Buying artwork to enhance the look of your home, office or workplace is always a great idea. Not only do you bring beauty and art into the lives of the people who live and work there, but you also support the art market and artists.
But what’s the problem when choosing which artwork fits perfectly in a specific space? Artwork is usually not only fragile but also expensive, and you can’t always take it home to see how it looks on the wall before deciding whether or not to buy it.
According to Jeanne Anderson, GM of Saatchi Art, over 70% of potential art market customers are hesitant to buy because they cannot see the artwork beforehand.
Sure, in such a low-touch world, like the one we’re living in today, it can be tricky to see items in real life before buying them.
But there’s a new technology that can help both artists and potential buyers, and that’s Augmented Reality.
Let’s see how it works and why AR is the game changer the art market has been waiting for!
From art to life: a link is enough
AR allows artists and art galleries to have customers view artworks at home, without getting off the couch.
With a couple of clicks, it will be possible to see the pieces directly from your home, hang them on the wall or place them around to see the possible result after the purchase.
More use cases and scenarios
However, the magic of AR doesn’t stop there; there are many other use cases where this technology can help the art industry.
For example, it can compare works without even moving them from their position or quickly show the before and after during restoration work.
It can also be a huge game-changer for museums, making access to art easier and smoother, itineraries more engaging, and even showcasing works that aren’t physically available due to loan or restoration.
Lastly, the potential of art schools and institutes should not be underestimated. AR allows students of all grades to better understand the art and learn its history much faster while having fun. It can also enhance students’ digital content creation process, allowing them to experiment and unleash their creativity.
Last but not least, speaking of experiments, AR can allow curators and owners to experiment with new frames and cuts, without actually touching the original piece and avoiding the risk of damaging it.
How to Integrate AR into the Arts Marketing Mix
All of these use cases are great, but how do you integrate this technology into your marketing mix if you have an art gallery or are an artist yourself? Here are some examples:
eCommerce/Website: AR helps optimize the conversion rate, both in terms of requesting information and purchasing a work. With Augmented Reality, Google Ads can create eye-catching banner ads that generate an average user engagement rate of over 300% compared to traditional approaches.
Newsletter: Sending artwork by email, perhaps during a special event or during the release of a new collection, and sharing the link to see the relative AR experience remotely.
Social Media: integrating AR into your editorial plan is easy and effective: you can post the artwork (e.g. via Facebook) either as a calendar enrichment, on the occasion of a specific event or during the release of a new collection.
The advantages
Why is AR changing the art market forever?
- It allows you to improve the audience experience, making it more engaging and interactive.
- Increase sales by optimizing the purchase rate on e-commerce, through product display.
- It favors the involvement of a new target audience and more visitors (Millennials and Generation Z).
- It allows you to increase the number of customers in the gallery, on the site and to retarget on social networks.
- Increase the average time visitors spend in the gallery and on digital touchpoints.
- Differentiate yourself from the competition through a new way of communicating your product in a unique and original way, thus increasing the perceived value.
- It captures people’s attention in a world where we live saturated with stimuli with a “WOW” effect that fascinates and transmits innovation and progress.
