The State of VR + AR

Part I: Virtual Wasteland

It’s been 24 months since the business community really started paying attention to the great new hope that was 360°, VR and AR.  

As we have watched these experiences developed and brought to market, our hopes have slowly waned. 360°, VR and AR experiences to date all seem flat and more about sizzle and less about spark.  They demonstrate no true understanding of how the user is to be engaged and totally miss the part about an “experience”.

But there is real hope, yet.  

That hope comes in the form of thought leaders that understand how to create content that is custom made to engage, immerse and enthrall audiences – IN OTHER WORDS, A TRUE USER “EXPERIENCE”.  So far, it’s fallen well short of this.   

We are in the midst of one of the most powerful platform evolutions since the advent of TV and the Smartphone, and we can’t afford to mess it up.  The industry needs to transition and redefine itself.  We have time, as this is not a sprint.

There is so much to cover regarding the current (and disappointing) state of the industry, that we will need several articles to cut through and clarify.

Let’s start with the hardware companies who have forgotten that Content is King as many had intimated 18 months ago.  Of course, why would these hardware companies need to worry about content anyhow? They ARE selling hardware after all and as such, why should content really matter to them? Problem is they are trying to sell VR hardware in the same vein as selling a TV set. Hard to do without content.

As many of you have all seen by now, practically all the hardware companies promote the emotional connection that one experiences through VR, but on balance, and in reality, there is limited to no content to show the audience…. It’s all just a promise that VR will make you feel good.  But, It’s not their fault. That said, you can’t expect consumers to go out and buy their hardware because they saw an ad showing people being entertained with a headset.  No content to speak of…just people having fun with a VR device.   

Please note, you can’t sell hardware without compelling content – and in our judgement and experience, this monumental failure rests on the shoulders of the content creators.  

But before we move on from this, is it remotely possible for an industry to make accessing VR content any more difficult?  If you have tried to use the VR stores and tried to access and manage your VR content on your phone, it’s a User Experience nightmare.  Truly, this is where you wish Apple had led the way.  They at least understand UX and design.  The VR content stores are a mess, and the content, itself, far from exciting.

Back to the hardware companies, and it is a shame that these companies aren’t more in the business of supplying some high-quality content in much the same manner that Amazon and Netflix produces movies and TV series, and how Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft all produce games for their platforms. Content will always be King and exclusive content will help drive their platform.

Most third-party production folks are only serving consumers’ lackluster engagement. We are faced with so many disappointments for an industry that had, and still has, so much potential.  Done right, 360° and VR are the most emotive, engaging and compelling experiences.  All research affirms this. The potential for these powerful tools also extends beyond selling product, services and entertainment.  It has the utility to extend to education, medical and training fields as well.  And, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

We would not be doing this series justice if we didn’t cover the costs of these experiences and how brands are being fleeced on production costs. 360° video and VR are the shiny new objects and there are some that are taking advantage of that.  In this case, greed is not good.  

The relative new-comer - AR has enormous utility and can single handedly change the face of retail, if only our retail partners understood it. We look at some executions and we shake our heads at what could have been.   I promise not to make any Pokemon references in this series.  

Part II: 360° Videos Skewered

I’ve addressed the overarching challenges and opportunities within the VR and AR space with attention given to the need for a content forward strategy. Now I will talk more about content relative to the individual platforms and how to grab attention, engagement and drive the user experience.

As content has grown increasingly abundant and immediately available, sustained attention is the most crucial factor in the consumption of information and it is that which poses the greatest brand challenge in our estimation. 

Marketers face the challenge of making an impression in this new attention economy. 

Consumers are on the verge of experiencing content as they never have before through VR and AR and as we teed up in Part I, to retain and sustain these users requires a compelling experience and enriched content that is specifically created with those platforms and their usage in mind.

Let’s unpack virtual reality and discuss the what, how and could be’s of this media channel. In particular, I want to delve deeper into how video is used (or misused) inasmuch as marketers tend to port 2D into what is a 3D space and miss all of the true engagement and interactive opportunity that IS the promise of Virtual Reality.

360° VIDEO

Let’s begin with what is currently labeled as 360° video. I will start with 360° video because that seems to be the most common, and in fact, usually the first VR-like experience to which consumers are introduced – commonly experienced via a VR headset.

Watching a passive video through a head mounted display (HMD) is NOT a virtual reality experience and, as such, should not be confused or labeled as VR. There is nothing virtual about what they are experiencing today…well, not yet. No secret here, passivity is not the hallmark of an immersive and true VR experience.

