Over the past century, branding and advertising have evolved in harmony with technology. From the NBC xylophone-audio-chimes in 1950, to multi-billion dollar startups like AirBnB with no real assets beyond it’s community, we’re very curious as to where our horizons will stretch in the merged worlds of branding, advertising, and technology.

Some up-and-coming technologies that we currently have our eyes on are both virtual reality and augmented reality. But what’s the difference between the two? Hang tight, we’re going to break it down for you…

Virtual Reality (VR) is an artificial, computer-generated, interactive simulation or recreation of a real life environment or situation.

Augmented Reality (AR), on the other hand, is a technology that layers computer-generated enhancements atop an existing reality in order to make it more interactive and meaningful for specific purposes.

What doe this mean for marketing? We’re already seeing a lot of real estate developers leveraging virtual reality tours to sell properties to oversea investors. Now, it’s as simple as putting on VR goggles to see the next condo you’re going to be living in. The real fun begins when we start playing around with AR for advertisements.

Picture this, you’re on your way to work, wearing your glasses which are already equipped with augmented reality technology. Obviously you received the perception glasses for free because of paid advertisements through the glasses. Your glasses are connected to your phone, which is connected to the internet. Your phone’s browser cache knows you were looking at the latest Range Rovers last night. What do you happen to see when crossing the street? A translucent ad targeted just for you, in the perfect upper west side setting of Manhattan. Now wouldn’t that be an interesting reality…