It is becoming ever certain that our future will be a virtual one as AI and more particularly VR (virtual reality) rise in use commercially. We are now in the virtual age and reality will never be the same again.
Gone are the days when we had to hear a description of something by word of mouth to experience it or imagine how it would be to experience it. We no longer even need to read about a product, for example, to imagine it, or better still see a sharp, high resolution fully HD photo or video clip. Now we can put on our VR goggles and live it, there and then, without leaving the comfort of our couch at home.
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VR has brought us into contact with consumer products in a revolutionary new and close-up way, while paradoxically still at a distance. Companies are now advertising their products to potential consumers by placing the product at their fingertips, or more precisely at their retinas via their smart phones.
For example say you want to check out a new product that you find interesting, like a car. Well now you can simply put on your VR goggles that hold your phone and plug in to the world of augmented reality and actually see the view of the car in question from the driver’s seat. You can look around and see the interior fittings, the console, the dashboard and the view from the front windscreen first-hand. From the comfort of your couch you can observe the world of your chosen product as if you were there already.
This is the power of VR today, and marketers are capitalising on the facility to advertise and showcase their products and services in real time, dissolving distances between consumer and product way more than online shopping ever could before.
Many of us may have experienced this kind of artificial reality (AR) before, possibly without even realizing it at the time. Professional sports like tennis and football use AR technology to track the ball and determine exact measurements and thereby referee the game more accurately. Going back as far as 1968 we can see the origins of AR prototypes in computer-rendered drawings.
And in 2008 BMW Mini was marketed via print using a form of AR that allowed the viewer to see different angles of the digital car.
More recently the Timberland brand of clothing used AR to enable shoppers to enter a virtual fitting room and try on their clothing products to experience virtually what they might look like on them in real life. The imagination boggles as the boundaries of illusion and reality blur, all the while requiring us to question just what is reality today. You can just see in your mind’s eye where the gaming and entertainment industry will take this.
Home Depot are another company that have in fact saved money on advertising by developing an App that lets you see paint colors as they might look on the walls of your own home in your unique lighting. Snapchat is another platform that allows users to take a photo and overlay it with an AR filter to make your portraits and selfies appear like animal masks. Then there’s the concept of geotagging, as well as the old favorite of millions – Pokemon Go – also using AR already.
Overall it appears that companies adopting AR for marketing or actually incorporating it into their product are all making the big strides forward today and will be leaping ahead into the future ahead of the pack. Customers immediately feel more of an emotional connection to the product or service. Traditionally a classic marketing technique is to get the potential customer to touch or handle the product as that subtly creates a sense of bonding or ownership with the product already and often leads one to purchase it.
Now AR allows you to be even more fully immersed in it.
Companies can save money previously used on paper advertising, and sales have already shown an increase with the use of AR, which itself uses machine learning to improve its own marketing tactics.
Will there even be any paper books or magazines in the future? Probably not at this rate. AR is replacing them.
Another use of the AR facility is emerging in the simple task of grocery shopping, where you can stroll down the aisle of an actual supermarket and use your AR headset or just your smart phone to scan and look at products on the shelves. Immediately you will be able to programme your scanner to just highlight products that suit your current diet and ignore others.
You no longer need to even pick up the product to inspect its labels as your AR goggles or App does it all for you.
Similarly tourist marketing companies allow you to get a 360 degree view of a potential hotel room, with the view outside so that you can try-before-you-buy. And by scanning QR codes you are directed to a website where you could virtually experience a beach resort from the comfort of your phone, or get the feel of a rental car, or see the food on offer at a restaurant.
All we need now to take it to the next level of AR is to be able to have a little taste or smell of the food too, but that may be a century away or perhaps only a decade at this rate, nobody knows for sure. Nevertheless, if we have come this far already, imagine what the future of VR has in store for us.
This is just the beginning or a whole new virtual world, where normal no longer exists and reality is what you virtually want it to be.
AR is revolutionary, taking the technological power, it reminds me of how blockchain is also changing the way we socialize.
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It truly is! Next couple of years will be very exciting seeing how AR develops and takes over.
This makes us human more lazy than ever before. But it also make our living more comfortable and cheaper. Just imagine,you can travel the world but not leaving your home. Just put the VR on and your good to go
Yep, it is a double-edged sword. We will have to learn how to get most benefits without sacrificing much of our well-being.
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