Not to condemn 360° video, it is a far more powerful tool than TV and certainly greater than any social ads you may be placing – so please don’t discount its effectiveness in selling your brand or service. 

And here’s another thought…whoever said it needs to be passive? This is where the lack of understanding about this platform lies. It’s all a matter of the right production values to ensure this adolescent form will be effective for you.

Today, you see many live events and tours all available in 360° video, BUT, why is the ground not reverberating with excitement and the uptake on VR headsets lagging all previous projections?  Simply stated, for the most part, the experiences are poorly executed. They lack vital interactivity. User Experience is paramount.

Let’s face it, most of today’s 360° content is flat, boring and missing the engagement and interactive value of what a true “virtual experience” should be. 

Today, production companies are taking the same content values that you would otherwise be watching on a television screen and ineffectively “porting” that so-called experience to virtual reality devices.

If we examine the gaming industry for a moment, porting video games from gaming devices to PCs and mobile simply did not work. It’s a different user experience based upon the device itself.  In order to be successful, any experience needs to be tailored to the device to exact the maximum user experience for each platform. The same holds true for authentic VR and 360° content.

The consumer using a VR headset is shut off from the world. Their time commitment is necessarily short as a result of that.  Why would we assume that millennials, who get the jitters if they don’t check their phone on average 157 times per day, really want 360° live or streamed experiences that last an hour or so?

If we are going to ask consumers to put on a VR headset and shut themselves off from their phone, their family and society, then we had better be giving them an incredible experience that makes isolating them from the world all worth their time.

360° live and streamed events seem to be getting a lot of attention and we note that some think it’s about putting a camera in the audience or on a stage and seating the consumer in the audience, and “Voila!” After all, it’s shot in 360°, so build it and they shall come. NO.  

We should not expect consumers to be turning back and forth or side to side when all of the real action in that experience is “really” happening on “stage” and “on the court” in front of them?  Oh, and by the way, if you have the 360° camera chasing a ball or swirling above audiences you better bring along a big bucket to catch the contents of the viewer’s last meal.

So, here’s an unabashed plug…Hourglass has a solution for all of this. It’s not just how you think virtually, it’s how you execute the perfect experience for your brand or content within the context of the user experience.

Let’s get back to the core dilemma of how marketers need to rethink 360° video while considering user experience….

Here are Five Simple VR Rules:

1. Focus on short-burst session times

2. Film for platform specific experiences

3. Make it Interactive and Actionable

4. Where possible, introduce elements they can never experience in the real world

5. Have a purpose beyond utilizing a shiny new object.

We address session time by creating 360° engagements that are short and compelling, leaving audiences wanting more. Now, some live events require long times, so we have a way to account for that.

We address platform relevancy by giving the audience a reason to want 360° and bringing to life 360° video content that is actually interactive through user interfaces that allow the consumer to get far more than a passive lean back performance.

At Hourglass, we feel strongly about delivering interactive 360° content and experiences. This is how you deliver engagement.

I believe strongly that 360° video has a chance to allow brand marketers to create compelling and engaging campaigns and experiences that will leave audiences in awe – those “WOW” moments. 

And make no mistake, VR is more than a shiny new object…it’s the chance to engage your audience like never before and allow them to discover the depths of your brand or services.  And more importantly, VR executed properly, can be something users want to share with friends and family members. – turning the solitary experience into something shared.

Going beyond 360° video, and looking at true VR, it is important to remember, that when a user puts on a VR headset, they are seeking an experience that escapes reality. This has always been the premise of VR: the experience is not about shutting off and being shown something they could very well have seen on TV but now in a 360° video format. It’s not good enough for live events and it’s certainly not good enough for your brand.  But we will talk about true Virtual Reality in the last instalment of this series.

Consider this: While some users may want to escape reality, most really want to be entertained and enthralled. They want to see what they cannot see in the real world – to have a unique experience maybe even better than they would get at a live event.  We need to take them away…give them experiences they will not forget…and not simply be a proxy for the real world.

VR should allow users to do and experience the things that they simply could or would not do in real life. VR is about going beyond reality and delivering surreal and awe-inspiring impact. If you have fun with this platform your audience will as well, and they shall be grateful.

Make it interactive and engaging. Make it immersive and “social” and press the envelope to deliver fantastical 360° content that makes your customers want more. That’s what we are doing for our clients.

In thinking about my old industry, beauty and fashion – there are so many opportunities to engage consumers, which brands are simply missing out on. And this extends not just to consumers, but to B2B too.

