Consumers’ perception of Augmented Reality: An application to the “Made in Italy” brand

The increasing potential of augmented reality (AR) for advertising strategies and for studies on consumer perception and behaviour are still scarce and fragmented. Thus, the aim of this exploratory study is to investigate how consumers are in touch with AR and how it could affect decision-making process in order to define a new framework of analysis and development in the context of the “Made in Italy” brand. This study refers to two frameworks, which are Rogers’ classification on adopters of a new technology and Lemon and Verhoef’s study on customer purchase journey. Methodology consists in 20 semi-structured interviews with consumers with the scope to examine their potential shopping journey with AR technology. Preliminary results show the lack of knowledge about AR and the difficult engagement with new technologies. The paper ends arguing academical and managerial implications along with its limitations and further research.