• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, June 20, 2019

Google is making a push to expand augmented reality (AR) and interactive capabilities to its content and advertising offerings. The company, while slow to incorporate immersive ads, is testing 3D and YouTube live-stream display formats in DV360, its programmatic ad platform.

Google also announced a live-stream format in Display & Video 360 that allows marketers to run YouTube live-stream content in display ads across screens and devices. Marketers can use assets from existing YouTube live-stream campaigns with a new template in Google Web Designer.

This live-stream format allows viewers to interact with the video using the YouTube player controls. People can preview the live stream, watch full screen, and exit when they are finished. The live-stream format gives viewers control over how they choose to interact with the content.

The perfume and cosmetics company Guerlain has been testing Swirl, a display formant designed for mobile web campaigns that’s available in Display & Video 360. Its marketers created a 3D experience, which allows consumers to explore every angle of the product by rotating the object in the ad.

Consumer demand for new technology is scaling faster than technical competency. About 62% of creatives see an increased client demand for AR campaigns, according to Unity’s survey of 1,000 creative professionals analyzing the state of AR in advertising.

Adoption rates may require a bit of education, however. Guerlain is one of the first companies to test Google’s 3D ad technology, but overall, creative professionals struggle to implement augmented reality in their campaigns for a variety of reasons.

Technical and financial hurdles, along with uncertainty about how to use AR technology in campaigns, are some perceived challenges that marketers face, according to data released by Unity Technologies.

Despite these hurdles, 78.4% of marketers participating in the survey have a positive outlook about the technology. Some 55.8% of those designing creatives said they were likely or very likely to consider AR campaigns within the next year, with 54.1% acknowledging they already deployed them.