I recall at one of the large cosmetic companies I worked at, we spent millions of dollars a year training stylists and store personnel on the newest color selections, hairstyles and looks. We could now save tens of millions of dollars a year by simply implementing easy to use VR solutions that transform the manner their products are represented by the people they depend upon for a sale.

This goes for Health Management, Real Estate, Education, Automotive, DIY, and Retail as well – all of which can utilize interactive 360° in an omni-channel approach. We are not just talking linear video…we are talking about fully interactive experiences that can be used on any mobile device, with or without a VR headset.

The current assumption by marketers is that for true VR content, a consumer needs to have a clunky head-mounted display – which couldn’t be further from the truth. While the head mounted display fully immerses a user, it also shuts them off from the world forcing them to be quite immobile.  Rather, anyone can use and view this content on the billions of smart phones that exist in the world today. You see, 360° video can be experienced on your mobile phone – through it’s browser or as a native app you download. Consumers can also view it through mobile VR viewers that attach to their phones.

Marketers trying to dodge the applicability of VR due to the installed base, are seriously missing the opportunities. The installed base is actually the billions of consumers who have a smartphone. The only folks that need to worry about the “install base” are the hardware manufacturers that are building and selling traditional VR devices. 

Possibly the strangest viewpoint I’ve ever heard by a brand was that they didn’t see the need to promote on VR or use it as a tool because they weren’t selling VR products. Hmm. Not even sure how to respond to that. So, you shouldn’t use TV as a marketing channel because are you not selling TVs or film content? You shouldn’t use Social because your product is not a social tool? What does that even mean? Everyone should be looking at ways to use this versatile, mobile platform.

We know that this medium is the most engaging channel we could ever wish for, void of all distractions to the consumer. No multitasking, no ad-blocking, no fast-forwarding, no blind post.

Another sad truth is that most brand marketers still believe that consumers need to be tethered to some device to deliver great experiences. Not correct. What we can do with 360° video and VR is powerful stuff and your brand and your business will be left behind without a comprehensive mobile strategy. Yes – all this can be done on a mobile device - that same device your consumers are engaging with every day.

And one last point, the misconception about the high cost to produce quality, engaging 360° video experiences….it just isn’t so. I find that the smoke and mirrors around what is really a typical post-production editing process has led to price gouging simply because buyers don’t know what’s happening behind the curtain.

As experts in this space, my team at Hourglass Technologies has the know-how to deliver at surprisingly low cost, without hidden charges and margins. If you are paying more for 360° video than you are for typical HD then you need to call us. And if you are still thinking about producing passive 360° video, then you REALLY need to call us, because you need to make it interactive.

Now, let’s turn to Augmented Reality---which, in our estimation, is the most exciting (and accessible) platform available today!

Part III - AR Exposed

Next up, I want to discuss Augmented Reality, which when executed right, is the most powerful tool that most brand marketers and retailers are NOT using today. And if they are, we are seeing executions that are un-intentionally poorly executed.

First, this technology is not new, in fact the Hourglass team created our first AR campaign way back in 2013. Of course, the technology and our smartphones, are ever much more powerful today.

Consider this piece is really an open letter to all brands and retailers to take note of this platform. Advertising may drive your consumer to retail, but AR is the way to convert and close the sale when they get to the shelves. And nothing we know of can sway or change the consumer’s perceptions or decisions, as powerfully as AR when used to make purchase decisions at home.

We have been working with everyone from grocery chains and sporting retailers to electronics and our key message is this: If you target Gen Y’s or Millennials, and if your organization does not have an AR action plan for 2018, be prepared to be leap frogged at retail – both online and in-store.  Don’t wait to read about it in some trade journal. The smart money is pursuing action at the point of sale, so don’t underestimate the level or disruption that AR will create.

Of course, AR is being used beyond just consumer retail. We are working with clients in areas as disparate as Real Estate, DIY and Beauty to harness the power of these technologies.   So, let’s learn more…

By definition, Augmented Reality, or AR, is quite simply the use of digital content overlaid on the real world, as seen through your smartphone’s camera.

AR is an incredibly powerful tool that is rarely understood nor yet implemented effectively by brand marketers. Most are missing out on the new “gold rush”.

AR provides brands with enormous advantages…beyond engagement and product selection, as it can help you stand out on cluttered retail shelves or product filled pages. At its best AR engages audiences, helps them discover important product values and, of course, drives a purchase. Tied in with delivering a coupon, selecting the right product, or the right shade...Sold. 

