Augmented Reality Marketing Enhances Consumer-Brand Closeness and Boosts Brand Love

A recent study reveals that augmented reality (AR) marketing enhances consumer-brand relationships by creating a sense of physical closeness, leading to increased brand love, especially when consumers are already familiar with the brand. This finding underscores AR's potential as a powerful tool for brand management in the digital age.

Augmented reality (AR) marketing is transforming how consumers interact with brands, creating a sense of physical closeness that fosters emotional connections and drives brand love. This is the core finding of a recent study by Philipp A. Rauschnabel and colleagues, from the University of the Bundeswehr Munich, University of Hohenheim, University of Michigan-Dearborn, and Reutlingen University. The researchers explored how AR, by embedding virtual brand-related content into a consumer's physical environment, reduces perceived spatial distance and enhances emotional ties to the brand. Grounded in the intersection of AR, brand love, metaphor theory, and the neural theory of language, the study hypothesizes that AR can create a perceived physical closeness between consumers and brands, subsequently leading to stronger emotional relationships, termed brand love.

Empirical Evidence: How AR Enhances Brand Love

This hypothesis was validated through two empirical studies. In the first study, participants using an AR app felt physically closer to the brand, which in turn increased their brand love. This finding was replicated in a second study, which showed that high levels of local presence—how realistically a brand appears to be part of a consumer's physical environment—drive perceived physical closeness and brand love. The studies also revealed that AR's effectiveness in generating brand love is heightened when consumers are already familiar with the brand. The implications for marketers are significant. As AR technology becomes more prevalent, particularly with the advent of the metaverse, brands can leverage augmented reality to create deeper, more emotionally resonant relationships with consumers. This research suggests that AR's ability to make virtual content feel present in the physical world can enhance consumer engagement, loyalty, and advocacy, making it a powerful tool for brand management in the digital age.

Building Stronger Consumer-Brand Relationships

Overall, this study adds to the growing body of literature on AR marketing by establishing a clear link between AR experiences and brand love, highlighting the importance of perceived closeness in building strong consumer-brand relationships. Marketers use AR to place virtual brand-related information into a consumer's physical context, theorizing that branded AR content can reduce the perceived physical, spatial distance between a consumer and a brand. This perceived closeness subsequently drives the closeness of the emotional relationship in the form of brand love. The two empirical studies validate this framework. Study 1 shows that using an AR app (versus non-AR) increases the perceived physical closeness of the brand, which in turn drives brand love. Study 2 replicates this finding in a pre-/post-use design. Here, high levels of local presence drive perceived physical closeness, which leads to brand love.

The Role of Familiarity in AR Marketing

The researchers found that AR's power to generate brand love increases when the consumer is already familiar with the brand. They discussed managerial implications for AR marketing today and in a metaverse future in which AR content might be prevalent in consumers' everyday perceptions of the real world. When consumers use AR, they have a hybrid experience consisting of the real physical environment around them and virtual objects that appear to have been placed within that world. The main distinctive factor between AR and other digital presentation formats is contextual embedding, which means that the virtual content is integrated into the user's physical environment. The growing importance of AR marketing has been reflected in an increase in academic publications. However, only a few studies have tackled issues in brand management, typically focusing on how AR can drive cognitive brand attitudes or brand engagement and advocacy.

Future Implications for Marketing Practices

The present research is among the first to establish a link between AR marketing and brand love. Brand love is a concept of high managerial and theoretical interest. Theoretically, brand love is a specific form of consumer-brand relationship with unique characteristics. As a complex, multidimensional construct, it shares similarities with interpersonal relationships. Research has also established a strong link between brand love and various variables on which marketers tend to focus, such as increased loyalty and advocacy, intensified consumer-brand relationships, decreased price sensitivity, and long-term profitability. Thus, it is not surprising that managers have a keen interest in finding ways to create and manage brand love. However, in contrast to attitude-based measures, brand love is predominantly influenced by more experiential variables rather than solely by more utilitarian factors such as product quality or price. Because brand experiences play a fundamental role in building brand love, AR may have the power to positively impact brand love.

To test this assumption, the researchers developed a framework by incorporating findings from the AR marketing discipline, metaphor theory, and the neural theory of language. They theorized that experiencing branded AR content in one's physical environment increases the level of perceived physical closeness between a consumer and a brand, which subsequently increases a consumer's sense of being emotionally close to the product, thus boosting brand love. The studies provided evidence that AR can increase perceived physical closeness between a consumer and a brand. Through metaphorical thinking, this perceived physical closeness enhances perceptions of relationship closeness, which is reflected by an increase in brand love. The research further confirms the moderating role of brand familiarity, suggesting that the effect of local presence on perceived physical closeness increases if consumers are familiar with a brand. This research has practical implications for marketing, demonstrating AR's potential as a powerful tool for enhancing consumer-brand relationships and fostering brand love.