Effective advertising has always been crucial to business growth. The right strategies not only enhance awareness and recognition of a company’s products and services, they also ensure organizations can build powerful relationships with their target audience.
However, in recent years, as the buyer journey has grown more digitized, many companies have struggled to achieve the right emotional impact with their promotional campaigns. In a competitive landscape, business leaders need to think outside of the box to ensure they’re effectively cultivating engagement and loyalty. Fortunately, extended reality can help.
Giving companies a unique opportunity to immerse their customers in powerful, branded experiences, XR can help to enhance lead generation, increase conversions, and ensure retention. Here are just some of the companies focusing on bringing XR to the advertising space.
GrooveJones
A professional marketing services agency, GrooveJones concentrates on developing AR, VR, and web applications for promotional purposes and sales enablement. The company works with leading companies around the world to develop unique experiences for customers in the metaverse. With GrooveJones, teams can build branded apps and events, as well as digital pop-up experiences.
The company uses a combination of award-winning technology provided by leading XR market vendors and marketing expertise to produce unique interactions for brands. Companies can even work with GrooveJones to build sandbox experiences for metaverse environments. The company’s services cover everything from mobile AR app development to VR content creation.
Check out Groove Jones’s portfolio of work – https://www.groovejones.com/work_vr_ar_ai_experiential
Meta
Long before Meta began increasing its focus on extended reality and the metaverse, it was already offering companies a targeted way to reach audiences through social media campaigns. Today, the company has expanded its portfolio of advertising options to provide organizations with new ways of building immersive, community-driven experiences.
With the Meta Ads Manager, companies can build augmented reality effects into their promotional campaigns to engage and convert their target audience. Businesses can allow consumers to virtually test out products or experiment with concepts through a smartphone or desktop. Meta even has its own Spark Partner Network, where organizations can find developers capable of producing unique augmented reality effects and filters.
Another company with years of experience in the advertising landscape, Google is no stranger to providing organizations with unique tools and services to help them reach their target audience. With Google AR and VR technologies, companies can create immersive experiences designed to rapidly convert customers and enhance brand loyalty.
The ARCore solution from Google supports developers in creating simple but effective AR applications, which customers can download from the Google Play store and access on any Android device. Googles solutions allow developers to quickly optimize their augmented reality experiences for android devices, with a convenient Software Development Kit (SDK).
Unity
Software company, Unity, provides developers and innovators in the creative world with tools capable of building a wide variety of different ads and marketing campaigns. Within the Unity ecosystem, organizations can find solutions for XR development, RT3D design and more. The Unity Ads platform is the specially-created solution built for the advertising industry.
With this technology, advertising teams can create XR-enhanced applications and tools for customers to access in both the desktop and mobile landscapes. Companies can also take advantage of real-time and historical analytics from all of their campaigns. Plus, the Unity toolkit allows organizations to build more comprehensive virtual reality and mixed reality experiences too.
Apple
Similar to Google, Apple has its own dedicated selection of tools and resources created to help developers take advantage of Apple devices for marketing purposes. The ARKit solution produced by Apple includes a Reality Composer where teams can work together to create augmented experiences for consumers using iPhones, Apple tablets, and other devices. Apple’s RealityKit gives teams comprehensive control over the AR experiences they create, with APIs for custom rendering, metal shaders, and post-processing. There’s also an Object Capture API available, which supports brands in creating unique 3D objects for their promotional campaigns. Companies can also access extensive tools, design resources, and documentation from Apple.
Varjo
Producing a variety of headsets for augmented, mixed, and virtual reality, Varjo focuses on developing tools to help transform user experiences in a range of industries. The company offers both cloud-based software for organizations looking to make the most of streaming opportunities on the edge when utilizing immersive experiences and hardware custom-made for businesses.
With Varjo headsets, and the Varjo Reality Cloud, companies can built Unity and Unreal applications, designed to showcase products and services in immersive environments. Numerous companies have already worked with Varjo to create compelling promotional campaigns for their target audience, and the brand also offers end-to-end support and guidance to teams around the world.
VIVE
With a variety of headset options to choose from in mixed, augmented, and virtual reality, VIVE produces tools for enterprises, specialist companies, and marketing agencies alike. The company not only produces hardware, but also has its own “Viverse” metaverse solution, where marketing companies can create unique exhibitions and virtual experiences.
The Viverse includes access to a customizable world platform for companies marketing in the metaverse, as well as an open-platform avatar creator. There’s also a marketplace full of digital artifacts and art created by brands where people can buy, sell, or trade assets. Companies can even produce their own branded NFTs to sell on the marketplace.
Microsoft
Focusing on the areas of search engine marketing, multi-channel promotion, and smart customer journeys, Microsoft offers a range of tools to marketing professionals. The Microsoft Advertising toolkit allows organizations to produce and publish ads for the Bing search engine, measure the performance of campaigns, and experiment with different styles of media.
With the Microsoft Mesh environment, companies interested in leveraging the metaverse and mixed reality for promotional experiences can produce their own immersive virtual assets. Microsoft even offers the Mixed Reality Capture Studios team to assist organizations in developing holographic visuals, performances, and campaigns suitable to access via the Microsoft HoloLens headset.
Original article appeared on XR Today April 26, 2023 – https://www.xrtoday.com/mixed-reality/top-xr-providers-for-advertising-in-2023
