Seeing is believing:Enhancing the customer experience with augmented reality

To provide customers with a more compelling experience, many firms have begun to deploy augmented reality (AR) as a frontline technology. However, managers and customers alike remain skeptical whether firms are currently exploiting the full potential of AR. This presents a need for a better understanding of the value creation processes that underlie AR-enabled customer experiences. However, current literature offers little guidance; research has yet to adequately describe how AR might enhance experiences and facilitate decision making throughout the customer journey. In this dissertation, I address this research gap in three distinct manuscripts. In the first manuscript, “Making omnichannel an augmented reality”, my co-authors and I review previously published research and currently deployed applications to provide a roadmap for future research efforts on ARenabled experiences across the customer journey. On the basis of situated cognition theorizing, we demonstrate that AR offers myriad opportunities to provide customers with a seamless omnichannel journey, smoothing current obstacles, through a unique combination of i) embedded, ii) embodied, and iii) extended customer experiences. These three principles constitute the overarching value drivers of AR and offer coherent, theory-driven organizing principles for managers and researchers. In the second manuscript, “Augmenting the eye of the beholder”, my coauthors and I demonstrate that AR enables firms to enhance the online service experience by pursuing a strategy of service augmentation. In a series of studies (n = 1,033) with the AR applications of L’Oreal and Mister Spex, we provide evidence that AR-based service augmentation promotes effective and enjoyable online shopping by i) allowing customers to embed online offerings into their personal environments, and ii) simulating a sense of physical control over these offerings. We show that this effect is due to a feeling of spatial presence, where customers perceive their interactions with virtual offerings as “real”. Spatial presence also increases customers’ comfort with their online purchase decisions. Finally, we identify two important boundary conditions to the aforementioned effects: the effect of spatial presence on perceptions of effective online shopping is greater for customers who prefer verbal rather than visual information processing, and the positive effect on decision comfort is attenuated by customers’ privacy concerns. In the third manuscript, “Seeing eye to eye”, my co-authors and I draw on socially situated cognition theory to explain how social AR scaffolds decision making by customers in a recommender–decision maker dyad. In a series of studies (n = 1,031) with Akzo Nobel’s Visualizer application, we demonstrate that optimal configurations of (static or dynamic) sharing formats and (speech-only or image-enhanced) illocutionary acts, as enabled by social AR, promote recommendation comfort, and in turn, shape actual choice behavior. To translate the experience of scaffolding into comfort and choice, we find that both recommenders and decision makers must experience a sense of social empowerment. We also identify two relevant boundary conditions. In detail, we show that the effect of social empowerment on comfort is weaker when recommenders have a strong impression management goal. Furthermore, the effect of social empowerment on decision makers’ actual choices is attenuated by the strength of a recommender’s persuasion goal

More than meets the eye: In-store retail experiences with augmented reality smart glasses

Augmented reality smart glasses (ARSGs) promise to enhance consumer experiences and decision-making when deployed as in-store retail technologies. However, research to date has not studied in-store use cases; instead, it has focused primarily on consumers\u27 potential adoption of these devices for everyday use. Nor have prior studies compared ARSG uses with the now-common use of AR on touchscreen devices. The current research addresses these knowledge gaps by examining whether ARSGs outperform AR on touchscreen devices in the context of in-store retail experiences. Testing with an actual retail application (n = 308) shows that ARSGs are superior to AR on touchscreen devices for evoking consumers’ perceptions of immersion and mental intangibility. Furthermore, this superiority leads consumers to evaluate their shopping experiences more positively, in terms of their decision comfort, satisfaction, and ease of evaluation, with significantly positive effects on their purchase intentions. These results highlight the relevance of implementing ARSGs in-store and provide retailers with recommendations for effective ARSG strategies

The playground effect: how augmented reality drives creative customer engagement

Across various customer experiences, Augmented Reality (AR) is emerging as a strategic experience design tool. This study contributes to an emerging body of research on the use of AR in the early stages of customers’ purchase journeys. Extending previous research, we propose that AR enables a unique form of customer creativity that is distinct from prior conceptualizations of creativity through its association with customer engagement. Specifically, we propose a sequential process of creative customer engagement, in which AR-enabled customer creativity stems from heightened customer engagement and, in turn, offers a source of intrinsic satisfaction for customers. In an experiment with a customer-facing AR application, we empirically demonstrate this sequential mediation process connecting the use of AR with customer engagement, customer creativity, and anticipated satisfaction. We also identify an important boundary condition based on a customer’s assessment orientation, suggesting a novel behavioral effect in the context of regulatory mode theory

Disrupting marketing realities: A research agenda for investigating the psychological mechanisms of next‐generation experiences with reality‐enhancing technologies

Reality‐enhancing technologies such as augmented reality and virtual reality are rapidly becoming a part of everyday life. Seizing this moment, we set out a research agenda for studying the psychological mechanisms underpinning consumer experiences with these new technologies, structured around four application areas: (1) delivering innovative offerings, (2) supporting sustainability and consumer well‐being interventions, (3) balancing value cocreation and privacy concerns, and (4) achieving new modes and means of impact. For each area, we identify research directions that can guide the development and use of reality‐enhancing technologies for the realization of next‐generation consumer experiences. We explicitly balance potential advantages and disadvantages, thus encouraging researchers and practitioners to prioritize developing the “purpose” of these technologies, by focusing on the psychological mechanisms that underlie their use, over the technological development of their “pixels.” In this way, we guide the impactful development of reality‐enhancing technologies for applications with significance for consumers and firms

