Multissensorialidade e experiência: os usos da realidade virtual e aumentada na comunicação mercadológica

Abstract

The research investigates the uses of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) in marketing communication as a strategic way to offer immersive, playful and sensory experiences to consumers, in the current media scenario, hypermediated and saturated by too many messages. In order to apprehend factors that contributed to the diffusion of VR and AR nowadays, topics such as the materiality of communication and modulation of new sensorialities, media and technological transformations, reconfigurations of marketing communication, the importance of entertainment in contemporary times and its hybridization with the advertising, until the emergence of branded content, which seeks to engage the audience with content and generate emotional bonds between brands and consumers. In order to understand the characteristics of VR and AR, which allow new forms of spectatorship and enjoyment of entertainment, conceptualizations and the state of the art of these technologies are presented, with technical descriptions and main visualization devices on the market, as well as the emergence of XR (extended reality) market activities. Important phenomena involved in the use of VR and AR are discussed, such as immersion, experience and corporeality, attention regimes and perceptual-cognitive changes, in addition to marketing appropriations of these elements. Based on the methodology inspired by content analysis and through a mapping of practices in the national and international market, launched between 2017 and 2020, which included 25 VR actions and 25 AR actions, a classification of these practices is proposed. As a result, 11 types of AR experiences and 8 different VR categories were identified based on their main uses in marketing communication.