top3Tom Szirtes, founder of the immersive technology company Mbryonic, believes we are at a tipping point where immersive technologies will become the dominant mediums of the 21st century, which is why he left a successful career in the video games industry around 5 years ago to start his company.

Without doubt, Virtual & Augmented Reality (VR & AR) technologies increase user engagement and provide better ways for audiences to interact with products, services and brands. Or as Mybronic says, “turning passive observers into active contributors results in greater attention, deeper emotional connections and improved memory retention”, putting in a nutshell why VR & AR is already impacting sales, training, education, health and entertainment.

Mybronic’s article “How to Use Virtual Reality at Your Next Exhibition or Trade Show”, for instance, talks about the classic acronym AIDA in marketing – attention, interest, desire and action – which is the first thing that comes to your mind  when you want to stand out from the crowd. Well, that’s exactly what the VR game does, so let’s take a look at some successful VR & AR applications:

  • VR is popularly being used by the aviation industry and All Nippon Airways (ANA) joined the trend. To help market their 777-300ER cabins, Mbryonic worked with Acumen to create a virtual reality tour of ‘The Room’, ANA’s new business class cabin. It’s been rolled out at global launch events for press and industry in Tokyo and London, where attendees can virtually enter one of the largest business class seating environments in the world and experience the unique features and comfort of the cabin first-hand. Users wearing the headset find themselves in ANA’s futuristic holodeck in front of a 777 aircraft. They are then transported into the business class cabin where they were able to experience the new seat’s features focused around the themes of work, meals and relaxation. Headset-wearers can open and close cabin doors, order food, change lighting conditions and watch an inflight movie. Clearly, this is a very innovative and practical marketing tool for ANA, as not everyone can take a plane journey to experience the new cabin elements. Letting users experience features of the seating through VR is quick, effective and most importantly, memorable.
  • Samsung, in collaboration with NASA, created an immersive 4D lunar gravity VR experience to make the moon walk experience possible for everyone. Users step into a flight suit and harness whilst wearing a Gear VR headset. They then immerse themselves in a visual and physical experience that recreates a moon mission. Samsung’s design team and NASA’s Active Response Gravity Offload system (ARGOS) team worked to make this sensation as accurate as possible by mapping to the actual partial gravity experience of walking on the moon.
  • Oreo created a fun VR marketing campaign with support of the digital agency 360i. It takes curious confectioners on a whimsical journey through a ‘wonder vault’. After being transported through a life size Oreo cookie portal, you move into a magical land filled with milk rivers and the brands latest creation, Filled Cupcake flavored Oreos. Clearly the company is ahead of the marketing game, capturing audience’s attention with the fun graphics in this experience. We can expect that Oreo’s first foray into VR won’t be the last!


By MediaBUZZ