Meta plans AR advertising: "A huge deal"
Meta wants to be both a metaverse platform and an immersive advertiser. AR Vice President Alex Himel sees it as an unprecedented opportunity.
With platforms like Facebook and Instagram, Meta has a large advertising empire. Not surprisingly, the tech company plans on monetizing the Metaverse with advertising as well.
That's according to an internal presentation of Meta's plans for the next four years published by The Verge magazine. It also addressed the issue of monetization - for which Meta apparently has a plan.
Augmented reality with ads
Alex Himel, vice president of augmented reality at Meta, expects more revenue per user from the metaverse than from modern social media. The plan involves selling combinations of virtual goods, optional add-ons like cloud backups, and AR advertising.
Meta took in a whopping $116.6 billion in 2022 despite various stock market setbacks. Himel is very optimistic about the advertising business in whatever metaverse comes along.
"We should be able to run a very good ads business," he said. "I think it’s easy to imagine how ads would show up in space when you have AR glasses on. Our ability to track conversions, which is where there has been a lot of focus as a company, should also be close to 100 percent."
Ambitious sales plan for AR headsets
First, Meta needs more people in headsets. Himel sees the potential at nearly two billion headsets sold annually and several hundred million smartwatches. Meta's strategy involves two pathways: high-quality products and low-cost products. Meta already uses this strategy with its Quest line. The Quest 2 (review) is more affordable and sells more headsets while the Quest Pro (review) has a higher price point and offers a better experience.
Meta plans two product lines for 2027: "Innovation" includes highly sophisticated AR headsets, such as those capable of projecting high-quality holograms of avatars into physical space. "Scale" presents a less expensive version. The glasses take input from neural signals in the wrist, either through a wristband or a smartwatch.
Will AR ads be accepted in the field of view?
Success also depends on the type and aggressiveness of the advertising. Unlike VR headsets, AR glasses are meant to be part of users' everyday lives in the long term and to be worn all the time. The willingness of many people to use such technology could be greatly reduced by permanent advertising in their field of vision.
However, the technology and the advertising also offer useful aspects - if used sensibly. For example, when buying a product in a store, suitable accessories could be displayed on request. In any case, Meta sees "huge business" in this area, the likes of which we have never seen before, even with smartphones.
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