Over the past several months, many companies that relied heavily on online advertising for revenue have seen profits drop as users are increasingly turned off by intrusive or outright malicious adverts. OmniVirt are proposing a potential solution in the form of 360-degree ads.
Advertising is a competitive business, with so many companies competing for the attention of consumers, anything that draws more attention to itself is bound to be of great interest to advertisers. OmniVirt has been offering an advertising platform for virtual reality and (VR) augmented reality (AR) experiences is promising just that with its report.
OmniVirt analysed over 700 million adverts served, and found that 360-degree photographs perform 300% better in enticing users to click-through than standard 2D images, with 360-degree VR videos getting a 46% list in video completion rate when compared to equivalent 2D videos.
The company also found that when presented with a 360-degree video, the majority of users, at 86%, would choose to interact with the video, offering a significantly higher level of user engagement, a metric that many advertisers are keen to improve. In addition, the report showed heat map coverage of user interaction, which showed that most users preferred to look straight ahead, and look up and left more often than they looked down or right.
OmniVirt say that the results mean that immersive media delivers better results for advertisers when compared to traditional 2D advertising formats, potentially offering a new frontier for advertising companies to explore.
The subject of advertising and monetisation in VR and AR is a thorny one. Online advertising in general has become something of a hot topic recently, with website adverts being hijacked to inject malicious code into PCs or used as a vector for ‘crypto-jacking’ where a user’s PU and GPU cycles can be used to mine cryptocurrency without their knowledge.
Despite this, it is clear that VR and AR will continue to need to find revenue streams, with 360-degree advertising offering one potential solution. VRFocus will be sure to bring you all the latest on adverts in VR and AR.
OmniVirt, 
“Post-Christmas growth in usage stabilized to 2x pre-Christmas engagement, according to OmniVirt’s analytics.” Says the company, adding that, “Experts predict faster growth over the course of 2018, especially with the upcoming launches of Oculus Go and Google’s standalone headset. But even amidst increasing usage growth, VR developers look to ensure sustainability by looking into methods to monetize their content, like in-app VR advertising. And rather than wait for next Christmas’ usage lift, it’s the gift that keeps on giving.”
Founder and CEO of OmniVirt Brad Phaisan explained: “Marketers and agencies alike have been creating 360° VR advertisements due to the promise this medium has for marketers to make an impact on their audience. In spite of marketers and agencies being extremely interested in VR, the biggest challenge for these marketers remains distribution and viewers.