Tag: vr

Adtile Launches 360-Degree Video Ad Unit

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Adtile, an ad tech startup that focuses on incorporating smartphone sensor data into the mobile ad experience, announced a product called Adtile 360 that delivers 360-degree videos. The new ad product will allow brands to create 360-degree video ads that have adjustable viewpoints based on how the user is holding their device.  

What Brands Need To Do
With 360-degree video content quickly gaining momentum and mainstream platform support, virtual reality is primed to become the next frontier for ads. Unlike other emerging platforms, however, VR and 360-degree videos are not easy to produce, and the ad network infrastructure is still very much in its infancy. It is commendable that Adtile is pioneering a 360-degree video ad unit that early adopting brands can dip their toes into. For other brands, we suggest working with content creators to build up a library of branded VR content to engage with the audience.

 

Source: VentureBeat

How St. Giles Hotels Is Crowdsourcing 360-Degree Content From Its Guests

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
St. Giles Hotels is inviting its guests to help it create VR content by lending them 360-degree cameras to document their stays with. The hotel chain, which manages nine properties across multiple continents, is also launching a contest to find interested consumers around the world to contribute some 360-degree footage to add to its content library. This summer, thirty guests will be awarded with a free one-night stay, given a Samsung Gear 360 camera, and tasked with shooting 360-degree videos around the hotels and the cities they are located in. The final cut of the crowdsourced VR content will be incorporated into a digital and social campaign planned for September. The company is also making a mobile app to allow viewers to watch the content with Google Cardboard.

Why Brands Should Care
With more and more platforms supporting VR and 360 video content, branded VR content continues to gain traction among consumers as brands started working with content creators to produce engaging, immersive content. St. Giles Hotels is taking a different approach here, as it outsources the VR content creation to its guests in exchange for one night of free accommodation. It is a good way to drum up consumer interest and get some authentic material that truly reflects the customer experience. Brands looking to get in on the VR trend should consider taking a cue from St. Giles and devising a similar initiative.

 

Source: AdWeek

McDonald’s First 360-Degree Video Features Angry Birds

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
McDonald’s teamed up with Rovio, maker of the popular Angry Birds games, and Sony for a joint VR initiative to promote both the quick service restaurant chain and the newly released Angry Birds movie. Working with DDB Chicago, McDonald’s created a minute-long, 360-degree video that features Angry Birds characters flying around and interacting with customers in a virtual McDonald’s store. Previously, McDonald’s ventured into VR with an installation at SXSW earlier this year that invited people to virtually paint a Happy Meal box.

What Brands Need To Do
By leveraging the popularity of the Angry Birds franchise, McDonald’s found a clever angle to drum up interest for its first 360-degree video, which has racked up over 4.6 million views on YouTube so far. As more and more brands start to create branded VR content, consumers are bound to become desensitized to this type of content soon. Therefore, it is important to find an interesting hook for your VR and 360-degree video content that appeals to your target audience.

The Lab currently has three VR headsets—a HTC Vive and two Samsung Gear—ready for demo. Virtual reality is something that has to be experienced to be understood. So come by the Lab and get a VR demo to see just how engaging it can be, and understand why consumers would embrace VR content.

 

Source: AdWeek


Header image courtesy of McDonald’s YouTube video

Mountain Dew Debuts New VR Experience To Promote New Flavors

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Mountain Dew has unveiled a new virtual reality initiative as part of its “DEWcision 2016” campaign to promote two new flavors: Baja Blast and Pitch Black. Designed as a virtual racecar experience, the soft drink brand asks consumers to choose between two routes designed to correspond to the two new flavors as a way to gauge which is more popular. The company will set up a VR station at the JR Motorsports Fan Day in Mooresville, NC, and is distributing the content through Samsung’s Milk VR library, YouTube, and Facebook.

While this is Mountain Dew’s first VR experience for Oculus headsets, it is not the first time the soda brand has dived into virtual reality. Mountain Dew unveiled its first VR experience in 2014, which took viewers skateboarding through iconic spots in Las Vegas. Since then, it has experimented with several more VR and 360-degree video efforts to build up its branded content.

What Brands Need To Do
As more and more platforms start supporting VR and 360 video content, the mainstream audience is quickly gaining access to these types of immersive content, even if they don’t own a VR headset. For brands seeking to stay ahead of the digital curve, now is the time to take a cue from Mountain Dew to develop a library of branded VR content.

The Lab currently has four VR headsets — an Oculus Rift, an HTC Vive, and two Samsung Gear VRs — ready for demo. Virtual reality is something that has to be experienced to be understood. So come by the Lab and get a VR demo to see just how engaging it can be, and understand why consumers would be excited by this technology.

 

Source:  Digiday

eBay Opens A VR Shop That Lets You Shop With Your Eyes

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
eBay worked with Australian department store Myer to develop a virtual reality shop that allows users to shop with their eyes. Using a system called “Sight Search” that eBay developed, users can choose items by staring at them for a few seconds or add items to a shopping cart by staring at the “Add to Basket” button. eBay says it is also working on a payment solution that will allow customers to pay with their eye movements. The shop contains products sold through Myer, including 3D models for the top 100 items in each category, and it can be accessed through existing headsets such as Samsung Gear VR. eBay is also giving away 20,000 Google Cardboards it dubbed “Shopticals” to spread the word.

