Augmented reality marketing is advertising in which digital images appear on top of what a phone's camera sees, when the camera is pointed at a pack, a poster or a room. Augmented reality is usually shortened to AR. The phone screen shows the real world, with a 3D object, an animation or a video added to it, in the right place.
How does the phone know where to put the image? It uses computer vision, software that recognises objects in images. The camera sends a stream of frames, about 30 still images a second. In each frame, the software looks for the poster's corners and its distinctive patterns. From where these appear in the frame, it works out how far the phone is from the poster, and at what angle. It then draws the digital object at that distance and angle. It does this again for every frame. So when the person moves the phone, the object seems to stay fixed on the poster.
There are two kinds of AR. Marker-based AR recognises one known image, such as a pack or a poster. Markerless AR finds flat surfaces, such as a floor or a table, and places objects on them. A furniture shop uses markerless AR to show a sofa in a person's own living room. A similar idea, an AI model redesigning a photo of a room, is explained under AI interior design.
Many AR campaigns now run in the phone's web browser, with no app to install. This is called web AR. The person scans a QR code, and the browser asks for permission to use the camera. Without an app download, many more people try the experience.
Say a smartphone brand puts up posters at bus stops in Indore. Next to the phone's photo, a QR code says "See it in 3D". A commuter scans it, and the browser opens the camera. The software finds the poster in the frames and works out the phone's angle to it. A 3D model of the new phone appears, standing on the poster. The commuter turns it with a finger and sees the camera lenses on the back. A button shows the price, ₹18,999, and the nearest shop that has it in stock. The brand later sees how many people opened the experience at each bus stop, and for how long.
The 3D objects are often built in a game engine, the same software that draws video games. On a pack, AR is one of the ways of making connected packaging.
AR is different from virtual reality (VR). VR replaces what the person sees with a computer-made world, inside a headset. AR keeps the real world on the screen, and adds to it.