If you already have an App, you don’t need a NEW one…you can integrate an AR component into your existing app, if your development team is up to speed on the technology and knows anything about user experience. Michael Lapinski, our Chief Technical Strategist, spent over 7 years at the MIT Media Lab working on Human Interaction and over 3 years at Samsung defining their next-gen UX. He knows what he’s doing.  Without this type of team experience you probably shouldn’t experiment and risk alienating your consumer – always go with a team that knows the best practices.

We can even gamify the experience - and if you think that gamification doesn’t make sense for your product or your consumer, think again. There is a reason why 80% of app downloads are social games.  Your audience is experiencing gamification every day. Our team is even gamifying the art of charity – yes charity – through an exciting new app, called Passport2Good, which launches in January 2018.  

So, from our perspective, you can gamify literally everything. Think of gamification as the manner in which to engage your consumer and get them more immersed with your app and your product. And NO, gamification doesn’t mean they are playing games.  It’s the application of the principals of retention and conversion that we use every day in casual games, applied to your app and your product.

Okay, now let’s look at ways in which you can implement Augmented Reality in different verticals. I’m happy to give away ideas as long as they are put to good use and our fellow marketers are being smart with their strategy and their dollars. Some brand marketers are so busy trying to gain followers on social media, that many of them have lost site of the real challenge – engaging your audience, driving conversions and growing your revenues.  Oh, and if your thing is social…do you realize that all our AR solutions have social and peer-to-peer components? They have to.  We all know that user to user word of mouth and recommendations are some of the most powerful influencers…and it’s the way you chase those review scores in market places like Amazon….so if you want to drive engagement, peer to peer self-marketing and rings at the register, may I highly recommend AR in your marketing mix.

Possible AR applications are almost endless and the industries we are applying AR solutions to and working with clients in, is broad, everything from consumer packaged goods, retail, real estate, trade shows, live events, e-commerce, fashion and beauty – and that’s just the short list!

Retail: Our retail friends should be using AR to engage consumers at the shelves to help with product selection, companion selling and deliver offers to fill that shopping cart. We see some retailers utilizing AR to help find items in a store…but seriously, that is effectively making what is already a destination item easier to find. Guess what, I can ask an assistant – it’s easier. AR is much more than a store map.

If you are selling high involvement items, use it as a means to deliver information and make the purchase decision easier.

We can utilize both geo as well as image recognition cues to deliver alerts to your consumer when they are in your store’s vicinity – can’t let them get away!  Retailers are going to get the most out of AR for certain.

At Home: At home, AR can be used to help consumers with DIY projects to cut out the trial and error. AR can literally change out any piece of hardware, floor, wall, appliance in your home and show you what the alternative product will look like. It’s a dream tool, but how many DIY brands and retailers are utilizing it effectively?  NONE.

Beauty: Beyond what can be done at the retail shelf to assist with color selection, AR can give your brand the competitive edge. Let’s be honest, nowadays product differentiation in the cosmetics arena is getting tougher.  To be able to up the ante at retail and at home with App/AR experiences that provide tailored and custom beauty solutions and suggestions for your consumer is invaluable. Yes, I’m being vague because you can’t expect us to give away every little idea we have?

Sporting Goods / Sport Apparel: AR can be utilized as a virtual mirror… Imagine looking down at your shoes and using your phone camera to scan and replace those shoes with other pairs, digitally. Hello – Foot Locker – is anyone out there? The most frustrating component about shopping shoes is the wide selection and the lack of fast and thorough assistance at store level.  So how about giving those sneakerheads a fun and interactive way to try new models?  You’re selling fun merchandise, how about making the consumer experience fun as well, rather than the frustration is today at retail?

Real Estate: This powerful tool can single handled change the manner in which buyers can experience the walk through of home, delivering pertinent and important information from every room in the house.  For example, from a “For Sale” sign we can create smart signs that allow passersby to scan the house – like they had an Xray device, from the street, without ever setting foot in the house.

Toy Industry: If you are engaging with tweens and teens, you HAVE GOT TO HAVE AN AR component to your strategy. You are selling a lifestyle and fun. The best way to sell to your audience is through interactive and compelling experiences that will engage and which have a social component to them. I hope the wheels are spinning.

AR offers tremendous new opportunities and the smart marketers will embrace it quickly to dominate their categories. That’s called vision, and complacency is the nemesis of vision. There is not a consumer category that cannot -and will not - be disrupted and challenged by these technologies. All studies out there show audiences across all demographics are eager to embrace AR. Everyone you market to has a smartphone. This bodes the question…is your brand ready? Or are you going to let complacency drive your brand strategy, and get left behind?

