Document Type

Article

Disciplines

Artificial Intelligence and Robotics | Business | Business Analytics | Business Intelligence | Computer Engineering | Computer Sciences | E-Commerce | Marketing | Strategic Management Policy

Publication Details

Procedia, Social and Behavioural Sciences. International Conference on Strategic Innovative Marketing, IC-SIM 2014, September 1-4, 2014, Madrid, Spain

Abstract

In the contemporary landscape, human interaction is characterized by the pervasive mediation of intelligent agents. Owing to advances in computer science and engineering, phenomena once limited to fixed locations are metamorphosing from extraneous entities to implicit components of the everyday. Computing power has simultaneously enhanced and miniaturized to the extent that contemporary consumer devices demonstrate power equivalent to or greater than that of personal computers of recent memory. At the same time, network connectivity has proliferated to ubiquitous levels, reflected in the fact that the amount of inanimate objects connected to the Internet has recently surpassed the human population of earth. Digitally mediated experiences are thus no longer the province of fixed-line terminals; rather than projecting a virtual avatar of oneself into a synthetic environment, elements of that environment are extricated and placed into the physical domain. In this landscape, the concept of augmented reality (AR) has emerged as a way to visualize the pervasive virtual information woven into the physical environment. However, research on the phenomenon has largely remained technical in nature; the collective body of work which seeks to understand its role in society has remained comparatively limited. This paper aims to bridge the divide between these hitherto disparate research avenues. The paper affords particular attention to the impact of AR on the discipline of marketing communications, as the domain’s interest towards phenomenon accelerates; following the motifs of historically innovative phenomena such as television and the Internet. Through a qualitative approach, the paper derives insight from key social actors, resulting in a number of findings used as a foundation to build knowledge on the nascent role of AR in the marketing communications domain. A model is presented which schematizes an approach to the deployment of AR, formalizing the collective intelligence of those key social actors. The aim of the paper is thus to propose heuristics for marketing professionals who seek to implement AR as a component of a communications programme, and increase the collective knowledge of the discipline on this enigmatic phenomenon. The proposed model is dual-natured, highlighting not only the unique attributes of AR, but emphasizing the robustness of traditional best practice values to which its implementation must adhere. The latter represents a recurring theme throughout the research findings; a potentially significant one given the singular nature of the phenomenon and the tendency towards the novel observed in many of its early applications.

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