Facebook is working with real-world location markers to trigger AR experiences through their augmented reality camera feature.

Press start, player one

To coincide with the pending release of Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One, Facebook is testing a new feature to add tracker-based AR to their AR Studio tools.

The new camera feature is experimenting with one of Ready Player One’s film posters, activating a window overlay of the movie’s virtual world: Oasis.

According to Product Manager Matthew Simari, “AR will be in the world all around us. Rather than the ephemeral ‘capture and share’ sessions we see today, AR will sit in a hidden data layer that you access through your device.”

Phones today. Glasses tomorrow.

The appeal of AR as the future of marketing is simple, the location triggering the experience provides immediate context relevant to your surroundings. Very appealing to advertisers.

As always, Facebook’s push to AR ads offers a unique opportunity not yet available to it’s competition, like Snapchat, using similar tech.

With the evolution of augmented advertising, an invisible world of competitive promotions may begin to propagate the spaces around us. Whether this proves to be bombastic or awe-inspiring, we’ll just have to way a virtually see.

Have you had a chance to preview AR promotions? Where do you think the innovation can take us? Let us know in our comments below.