Augmented reality: Designing immersive experiences that maximize consumer engagement

Innovative marketers can now leverage augmented reality to craft immersive brand experiences, create more interactive advertising, and enable consumers to experience products and spaces in novel ways. Augmented reality (AR) is the practice of displaying digital information over people's real-time view of objects, people, or spaces in the physical world. While AR can play a valuable role in integrated marketing programs, little is known about the practice and how to execute effective AR programs in the marketplace. We address this gap by presenting a framework that describes the active and passive ingredients of augmented reality. We then describe the basic design decisions that marketers need to make when planning an augmented reality campaign. In addition, we explain how understanding and addressing the dynamics between various active and passive AR ingredients can help marketers to optimize their AR campaigns and enhance various types of consumer engagement: user-brand engagement, user-user engagement, and user-bystander engagement. Through our framework and analysis, we develop eight actionable recommendations—described with the acronym ENTANGLE—marketing managers can use to design immersive AR experiences that maximize consumer engagement.