VR, AR, AI & Digital Marketing Plan

VR, AR & AI in Digital Marketing

Lecture Overview

This lecture covers definitions, examples, and applications of AR/VR/MR, AI trends, applications, ethics, digital marketing plan reports (process, structure, and tips), and pitch presentation formats and tips.

Course Schedule

  • Week 7: VR, AR & AI and Building a DM Plan
  • Week 8: Emails, SEO & SEM
  • Week 9: Online Communities – Sid’s lecture; Emails, SEO & SEM
  • Week 10: No lecture; Flexi tutorial Digital Marketing Plan Report
  • Week 11: Digital Ethics & Social Marketing; Digital Marketing Plan Pitch presentations
  • Week 12: Course Review; Digital Ethics & Social Marketing
  • Week 13: End of Semester Test; No tutorial

Augmented Reality (AR)

  • Definition: AR is the combination of real and virtual elements with real-time interaction and accurate 3D registration.
  • AR enhances the perception of reality, unlike VR, which substitutes it.
  • AR Marketing: Strategic integration of AR experiences to achieve marketing goals by creating value for the brand, stakeholders, and societies while considering ethical implications.
Customer Journey in AR (Rauschnabel et al., 2022)
  • Awareness: Consumer gets to know a brand and its offers.
    • Example: Reading an article about a Porsche model and researching it further via the Porsche AR app.
  • Exploration: Consumer explores a brand, its products, and offers without a specific purchase need.
    • Example: Sarah exploring new makeup products using the Sephora AR app.
  • Planning: Consumer plans a specific type of product purchase.
    • Example: Nina using the IKEA Place app to preview how a couch would look in her apartment.
  • Purchase: Consumer purchases a product via AR.
    • Example: Lucy ordering a pizza she sees as a hologram on her table using the Domino’s AR app.
  • Use: Consumer uses the product.
    • Setup: Dirk using the Nanoleaf LED lights setup app to plan the system.
    • Actual Use: Tim using the Lego AR app to augment additional LEGO characters into his toys.
    • Substitution: Mandy purchasing a TV app for her Hololens device instead of a new hardware device.
  • Loyalty: Consumer becomes loyal to a brand.
    *Example: Chris fixing his car with AR remote assist service app.
AR Examples
  • Snapchat filters
  • Pokémon Go
  • Sephora
  • Bombay Gin
  • IKEA Place
  • Magic mirrors
  • Food ordering
  • Speedometer on windshield
  • Google 3D animals
AR Application in Marketing
  • Product: Competitive point-of-difference.
  • Promotion: AR can launch new products in exciting ways.
  • Resource Efficiency: AR trials eliminate costs like rent, leasing, and staffing.
  • Data Collection: AR functions collect data for targeted marketing.
  • Inclusivity: AR enables customers to trial products regardless of ability or distance.

Virtual Reality (VR)

  • Definition: A computer-generated 3D environment (virtual environment or VE) that one can navigate and interact with, simulating one or more of the user’s five senses.
VR - Customer Brand Engagement and Customer Journey

Conceptual framework components:

  • Pre-VR experience
  • Intra-VR experience
  • Post-VR experience

Engagement can be:

  • Cognitive
  • Emotional
  • Behavioral
  • Social
VR Examples
  • 360-degree videos
  • Samsung Moon Walk
  • TOMS virtual giving trips
  • Supernatural - fitness
VR Application in Marketing
  • Product: Sale of a virtual product to capture a new market and establish customer lifetime value (CLV).
  • Promotion: VR promotes new products or ranges available for purchase in the real world.
  • Community Development: VR provides virtual spaces for customers to engage with the brand.
  • Education: Sharing the brand’s history in an engaging way enhances brand value.

Mixed (Merged) Reality (MR)

  • MR mixes VR and reality, creating virtual objects that can interact with the actual environment.
The Different Realities
  • Augmented (in the physical world):
    • Enhances the real environment.
    • Equipment: Mobile phone.
    • Example: Trying on make-up or choosing paint colors.
  • Virtual (in a digital world):
    • Exploration of another environment.
    • Equipment: Headset.
    • Example: Playing games or visiting new locations.
  • Mixed (merging the physical and digital worlds):
    • Seeing into a digital environment whilst in a physical location.
    • Equipment: Headset or display system.
    • Example: Training how to fly a plane in a simulator.

