Advir And Yahoo! Aim To Monetise VR Through Unobtrusive Adverts

Advir have put together a Pledge that defines its commitment to unobtrusive VR advertising.

As published on VR Focus

Studies have shown that audiences are less keen to accept adverts inside virtual reality (VR) experiences, since such adverts can break the immersion that is such a vital part of the VR experience. In order to circumvent this, Advir and Yahoo! Have teamed up to create unobtrusive advertising suitable for VR and augmented reality (AR) content.

Advir have stated that the company is committed to creating adverts that are relevant and contextual so that adverts and product placement don’t destroy the vision of the developers.

“If we look back at the history of media, from newspaper, TV, the web and mobile, the first thing that we can see is that they all relied on advertising to become global scale media. It’s pretty clear that it’s not going to be any different for VR,” said Samuel Huber, CEO of Advir and founder of co-founder of the VR&AR Pledge. “This is why we created Advir. We see VR developers as ‘virtual real estate developers’ more than software developers because the worlds they create are canvases for future monetisation. However, Advir doesn’t position itself as an advertising company, but as a virtual reality estate company helping them selling inventory.”

Advir and Yahoo! have developed ‘Six Golden Rules’ as part of the pledge which promises commitment to unobtrusive advertising. Other companies that have joined the pledge have included VR analytics firm Retinad, UK antimatters Sliced Bread Animation and immersive media creators Eureka, representing a diverse slice of the VR industry.

Over 100 developers have already signed up for Advir’s Unity plug-in, which is still in its Beta testing phase. The company is hoping to release an Unreal plug in in the near future.