How to strategically choose or combine augmented and virtual reality for improved online experiential retailing

Despite the promise of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) to help experiential retailers align online and offline experiences, guidance on choosing or combining these technologies is lacking. In three experiments, we address this research gap by investigating the individual and combined impact of AR and VR on key marketing objectives. First, we establish that AR is more effective in stimulating purchase intentions than VR, due to its ability to support customers in fluent product-focused mental imagery. Second, we demonstrate that VR is better suited for improving brand attitudes than AR, as it helps customers to form fluent context-focused mental imagery. Third, we show that AR and VR, in combination, can improve both purchase intentions and brand attitudes, but only when the order of deployment is sequenced as AR then VR. This is due to greater alignment with the customer's online-to-offline journey in experiential retail. When deployed the other way around, we observe a detrimental impact on purchase intentions and a potential harmful impact on brand attitudes. Our research offers a nuanced theoretical perspective of AR and VR in marketing and provides experiential retailers with evidence-based guidelines for leveraging AR and VR within their online retailing strategy

Augmented reality marketing: a technology-enabled approach to situated customer experience

Recent advances in Augmented Reality (AR) technologies have led to a growing interest in their application for marketing strategy and practice – what we term Augmented Reality Marketing (ARM). However, despite emerging publications on the subject, managers and academics struggle to articulate how ARM delivers experiences that are valuable to customers in a way that is different from other marketing approaches. In this article, we review the emerging literature, and define ARM as a customer-facing interface for the application of digital marketing technologies in physical settings. Rooted in a class of ‘situated cognition’ theories from social psychology, we identify a unique set of digital affordances which ARM offers beyond extant marketing approaches in traditional media. By drawing on the key conceptual building blocks of situated cognition theory, we develop a framework of ARM experiences to synthesize current research and applications, and to suggest directions for future research

Seeing with the customer’s eye: exploring the challenges and opportunities of AR advertising

This position article on augmented reality (AR) advertising offers a conceptual framework of recent scholarship on the intersection between AR technologies, advertising, and marketing metrics. The framework identifies theory-based building blocks for this domain alongside relevant recent examples. It proposes a conceptual case for contextualization of advertising content through AR technology. Finally, an agenda for future research in AR advertising is specified, incorporating multiple conceptual perspectives and empirical directions

An interdisciplinary co-authorship networking perspective on AR and human behavior: taking stock and moving ahead

The field of augmented reality (AR) and human behavior emerged when Azuma et al. (2001) refined the term augmented reality in 2001. Research on the topic has grown steadily in the past decade, yet there is a notable lack of consensus on humans' motivations and outcomes in interacting with AR. The present research takes a bibliographic approach to shed light on current research on AR and human-computer interaction and, using topic modeling, to identify and classify the topics that have drawn researchers’ interest. The results reveal three major topics of interest to researchers, namely “Education, Learning & Training Research”, “Marketing, Consumer Behavior & Business Research”, and “Digital Tourism & Cultural Heritage Research”. Drawing upon co-authorship theory, we identify prominent AR expert co-authorship networks that work on similar topics, yet also highlight that AR research is concentrated in a few research groups that publish articles with similar groups of authors and little outside their own networks. Together with AR experts from the four largest co-authorship networks, we highlight the common challenges that emerge in AR research, suggest solutions, and jointly propose a research agenda for AR and human behavior research

What’s mine is a hologram? How shared Augmented Reality augments psychological ownership

Augmented Reality (AR) holograms are 3D digital objects projected into a customer’s physical environment through mobile technology. Applied as potential substitutes to physical products, AR holograms pose a unique challenge for conventional configurations of product ownership. Taking a socially situated cognition perspective, we demonstrate how customers’ shared experience of AR holograms leads to distinct perspectives on psychological ownership. In Study 1, we demonstrate how customisation of AR holograms lets customers feel psychological ownership of digital products. In Study 2, we highlight the mechanisms of social adaptation related to assimilation and differentiation that drive the relationship between customisation and psychological ownership of AR holograms in social settings. In Study 3, we illustrate how these mechanisms are influenced by the affordances of AR technology when customers switch between personal or shared devices. We discuss implications for theory and marketing practice of this potentially novel class of digital consumer products

Seeing eye to eye: social augmented reality and shared decision making in the marketplace

Firms increasingly seek to improve the online shopping experience by enabling customers to exchange product recommendations through social augmented reality (AR). We utilize socially situated cognition theory and conduct a series of five studies to explore how social AR supports shared decision making in recommender–decision maker dyads. We demonstrate that optimal configurations of social AR, that is, a static (vs. dynamic) point-of-view sharing format matched with an image-enhanced (vs. text-only) communicative act, increase recommenders’ comfort with providing advice and decision makers’ likelihood of using the advice in their choice. For both, these effects are due to a sense of social empowerment, which also stimulates recommenders’ desire for a product and positive behavioral intentions. However, recommenders’ communication motives impose boundary conditions. When recommenders have strong impression management concerns, this weakens the effect of social empowerment on recommendation comfort. Furthermore, the stronger a recommender’s persuasion goal, the less likely the decision maker is to use the recommendation in their choice