Typology of Experiential Values (Mathwick et al. 2001)

  • Playfulness (intrinsic and active): Enjoyment and hedonic benefit of shopping.
  • Aesthetics (intrinsic and reactive): Consumer’s perception of the retail environment.
  • Consumer Return on Investment (CROI) (extrinsic and active): Utilitarian benefit where the consumer actively invests money.
  • Service Excellence (extrinsic and reactive): Consumer makes quality judgments against the service.

Presence - Conceptualisation (Lombard and Ditton 1997)

  • Presence as social richness: Provides intimacy and immediacy.
  • Presence as realism: Produces realistic representations and seems real.
  • Presence as transportation: Makes you feel like you are there.
  • Presence as immersion: Engages consumers totally with the experience.
  • Presence as a social actor: User responds to social cues.
  • Presence as a medium as a social actor: Users respond to the external devices.

Benefits and Challenges of AR/VR

Benefits:
  • Contribution to the customer journey
  • Rich information added
  • Data source
  • Environmental benefits
  • Stimulate purchase intentions and brand attitudes (supporting mental imagery)
Challenges:
  • Access to equipment
  • Cost
  • A long-term strategy

Application of AR/VR/MR

  • Tourism: Hotel and airline destination promotion (Google Earth and destinations, Ocean empathy).
  • Education: Campus tours and in-class learning.
  • Medical: VR and MR simulations.
  • Marketing: Luxury fashion, beauty, automotive, and homeware retail.
  • Games: AR and VR gaming.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • Definition: Machines that mimic human intelligence in tasks such as learning, planning, and problem-solving through higher-level, autonomous knowledge creation (De Bruyn et al. 2020).
  • The use of computational machinery to emulate capabilities inherent in humans (Hermann 2022).
AI Trends in Marketing
  • Machine Learning: Personalized customer experience and content, product recommendations.
  • Robotic Process Automation: Reduction of human error, automation of repetitive tasks (subscriptions, notifications, database updates, etc.).
  • Natural Language Processing: Translation software, sentiment analysis, Q&A (chat).
  • Predictive Analytics: Mass-scale data processing (data input is crucial).
AI and 4Ps
  • Product:
    • Quality Assurance: More reliably standardized during production; AI detects operator fatigue, scanning for defects.
    • Generative Design: Optimizes product design to minimize organizational costs and maximize customer benefits.
  • Price:
    • Price Optimization: AI makes informed decisions about pricing strategy using various sources.
    • Price Penetration Strategies: Supported as overhead costs are reduced.
  • Place:
    • Demand Forecasting: Predicts demand to manage inventory levels.
    • Predictive Maintenance: Reduces equipment downtime.
    • Improved Fraud Detection: Detects anomalies in purchases.
  • Promotion:
    • Promotion Optimization: Predicts the best times to distribute promotional content.
    • Copywriting: Utilizes LLMs (large language models, like ChatGPT) to create copy.
AI and the Digital Marketing Toolbox
  • Websites: Suggesting web design ideas, coding, generating imagery, writing content.
  • Mobile Marketing: Coding apps, creating optimized copy, recommending products.
  • Social Media: Writing copy, evaluating influencers, brand listening.
  • Content Marketing: Generating ideas, writing copy, editing content, content proofing.
  • Email, SEO and Paid Search: Personalizing messaging, writing copy, managing mailing lists, analyzing search trends, writing optimized copy.
  • Online Communities: Using chatbots, summarizing discussions, automatically moderating threads.
Benefits and Challenges of AI
  • Benefits:
    • Convenience
    • Automation to eliminate human error
    • Unique benefits to marketing and digital mix
  • Challenges:
    • Cost
    • Data accuracy/bias
    • Ethical considerations
    • Overreliance on technology
AI Application in Marketing (Hermann 2022)
  • Mechanical AI: Automation of repetitive tasks for data collection, segmentation, and standardization.
  • Thinking AI: Processing data for new insights and decision-making for market analysis, targeting, and personalization.
  • Feeling AI: Interactions with humans or analyzing human feelings for customer understanding, positioning, and relationisation.
AI Ethics Map (Hermann 2022)

Ethical considerations at Company Level, Customer Level, and Societal/Environmental Level, balancing Beneficence, Non-Maleficence, Explicability, and Autonomy.