Why Brands Should Care
This new VR department store offers a glimpse of the future of ecommerce. To entice and attract shoppers with this type of innovative shopping experience, retailers and brands that sell directly to customers online may consider integrating VR technology into their online user experience.

 

Source: Engadget

Adobe Debuts New Tool To Put Ads And Product Placement In Virtual Reality

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Adobe is entering the world of virtual reality with new Adobe Primetime products. The company unveiled Virtual Cinema, a feature that will allow Primetime clients to develop customizable virtual environments for users to view traditional video content in. It aims to transport viewers into a cinema, a home theater, or a branded atmosphere, where product placement will also be possible.

Moreover, Adobe is adding a tool in Primetime that produces immersive videos that viewers can enjoy in 360 or 180 degrees with a Samsung Gear VR or Google Cardboard headset. Adobe is also enabling pre-roll, mid-roll, and post-roll ads for both 360 viewing and virtual cinema.

What Brands Need To Do
By introducing these tools, Adobe is opening the door for brand marketers to enter the virtual reality space. With the quickening pace of VR development and the increasing number of platforms supporting immersive video content, virtual reality is well-positioned to capture mainstream consumer attention soon. As the audience size for VR content continues to grow, brands need to be proactive in utilizing the new tools available to reach consumers in an engaging and immersive way.

Source: AdWeek

360-Degree Photos Are Coming To Your Facebook News Feed

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Facebook announced it will start rolling out support for 360-degree photos in the News Feed in the coming weeks and that they will turn panorama shots into a 360-degree interactive viewing experience. Users will be able to tilt their mobile devices or use a cursor to see the full view. If you happen to have a Gear VR headset around, you can also view 360-degree photos in a new section that Facebook added to the Oculus app.

What Brands Need To Do
Facebook started supporting 360-degree videos on its platform in September, and now it is charging ahead with photos as well. This move should introduce 360-degree photos to more of its 1.6 billion global users and help accelerate the mainstream adoption of the format. Therefore, brands should also proactively embrace this immersive format and work with content creators to develop this type of content to engage their social followers.

 

Source: Engadget

Publishers Bullish On VR And 360-Degree Videos At NewFronts

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Another year, another round of NewFronts where digital publishers tout their viewership numbers and hawk their video ad products. This year, a number of publishers seem to be quite bullish on virtual reality tech, choosing 360-degree video as a main selling point to attract advertisers. Refinery29, for example, plans to develop a weekly immersive video series on topics like music, sports, and travel starting this June via its new VR production arm VR29 Studios. The New York Times plans to double down on its VR commitment by shipping 300,000 more Google Cardboard headsets to its subscribers this year so that more readers can experience the NYT VR app it launched last year. Similarly, AOL and PopSugar are also among publishers that are incorporating immersive video content into their pitches at this year’s NewFronts.

What Brands Need To Do
As more publishers start to produce VR and 360-degree video content, it offers brands more opportunities to work with them to create new types of branded content. The New York Times, for example, has created half a dozen VR videos for brands like BMW Mini and Tag Heuer, and the publisher says some of those branded VR videos have been more successful than the non-branded VR content that it produced. As VR and 360-degree content continues to gain traction among consumers and publishers, brands have more options in choosing the publishers whose audience best matches with theirs to create immersive video experiences to engage with consumers.

 

Source: AdAge & AdWeek

Sony’s Crackle To Develop Ad-Supported VR Content

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Sony’s free, ad-supported OTT content service Crackle is launching a VR initiative to gain an edge over the other streaming services. According to Sony, it is planning to launch a virtual theater experience and will offer sponsorship opportunities in VR to advertisers. Crackle’s first VR content will be a special from its animated comedy “SuperMansion.” The VR content will be available on PlayStation VR, Samsung Gear VR, Google Cardboard, and viewable as 360-degree videos on smartphones.

What Brands Need To Do
With more and more content creators starting to create VR and 360-degree content, brands are gaining opportunities to create immersive branded content to capture consumer attention and engage their audiences with. Although virtual reality may still be a few years away from mass adoption (as we predicted in the 2020 section in our Outlook 2016), brands would be smart to start working with content creators and platforms like Crackle to develop their own branded VR content today.

 

Source: Variety

More Media Companies Invest In VR And AR Tech

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
As virtual reality and augmented reality technology quickly advance, a number of established media companies are jumping on the bandwagon and trying their hands at creating immersive content and integrating it into their media and ad products.

On Tuesday, HBO and Discovery Communications announced that they have taken equity stakes in OTOY, an L.A.-based startup that specializes in 3D graphics. The two companies plan to work with OTOY to develop and distribute original holographic content across their media properties, including TV, mobile, and even virtual reality devices. In fact, OTOY has already started working with Jon Stewart to create short-form content for HBO Now, the standalone OTT subscription service HBO launched last year.

Similarly, AOL announced earlier today it is acquiring virtual reality and 360-degree video startup RYOT for an undisclosed amount. RYOT will form a new VR content unit under AOL’s The Huffington Post and will also work with other AOL-owned publications such as TechCrunch, Engadget, and Autoblog to create branded content for AOL’s ad clients.

What Brands Need To Do
With more and more media owners starting to invest in VR and AR and honing their skills in producing immersive content, they offer brands more opportunities to create new types of branded content to engage their audiences with. Although virtual reality may still be a few years away from mass adoption (as we predicted in the 2020 section in our Outlook 2016), brands looking to stay ahead of the innovation curve would be smart to start developing their own branded VR content today.

 

Source: WSJ and Variety