Deluxe VR, a Los Angeles-based virtual reality (VR) production studio recently collaborated with General Electric (GE) on the new “GE Store”, a VR experience, which illustrates the various real-world ways in which GE’s various business units collaborate to solve problems.
The experience lets viewers select seemingly disparate GE business units -Healthcare, Oil & Gas, Energy Connection, Transportation, Digital, Renewable Energy, Global Research Center (GRC), or Aviation – letting them see the real-world ways in which they can work together.
The GE YouTube channel has five 360-degree video versions showcasing the GE Store: Transportation & Power, Healthcare + Oil and Gas, Digital & Renewable Energy and Global Research + Aviation. For example the video combining Healthcare with Oil and Gas transports users to the ocean floor to reveal how GE is using ultrasound technology to improve underwater crude oil pipelines.
Andy Goldberg, Chief Creative Officer of GE, said: “Conveying how the interconnectivity of GE technologies encourages the realization of bigger, more impactful outcomes was an ambitious, complex and somewhat abstract idea. VR was the best way to bring it to life, and the Deluxe team have been great partners in doing so. Within this VR experience, people are actively transported into different settings and can see the connections being made across our businesses. We wanted to push the technology beyond its usual boundaries, and Deluxe certainly helped us achieve that high quality execution.”
“GE has been consistently out in front of VR – they’re not afraid to go where other companies hesitate to engage,” said Malte Wagener, head of Deluxe VR. “It was fantastic to have the opportunity to work with Andy and his team. They understand what the medium can do and were really receptive to our designing an experience and visual language to tell the story of GE’s innovation.”
The GE store and the videos are just another example of companies outside of the videogame industry who are using immersive media as a way of promoting brands. For all the latest VR news from around the world, keep reading VRFocus.