The Dark Side of AI in Marketing (Barari et al. 2024)

Privacy concerns, perceived risks, customer alienation, and uniqueness neglect can negatively affect customer evaluative and behavioral responses.

  • The negative impact of AI is more pronounced in individualistic, high-power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term orientation cultures (Barari et al. 2024).

Digital Marketing Plan – the SOSTAC® framework (Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick 2019)

SOSTAC® Elements:
  • Situation analysis: Where are we now?
  • Objectives: Where do we want to be?
  • Strategy: How do we get there?
  • Tactics: How exactly do we get there? (the details of strategy)
  • Actions: The details of tactics, who does what and when
  • Control: How do we monitor performance?
Digital Marketing Plan

A specific type of marketing plan that focuses solely on digital channels and tactics, such as social media, email marketing, SEO, content marketing, and other tools.

Digital Marketing Plan – Process
  • Identify brand position and objectives
  • Conduct a SWOT analysis
  • Segment and target (develop personas)
  • Select digital marketing elements, evaluate current activities and provide recommendations for improvement
  • Budget
  • Implement and evaluate
Tourism SA Digital Marketing Plan Brief

Objectives:

  • Increase awareness of South Australia as a travel destination.
  • Increase travel intention and actual travel behavior.
  • Increase average trip spend per tourist to improve the state's economy.
Priorities
  • Effectively target high-yielding travelers.
  • Consistently communicate SA's key brand pillars.
  • Consider emerging platforms and new methods of engagement.
  • Align product promotion with product development.
  • Base channel selection and messaging on consumer understanding.
Digital Marketing Plan – Structure
  • Title page
  • Executive summary (1 page)
  • Introduction (approx. 150 words)
  • Overview of business (SWOT diagram)
  • Analysis and recommendations for content marketing (approx. 400-500 words)
  • Analysis and recommendations for mobile marketing (approx. 400-500 words)
  • Analysis and recommendations for social media (approx. 400-500 words)
  • Analysis and recommendations for opportunities in AR, VR or AI (approx. 400-500 words)
  • Conclusion (150 words)
  • Reference list
  • Appendices (optional)
DM Plan – SWOT

Internal and External factors:

  • Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, PESTLE (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, Environmental).
DM Plan – Mobile Marketing

Recommendations:

  • Evaluate current mobile marketing efforts and provide recommendations for improvement.
  • Explore opportunities for mobile promotion (e.g., text messaging, push notifications, native ads).
  • Assess opportunities for mobile commerce.
  • Determine whether app development is viable or not.
DM Plan – Social Media

Recommendations:

  • Evaluate current social media efforts and provide recommendations for improvement.
  • Determine the best use of social media based on brand lifecycle and objectives.
  • Consider how social media can be used to advertise or share content.
  • Identify suitable social media platforms and content types.
DM Plan – Content Marketing

Recommendations:

  • Evaluate current content marketing and provide recommendations for improvement.
  • Apply the 4S framework of content marketing (story, storyteller, style, and strategy).
DM Plan – AR, VR and AI

Recommendations:

  • Evaluate current AR, VR, and AI efforts and provide recommendations for improvement.
  • Assess opportunities for integrating AR and VR into their digital strategy.
  • Explore the use of AI technologies to improve UX through the marketing mix.
DM Plan – Some Extra Tips
  • Critique current strategies before offering recommendations.
  • Consider the target market and brand objectives for each point.
  • Consider metrics and methods of analysis for reporting.
DM Plan – Recommendation Example

Based on a SWOT analysis, using an influencer as the content storyteller to increase customer purchase intent, aligning with the brand’s objectives.

DM Plan Pitch Presentation
  • Present your digital marketing plan in the Week 11 tutorial
    • Pecha Kucha style: 20 slides, 20 seconds each