Mahziyar Akbari; Tohfeh Ghobadi Lamuki; Peyman Ghafari Ashtiani; Hossein Hajibabaei
Abstract
Introduction: Augmented reality technology, which is one of the subsets of various types of developed realities, has attracted the attention of researchers and businesses in various ...
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Introduction: Augmented reality technology, which is one of the subsets of various types of developed realities, has attracted the attention of researchers and businesses in various industries and fields in recent years. These people, with a basic understanding of this technology, have benefited from its very high potential to be able to easily achieve their predetermined goals by using it. But in the meantime, the advertising industry and following that, the marketing field, have not yet seriously benefited from it. This issue is important when we know that the effectiveness of the current advertising approaches that are currently used in Iran and the world are decreasing day by day. People do not welcome the current approaches and are fleeing from them. In this case, it does not seem that these current approaches can help a business achieve its predetermined goals. Under these circumstances, there is a strong need for a new and alternative advertising approach. An approach that can eliminate the disadvantages of the common advertising methods in the best possible way and have a very high ability to attract and retain audiences. In this situation, augmented reality technology can play the role of a new advertising medium and act as a digital marketing approach to help marketers advance their integrated marketing communication goals.Objective: Based on the searches conducted among the academic articles available in the global research literature, no augmented reality advertising model based on smart mobile phones was found. Therefore, this study aimed to design and create an augmented reality advertising model based on smart mobile phones with a focus on the augmented reality activators existing on the product packaging. It sought to answer this question: What were the structures, dimensions, indicators and relationships in the mobile-based augmented reality advertising model based on the augmented reality activators existing on the product packaging and what was the final model of augmented reality advertising?Methodology: This research was a fundamental study because its goal was to design and create a mobile-based augmented reality advertising model. Also, because of its ability to use the results obtained from it, it could be classified as applied research. Moreover, since there was no augmented reality advertising model in the research literature, this study could be considered as an exploratory study. In addition, in terms of data collection, this research was a cross-sectional survey study. The implementation approach in this research was a mixed approach consisting of two qualitative and quantitative phases. The method used in the qualitative part of this research was the grounded theory approach using the model presented by Corbin and Strauss. In the first phase (qualitative) of this research, the prerequisites were set and the statistical population was identified according to these prerequisites. Then, using the judgmental and non-probabilistic sampling approaches, sampling was done until reaching theoretical saturation. The number of selected samples until the time of theoretical saturation for this research was 14 advertising-marketing experts. The data required to conduct this research were collected by semi-structured and in-depth interviews and were analyzed by three stages of open coding, axial coding and selective coding in Maxqda software. After that, the validity and reliability of the qualitative part were confirmed. In this phase, the essential indicators were identified and determined. In the second phase (quantitative) of this research, the screening and validation of the indicators identified in the previous part (qualitative) of the research were done. The approach used in this part was the fuzzy Delphi method. 15 experts were selected using the snowball sampling method and their opinions on the indicators of the qualitative part were assessed and evaluated. The fuzzy Delphi approach was a very suitable approach for validating the indicators using fuzzy numbers.Results: When executing the first phase of the research using the grounded theory approach and analyzing the data collected by semi-structured and in-depth interviews with 14 experts, the audio files of the interviews were converted to text and analyzed in the software. In the first phase, 5143 initial concepts were identified from the interview texts. Among them, 912 cases were unique concepts and were classified as sub-categories. By combining and reclassifying these sub-categories, we reached 59 main and distinct categories. Using the perspective of the grounded theory of Corbin and Strauss, these 59 main categories were categorized into 6 paradigmatic model structures. In this way, the dimensions, indicators and relationships of the mobile-based augmented reality advertising model based on the augmented reality activators existing on the product packaging were determined. In the second phase of this research, the opinions of 15 experts on these indicators and relationships with respect to the main structures were assessed using the fuzzy Delphi method. After running two rounds, none of the indicators were deleted and their validity was confirmed. Finally, the final model of the research was presented.Discussion and Conclusion: Augmented reality could be introduced as a revolutionary technology with cutting-edge technology. Using this technology in the advertising industry would have very important and valuable results for consumers, companies, brands, products, advertisements and society. However, this advertising approach was very influenced by the factors governing its environment. Marketers had to accurately identify these factors, which were introduced in this research as contextual factors and intervening factors, and create mobile-based augmented reality advertising platforms using the strategies presented in the strategic factors section. In this way, they could benefit from the very important and valuable results of it. It was suggested to different businesses and marketers that in order to create a very special competitive advantage for themselves and also to achieve victory in the current competition path in the advertising industry, they should start from today to recognize this technology and invest time, money, expertise and human resources in it and use mobile-based augmented reality advertisements in their commercial and integrated marketing communication efforts.
