Virtual Reality Marketing — The Future Trend For Marketers
Virtual reality (VR) creates new opportunities for the communication between customers and brands. In the past, the customer journey was limited by technology, switching between reality experience and online reading. However, VR technology breaks the wall of dimension by building a new world which contains elements from both reality and virtuality. The data from multiple dimensions provides a more comprehensive journey for customers. The emplementation of VR technology has become a significant trend in most brands’ marketing strategies. According to Maria Korolov’s article, 75% of top brands apply VR into their marketing projects. The implementation of VR is a consistent issue for marketers in their future marketing campaigns.
According to simon walker’s definition, “virtual reality: this is the generalized term for any type of experience that essentially places the user “in” another world or dimension. It may be used in reference to entirely digital worlds, or worlds that incorporate a mix of real and virtual.” Differing from augmented reality, VR focuses on how to connect people in the real world to a virtual world based on digital data. Compared to traditional media, It offers an immersive experience for customers, which generates an emotional impaction in the whole customer journey. Through the implementation of VR technology, marketers can provide a more engaging, interactive and personalized experience for customers. Many top brands have already implemented VR technology into their content strategies. For example, IKEA launched the virtual store for online customers, which gives an opportunity to explore room departments at any time. In the virtual world, customers can get the “real” experience of the look, feel, and fit of furniture by placing them into their houses.
Brands can use the tool of VR technology to develop their marketing campaign based on different marketing objectives. It can be used in game, video, film and shopping to provide a totally immersive experience for users. For instance, Adidas TERREX, the producer of outdoor gear who want to offer an immersive outdoor experience for its customers, built a VR campaign by creating a virtual reality tour to show the “real” experience of climbing a hard peak on the Bavella Mountain. The objective of this campaign is not showing products, rather providing an experience of climbing without the risk of injury.
One thing which must be mentioned is that the VR technology is just the tool and channel of marketing promotion, not the content. Although VR can provide an immersive experience to customers, it can not perform well without the attractive marketing content. In other words, VR technology only reformed the medium of marketing storytelling, but it did not change the content of the story. As a marketer, the most significant thing is to create attractive content, then implement the VR technology to provide an engaged, interactive and personalized customer experience.
The trend of implementing VR technology in marketing will stay in the long term because it represents the development and innovation of customer experience. Data also provides evidence for the growth of VR industry:
- It’s predicted that by 2022 the VR industry would have hit about $33.90 billion.
- By 2020, the predicted number of sold VR headsets will reach 82 million. The estimated number of VR users by 2018 is 171 million, up from only 200,000 in 2014.
- 62% of consumers say they would feel more engaged with a brand that sponsors a VR experience.
- 71% of consumers perceive a brand that uses virtual reality as forward-thinking.
To sum up, virtual reality marketing is an unstoppable trend, which gives marketers an opportunity to provide a more impressive user experience. However, marketers also need to pay attention to the content created for their marketing campaign. The combination of VR technology and attractive content is the key to build a successful marketing strategy.
