'AR will help brands connect with consumers' expectations in more personalized ways'

Durgesh Kaushik, Director of India & South Asia Market Development at Snapchat, in conversation with e4m, highlighted the importance of Augmented Reality (AR) and outlined how AR would help businesses flourish over the coming years and how it would help customers' connect with brands in a more personalized manner. 

Augmented Reality will become a mainstream reality

While many have been talking about an alternative world of the future  - we’ve spent the last 10 years building technology that enhances the real world and adds value to businesses and society, right now. More than 200m people engage with AR every day on Snapchat. In the next four years, it’s predicted 75% of the world's population – not just Snapchatters – will be actively and routinely engaging with AR.

In a global shopping study, 1 in 4 shoppers said they would actually prefer to use AR to try on clothes virtually rather than in-store. Businesses using AR-try on tell us it leads to fewer returns, which is good for the bottom line and the environment.

So what for 2022: People are already using AR every day to connect with businesses and drive real ROI, but this will go from being a nice to have, to a must-have as brands catch up with consumers' expectations to interact with them in more personalized and immersive ways.

People will spend more time with tech that makes them feel good

The last few years have been tough on everyone and tech has played a crucial role in keeping us connected. At the same time, there’s been more scrutiny on the impact of technology on people’s lives. We’ve always believed that doing the right thing for our community is the right thing for society and for our business.

That’s why friendship, fun, privacy, and safety are core to our product, and every piece of content shared in the public parts of our platform is pre-moderated - to make it safe and stop misinformation. Our focus on human connections and design is why 95% of users say Snapchat makes them feel happy.

So what for 2022: After the challenging years we’ve had, people will want to spend time with tech that makes them feel good - whether that’s because it’s fun, entertaining, or informative. Brands can drive a better return on investment by reaching people when they’re in this positive mindset.

The 3rd party cookie will finally crumble

Covid 19 has forced marketers to adapt and think differently. In 2022 advertisers face another challenge, i.e. the retirement of the third party cookie, which is finally set to come to force in 2023.

This means 2022 will be a critical year for advertisers to pivot from their old model of reaching people in a context-agnostic way to a new model focused much more heavily on contextual advertising and better using the cultural resonance of media, content, and platforms.

So what for 2022: Brands are going to have to pay much more attention to the contexts in which their advertising appears. The smartest brands will realise how powerful adjacency and cultural context can be - and create a competitive advantage from it.

Brands will augment the traditional TV plan

Over the past decade, the rise in mobile content consumption, streaming, and social media has upended traditional media buying plans. Couple this with increased inflation in TV markets across EMEA it’s clear that in 2022 we need to start finding ways to augment the traditional TV plan. 

While there are many video formats available outside of television, very few of them offer the ability to capture genuine attention - with most in-feed, sound-off, or worse, out of sight altogether. When combined with a traditional TV plan, Snap Commercials not only offer incremental reach but incremental effectiveness too.