brands when applying it to product packaging, including:
- Enhancing the shopper experience
- Providing latest entry points for communicating with customers
- Improving brand loyalty
- Creating a competitive advantage
For many consumers, the packaging is the primary touchpoint of a product, and AR can enhance this critical a part of the shopper experience. It also provides ready channels for communicating key messages and may be used to have interaction with customers and encourage responses, improving brand loyalty.
Strategic Use of AR
Packaging can drive sales, and using AR in long-term campaigns can construct latest dialogues with customers and construct loyalty programs. Examples include codes on the packaging that give customers access to exclusive content, equivalent to games and competitions. AR on packaging may help goal users with relevant messages, cross-selling other products or encouraging them to enroll in regular marketing communications.
Additionally, AR in packaging can drive increased product consumption by providing access to tutorial content, equivalent to makeup tutorials, and encourage overall consumption of the brand’s product range. AR will also be used for lead generation, collecting relevant data and providing a direct connection between the buyer and digital data-gathering.
Expanding the Marketing Canvas
Augmentation expands the marketing canvas beyond the physical packaging of the product, allowing designers and marketing strategists to plot a complete range of additional content that’s still connected to the product packaging but takes the buyer beyond it. AR may be added to food ingredient packaging, for instance, and provides consumers immediate access to videos exploring and explaining recipe ideas.
AR also means brands can maintain or update the relevancy of their packaging without requiring a physical redesign or reprint of the fabric, helping to future-proof product packaging.
Conclusion
In conclusion, AR is a strong technology that may revolutionize product packaging by enhancing the shopper experience, providing latest entry points for communication, and improving brand loyalty. By strategically using AR, brands can drive sales, increase product consumption, and generate leads. As the technology continues to evolve, it’s likely that we’ll see much more revolutionary applications of AR in product packaging, further changing the way in which we interact with the products we buy.
