Augmented Reality Can Bring ‘Incredible Joy’ to Advertising 

Facebook wants its advertisers to lean into the augmented reality craze.

Following the roll out of a suite of interactive ads this past September, the social giant announced today the integration of its augmented reality engine, Spark AR, into its ad manager. With this capability, advertisers worldwide can now create an AR effect within the free-to-use engine, integrate it into an ad campaign, and target their creation with the ease that comes with any other Facebook ad format.

“At the end of the day, what we’re talking about is taking something that up until this point had been based on verbal language: You’re on your phone, you’re reading, and you’re writing,” explained Nada Stirratt, the company’s VP of global marketing solutions.

But recently, Facebook has been steady-stepping into a “more visual experience,” she continued. “What we’re doing now is that we’re figuring out—and helping our marketers figure out—how to tap into that experience.”

Augmented reality might sound more sci-fi than sell-able, but adoption has been steadily ticking up among consumers worldwide thanks to platforms like Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok that offer easy-to-use AR filters. An eMarketer survey from this past March counted more than 68 million people coming into contact with AR content at least once monthly. In 2020, this number is expected to spike to more than 77 million, and in 2021, it’s expected to top out at 85 million.

How augmented reality can work for brands

Though Spark AR has been available across Facebook and Instagram since late 2018, Facebook has only allowed a few select brands to try their hands at the augmented tech for their ads until now….[Read More]