The 3 AR Marketing Ideas for Financial Services — Finance Marketing
- AR provides customers with unique, immersive experiences by connecting the physical and digital worlds
- AR has a huge potential. Incorporating AR into marketing strategies can help maximize campaigns’ effectiveness and surpass customers’ expectations
Challenges in Finance Service Marketing
Learning about finance isn’t simple and fun. Thinking about money and determining the best way to manage it can be daunting. In addition to complicated terms and conditions and a vast variety of investment products, there are tough regulations to protect investors from false, misleading claims, and exaggerated statements which stifle creativity. That leaves financial marketers very few options but to rely on established marketing methods in order to comply with regulatory rules. However, facing new competitions from FinTechs / startups / virtual banks, and consumer behavioral changes given rise to the COVID-19 pandemic, make many businesses rethink their business models and marketing strategies. AR’s interactive 3D experience combining a view of the real world with computer graphics can help to attract a wider audience range and minimize regulatory obstacles.
What is Augmented Reality (AR)?
Augmented Reality (AR) is an interactive experience covering the real-world environment in real-time with a digital layer. This usage allows brands to provide customers with unique, immersive experiences by connecting the physical and digital worlds. Using AR innovatively can effectively help businesses to improve customers’ experience and develop brilliant long-term marketing strategies.
Popularity of AR applications in Marketing
According to Statista, the global augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR) market are forecasted to reach 30.7 billion U.S. dollars in 2021, rising to close to 300 billion U.S. dollars by 2024. And as per Deloitte’s prediction, nearly 75% of the global population and almost all people who use social / communication apps will be frequent AR users by 2025.
Why adopt AR in Financial Services?
- Improve customer experience
As mentioned above, effective creativity in financial services is challenging. From regulatory constraints, conveying the benefits of intangible investment products, to getting engagement can be a struggle. Integrating AR into marketing campaigns can improve customer experience as AR provides additional information in a more interactive way. It helps to improve interaction and engagement.
2. Product Service Promotion
Data visualization helps investors make important decisions about wealth management. AR provides an interactive way to display product service and let customers visualize their trading and wealth data in a 3D environment. It can also bridge traditional and digital marketing channels to turn printed brochures and outdoor billboards into a digital and more engaging, immersive experience.
3. Branding and Better Communicate among Different Audience Groups
Financial content is boring and abstract. AR provides an interactive experience in a real-world environment which is a great way to turn boring and hard-to-understand financial information into creative and engaging content. It can cultivate a “wow” factor to get customers’ and media’s attention to talk about your brand, create a memorable brand experience and increase brand awareness.
AR’s fun and interactive experience can help to attract a wider audience range, especially the younger generation, who grow up with AR technology applications and are familiar with AR through their gaming experience. This provides a familiar experience to gain their buy-in and interest in learning more about the products. Aside, AR’s visualization features can help make the explanation of abstract and difficult concepts a lot easier. This helps potential customers better understand and memorize related issues and blend in with their daily experiences.
3 Ideas to Incorporate AR into marketing campaigns
AR can be applied in many different ways. The following are the 3 ideas to incorporate AR in marketing campaigns to create amazing AR marketing campaigns.
- AR Presentations
3D animations provide another way for brand storytelling. AR allows branded materials, such as boring financial information, to be scanned, making static elements a more dynamic experience. The immersive 3d experience can help enhance sales presentations and the experience in print and outdoor advertising. Businesses can leverage AR presentations to engage customers on a higher level, and sell products or services more effectively.
For example, a business card or brochure can use AR to provide contact options or highlight information or video of expert talks. Another use case is to show customers how to use a specific product or service without having to spend many hours reading extensive instruction manuals, such as opening an account, in an interactive experience. Banking and investment startup Acorns welcomes new customers with an AR presentation showing them all the details of their new debit card and its components. It helps users to explore additional product-related information and technical details about the product.
2. AR Gamification
Gamification has been adopted by a number of brands to grab the attention of customers and increase interaction with customers. However, when we talk about AR gamification, for most people, it would be the case of a successful game called “Pokemon Go”, in which players can explore and catch pokemon monsters by moving to different locations in real-world lives via mobile apps making use of AR technology.
AR provides huge opportunities. AR games can create an unforgettable brand experience by bridging the gap between the virtual and physical world which is an effective way to battle overwhelming marketing messages and connect with customers.
A digital financial services company, Ally Financial, turned personal finance into a game of AR monopoly, a familiar and popular board game, to teach financial literacy in a way that’s not boring. By turning six American cities into giant AR Monopoly boards, challenging customers to find property squares using online and social clues, for Financial education. “The MONOPOLY® game is a staple in many households, helping to teach children the value and responsibility of money at a young age in a fun and memorable way,” said Jonathan Berkowitz, president of Hasbro brands.
To avoid affecting the holistic experience, the game also has an online version. The players don’t have to install an app, but simply use the web-based AR interface. This helped more users enjoy the AR experience. Ally not only utilized an AR gamification experience to showcase how Ally Financial can help customers to manage their money, but also utilized Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, the event hashtag #AllyMonopoly, for this Ally + Monopoly AR campaign. 1,491 posts on their campaign hashtag #AllyMonopoly. Their Ally + monopoly youtube video has over 2,000,000 views which are notable.
Besides AR Monopoly, there are different types of AR games. Take for example the popular Facebook and Instagram quiz format of AR filters that can be used on different occasions.
3. Educational content
AR is an excellent tool to visualize abstract and difficult concepts to help customers to remember essential details.
The financial sector is regulated. Although terms explanation can help investors to make a better decision, some investment terms are not easy to understand and are boring. Immersive 3D learning can help customers visualize myriad types of digital content, interact with the content, grasp difficult concepts, and enhance the educational experience.
Final Thoughts
Banking and financial services institutions face a row of regulatory obstacles and therefore, view innovative marketing as an alien world, but those hurdles should not stop them to develop long-term innovative marketing strategies. Creativity in a regulated industry is not easy. The use of the latest technology can help to create engaging, creative, and relevant content in order to minimize the regulatory obstacles and help the business succeed.
AR solutions are simple to use, easily accessible and increase the engagement between users and brands. It helps to crave relationships with customers. There is huge potential for AR. It is not just useful for the e-commerce, gaming, and entertainment industries. It provides a solution to boost engagement, drive sales, and increase brand awareness.
Over to You
Technology is transforming financial institutions. Some banking giants, such as JP Morgan and HSBC, have already begun to step into the metaverse to connect with customers and business partners, as they eye on the potential financial gains. Are you ready for emerging technologies in financial services?
About the author
Karen Lau is a Web3, Metaverse and NFT enthusiast. She has a passionate interest in applying the latest technology, such as augmented reality (AR), artificial intelligence (AI), NLP, and business intelligence (BI), to digital marketing for long-term growth. She successfully developed and evolved the company’s digital activities across online platforms.
Connect on Linkedln
