Augmented reality activations can supercharge greatly attention, and with A.R. creation bettered and eased, more brands now have the potential to leverage A.R. to help maximize brand messaging.

But how much can A.R. enhance your promotions, and drive more consumer engagement?

That is what the latest Snapchat study was trying to get at, in partnership with Omnicom Media Group and Amplified Intelligence - testing the power of A.R. for attention, and better campaign outcomes.

And the results show just how big a difference using A.R. in concert with more traditional ad campaigns can make.
Its key takeaway is that with A.R. elements in play, Snapchat delivers 5x more active attention than industry competitors.

Of course, there's more to consider within that. Quality of the A.R. experience and cost and capacity to deliver enhanced digital works also come into play. But the data show that users do spend more time with A.R., which means it increases branding and recall with promotions.

That also translates to such tremendous lifts both in short-term brand choice and long-term brand loyalty.
The data also shows A.R. contributes incremental gains in brand lift throughout the advertising funnel.
So it's not just one element that's impacted by the success of the A.R. experience but can really enhance all aspects of your branding efforts, which could be a valuable consideration within your marketing mix.

Again, though, the quality of the specific A.R. experience itself matters. A generic Lens won't nearly have the same impact, but a dedicated, branded overlay can have real pull.

And Snap claims that all its A.R. offerings do help maximize attention.

"When segregated by type of lens, all drove high active attention and contributed positively to both short-term and long-term brand lift, validating versatile effects of AR for any marketing objective.". For example, Face Lenses outperformed for short/long-term lift as it puts the customer at the center of action, as well as creates shareable moments, but shoppable Lenses outperformed for short-term lift as it also puts consumers at the center of the shopping action.

It's not always easy to build a very effective A.R. Lens, but as we've seen, Snap is constantly looking to make that easier, through improved tools in its Lens Studio, which offer more support for preparing digital overlays.

And generative A.I. could make things much easier still, with systems that will be able to generate entirely new, unique Lens experiences based on text prompts.

Again, this won't necessarily produce perfect, foolproof results, and working with a Lens expert is the best way to go to build the most effective A.R. experience.

However, it may be another piece of the puzzle to look at, as A.R. becomes a more potent focus through new wearables and other devices.