Key learnings in creating Virtual Reality
Key learnings in creating virtual reality content that delivers value to the audience
A renewed focus on Virtual Reality (VR) technology from Facebook and Google have catapulted VR into one of the hottest tech trends of 2016. With costs dropping rapidly and accessibility increasing, many organisations are looking to VR to drive audience engagement. There are common technical obstacles that need to be overcome, and it’s important to identify and remove barriers during the planning phase.
We recently had an event where we were delivering a VR campaign to over 300 attendees simultaneously. To overcome the cost and accessibility barrier we used #googlecardboard, allowing the user to turn their smartphone into a VR headset.
The idea of 300 people downloading an app on their smartphone was abhorrent, so we created a browser-based VR experience.
VR gives us the chance to experience something from the inside out rather than the outside in.
There is a delight in VR tech that can’t be replicated on any other medium. We’ve seen cardboard taken home, and tracked analytics to see if being shared with family, friends, and colleagues. Humans want to share experiences; something like cardboard allows them to.
Don’t lose sight of the purpose of the story by getting caught up in the technology — the wow factor will wear off eventually, and they will be left with an empty virtual rollercoaster unless we tell stories.
We can get lost in the tech and not think about how foreign it is to users. It’s important that participants understand what the objectives are, why you have chosen them why their story is important, how it will be viewed.
Because it is highly immersive, it provides an excellent opportunity to escape the noise. In a controlled environment, it’s personal, intimate and captivating.
As much thought needs to go into creating a safe physical environment for the audience to partake as the content they consume. If you want true immersion, then you need to eradicate the ‘real world’ obstacle
It’s a worthwhile investment if you have your audience advocating your content to their networks.
There’s no reason why the audience can’t be 100% connected to your content. This is where VR beats any other media and is, in fact, its USP. Unfortunately, There’s no frequency with VR as it’s a one-time experience. Therefore, you need to have collection channels implemented to be able to action the experience and emotion immediately. With TVC’s, FB ads, etc., it’s a pretty straightforward approach.
The more contact the audience has with your message, the more impact. With VR, it’s maximum effect in one hit you need to be able to action that emotion on the spot or ensure you have the user data required to facilitate frequency with ongoing ads.
