The promise of augmented reality (AR) has not matched the reality – novelty lenses, neglected ‘one-and-done’ apps and poor-quality executions – but with the advent of what some term the ‘Metaverse’, the gossamer skin between the real world and virtual may dissolve and AR will be the mechanism people use to unite those two estates, says Omnicom’s Phil Rowley.

Why it matters

If the 2000s were about the digitisation of existing traditional media, the 2020s will be about ‘virtualisation’, with objects, people, places and structures scanned and uploaded into a dimensionalised internet. In theory, at least, this means that marketers...