Virgin Holidays Virtual Holidays
Boosting sales by allowing customers to ‘try before they buy’
Overview
A Virtual Reality (VR) experience in 50 Virgin Holidays stores around the UK which enabled customers to view destinations in 360 degrees. The biggest roll-out of VR in the UK at the time, it successfully kept customers in stores for longer and increased sales of the featured destination.
The Brief
To improve dwell time and conversion in store. When everybody has a powerful smartphone in their pocket, what can the store offer that is compelling to customers?
The Strategy
The done thing for travel agents was to provide tablets in stores to allow customers to browse destinations, with or without the assistance of in-store staff. This was overly simple, providing a web experience people could be doing in their own time, on their own devices. This may have brought a modern feel to stores initially, but it was now tired and basic. A Virtual Reality experience could bring some magic and uniqueness back to the store, and a reason to spend time there, either with sales staff, or whilst waiting. For travel, going from 2D to 3D, held genuine purpose and interest.
The Work
We produced 360-degree video content of a key destination for Virgin Holidays — the Riviera Maya in Mexico — to feature in VR headsets in stores in time for their Winter Sale. An app build was required to run the content, as well as headset design and instructions for store staff.
The Results
The 50 stores that featured the VR headsets saw 81% more sales for Riviera Maya compared to the 50 stores that did not.
Following this successful trial, the client asked us to do the same for Disney World, Florida. Virgin Holidays continue to use the VR headsets in stores.
The Client’s View
“The content wowed customers and had a phenomenal impact on sales and customer experience. The experience kept customers in the stores longer and we generated a significant rise in sales of holidays to Riviera Maya.”
— Sunna van Kampen, Virgin Holidays Trade Marketing Manager
The Awards
- Gold for Best Use of Technology — Global Festival of Media 2015
- Winner in four categories — Marketing On Mobile Awards 2015
The Press
My Role
- Strategy
- Ideation
- Creative development
- Production – working with a VR production company and App developers
- Customer Experience – working to shape this for store staff
My View
This new service for Virgin Holidays has shown the potential of becoming a mainstay for how they sell holidays to customers. A genuinely useful application of VR, it gives people a reason to spend time in store, and specifically a Virgin Holidays store. Testing this technology at an early stage was a bold move from the client and a fantastic opportunity for them to learn about the benefits and pitfuls of this platform. A great example of marketing being a testbed for innovation which could have a broader impact on the company.
