Marketers, should your next project be in VR?.... probably not.
Joe Millward
Innovation & Technology Strategist | Driving impactful change and delivering tangible business results for startups, scale-ups, and established organizations.
Virtual and Augmented Reality is the next hot medium for the technocrati.
SXSW was filled with Immersive Tech, trying to entice marketing and business development teams to invest into this medium to reclaim audience lost due to the social media slowdown.
Is this the cure-all for digital marketers in crisis ... In one word NO!
Immersive Technology is a complicated and technical medium, even VFX and gaming veterans find adapting to the new tech challenging.
There is still plenty of opportunity in web, video and social for smart marketers to gain real market penetration without jumping blindly into the new medium.
If you do want to experiment with AR/VR, consider a few things:
Cost - this ain't cheap - 3d Animation is expensive to begin with, add in interactivity in 360 degrees, you only balloon that cost. If you want quality ensure you have decent budget
Utility - whatever experience you develop should have a use which could only be delivered via an Immersive Technology, think about what this is.
Re-use - If possible ensure what you develop can be used across more than one medium and the assets you create are yours and be utilised for other projects.
It's an exciting time for Augmented and Virtual Reality, it's not mainstream yet, but the momentum is increasing.
Use the technology sparingly in marketing projects at the moment and it will give you experience to sprint when the public adopts the tech en-mass.