Part IV - Marketing Virtually Everything

This will be the final installment of our four-part series, covering VR and AR experiences. In this chapter, we shall discuss the power of Virtual Reality (VR) and Mixed Reality (MR)

I find many debates and discussions about VR vs. MR, but none of it really matters. Both VR and MR are powerful audience immersion tools. 

Virtual Reality primarily references computer-simulated reality which replicates the real world, with full interactivity.  For practical sense, it’s like creating a CGI version of a retail store and allowing the consumer to interact with products and do so much more than they ever could in the real world. It’s truly powerful stuff.  

Mixed Reality is, per its name, a combination of real world settings and digital overlays – a similar concept to what we discussed in AR.  It’s digital and real-world content interacting to bring your audience amazing interactive experiences.

But don’t concern yourself with the technology or definitions, but rather first think through your goals and then we consider the user experience and the right execution to bring your brand or content to the forefront.

Through VR/MR you have the greatest opportunity to engage and immerse your consumer or audience. I’ll throw this out there…every sporting or live event should be made available in a VR/MR format--not the passive 360° manner in which it is currently (for the most part) delivered.   Passive 360° is, in my estimation, a big format mistake that will not engage audiences in the manner intended by content producers.

As I discussed in the second article of this series, wherein I skewered 360o video, let’s start this instalment with three very important takeaways.

1.  VR does not mean the audience is tied to a Head Mounted Display (VR Viewer).  If you recall, audiences can view and experience VR content right on their smartphones. They can turn their heads around, look up and down and view the full 360o content.

2.  VR is not expensive.  High production cost is perhaps the greatest misconception in the market today.   If we can produce a VR game for hundreds of thousands of dollars, then it stands to reason that most VR solutions are about the same price. Video gaming uses the same technologies for production, and in fact many VR producers are using video game engines.  A marketer can certainly spend more on shooting a TV commercial than building a VR solution for any brand or service.

3.  VR, in my estimation, is the most effective marketing platform available, hands down versus any existing marketing tool. No platform, no marketing channel in existence today can immerse and engage your consumer better and more effectively than VR. Just execute it right.

With all the enormous challenges faced by marketers and content owners to win the attention of their audiences by attempting use of VR (and AR for that matter), few are using these platforms effectively.   Marketers are attending the many VR conferences that seem to be occurring almost monthly across the nation, and are walking away more confused than ever. The industry has done a poor job in marketing itself and in marketing the value of these powerful technologies to brands and content owners, everywhere.

So let’s cut through all the clutter and focus on the important facts and how you may be missing on a powerful engagement tool.

VR and Mixed Reality Made Practical

In the second article in this series, I highlighted the five must have elements for effective 360° Video that every marketer or content owner needs to consider when thinking about whilst creating engaging and interactive experiences.  For VR/MR we take a different type of approach to ensure optimized experiences.

Here are the Five Simple Effective VR Rules:

1. Focus on short-burst session times – even if you have 2-hour game, there are ways in which we can ensure the audience does not get fatigue. Contact me at Hourglass Interactive to learn more.

2. Make your content interactive, where the audience has a level of engagement.

3. Where possible, make it Social. Yes – VR can be social and we can build it into any experience.

4. Where possible, introduce elements they can never experience in the real world – this is especially critical for live-events – sporting and concerts.  

5. Provide utility within the experience that the user cannot live without. Don't take a shiny new object approach.

I’m going to reiterate, - you don’t need a head mounted display to experience VR content.  While the head mounted display fully immerses a user, it shuts them off from the world causing them to be quite immobile.  Rather, anyone can use and view this content on the billions of smart phones that exist in the world today

If you are targeting Millennials or Gen Y’s, and mobile is an important part of your strategy, then you must consider using VR/MR to engage your audience. This point is critical to ensure relevancy and engagement in today’s communication landscape.  

Nielsen has published data on the recall, engagement and purchase affinity associated with VR campaigns. According to most all measures, VR has the ability to engage and increase all metrics substantially. Small wonder! It is our contention that there’d be no debate about the effectiveness of a medium that has an audience completely captured, engaged – completely captive -- so to speak.

VR/MR have powerful emotional resonance with consumers, who are left with overwhelmingly positive and emotionally charged feelings. But execution is key – the same platform that can elicit such strong positive emotions can also trigger alienation if not done correctly.