Vibrant Media – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

July 4, 2017

Advertising In VR and AR Still Faces Barriers

Advertising tends to be something of a controversial issue. Though companies, brands and advertising agencies are keen to tap into the virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality markets, there are still barriers to overcome before advertising on VR/ AR and 360-degree content becomes commonplace, according to research by Vibrant Media.

The study by Vibrant Media identified the plethora of software and apps that offer various types of VR and AR content as being one of the largest barriers towards getting consumers to view adverts in the AR and VR sphere, as users confusion was found to contribute towards not knowing where such content would be found. Also cited as a significant factor was concern over adverts using up mobile data allowance. With the rise of data caps, particularly in the USA, this was of significant concern to many users.

The study found that users were far more likely to engage with VR/AR advertising if it was presented in a familiar fashion, such as in a web browser, requiring specific apps to access certain content meant that content was only ever viewed by a small segment of consumers.

With regards to what type of advertising was preferred by consumers, the study showed that customers were much more likely to prefer content by holiday companies or TV and Cinema companies. In essence, adverts that came closest to delivering content, or that allowed consumers to ‘try before they buy’ were the ones most likely to receive widespread approval from consumers.

Vibrant Media also found that consumers tended to prefer 360-degree content that had been created by friends and family. The rise of affordable 360-degree cameras and editing software has clearly contributed significantly to this.

Craig Gooding, CEO and Founder of Vibrant Media said: “VR and AR creatives in both the content and advertising sectors need to learn these lessons quickly or both consumers and brands will miss out on the benefits of immersive digital content. The VR and AR ads that achieve optimum scale and impact are both app-free and accessory-free, and are distributed natively from within the trusted, contextually-relevant and brand safe content consumers access via mobile browsers.”

VRFocus will continue to bring you news of research into trends within the VR and AR industries.

May 10, 2017

Adverts Need to be Less Intrusive for VR Vibrant Media Study Finds

A new study by Vibrant Media suggests that introducing virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) to advertising may be the best way to improve viewer engagement and get the message across in a world where ad blocking software has become the norm for many users.

The study concluded that the vast majority of consumers all want the same thing – a reduction in the number of adverts that are irrelevant to them, and a wish that adverts be less intrusive. Some analysts have suggested that the line between advertising and content should become thinner, a conclusion that Jordan Edelson, founder and CEO or Appetizer Mobile, agrees with: “VR, AR, and 360-degree video formats provide a new level of interaction with advertising content that makes the experience more interesting to your average consumer, who is able to experience a larger dimension of immersion with these technologies. By using VR and AR, publishers and their advertisers can build native, shareable user experiences that will ultimately make ads much less intrusive.”

Helen Mussard, VP of global marketing for Vibrant Media says that the company carried out test campaigns using VR and 360-degree content that attained 600% more interaction rates that standard 2D video ads: “When consumers engage with VR ads via a mobile device, we’re achieving an 85% interaction rate compared to the industry average of only 2.5% for digital advertising as a whole,” says Mussard.

Analysts warn, however, that the VR ads need to be carefully targeted, and not freeze out any potential consumers by being platform exclusive as VR and 360-degree content is currently quite expensive to produce, and overspending in this area could be a mistake. Brad Phaisan, CEO of OmniVirt commented: “It is critically important that digital publishers understand the impact of investments they make in this immersive medium. We don’t think it makes sense for them to overinvest in VR or AR content production or build custom VR apps.”

VRFocus will continue to bring you news on VR industry studies and reports as it becomes available.

March 3, 2017

Vibrant 360°/VR From Vibrant Media Introduce ‘Insperience Marketing’

Vibrant Media are hoping to use the recent ‘Insperience’ trend to change passive consumers into active participants when it comes to marketing and branding using virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR)

Vibrant Media believes there is a strong demand for this. Their research team say that seven out of ten media planners and buyers want more AR and VR adverts incorporated into digital marketing campaigns. Half of the media agency executives surveyed expect the interactivity of VR and AR will reduce the use of ad-blocking.

Vibrant Media

Founder and Executive Chairman of Vibrant Media, Craig Gooding, had this to say; “Vibrant 360°/VR is the first product in our insperience range, as 360 degree VR technology is the fastest growing segment within digital media right now. We’re also seeing strong demand for VR products from media agencies. Our researchers also found that one in ten of planners and buyers have their own VR headset or viewer they can use to experience VR ads, and one in five of them are open to the possibility that VR will be better than the real world.”

“However, our follow-up to Vibrant 360°/VR is a new AR product we’ll be adding to our insperience offering very soon. Consumers merely observe brand experiences. Insperiences involve them. Insperiences go far beyond enabling consumers to control brands’ digital content. Using very accessible app-free AR and VR technology, insperiences place consumers and their real world lives within branded digital environments. Without the need for additional applications on their device insperiences enable consumers to see themselves within the brand, to become personally connected to and part of the brand.”

At VRFocus we’ve covered VR/AR adverts before and it is clearly an area in considerable development so we will likely be writing about it more in future. It remains to be seen how consumers and users will react.

As always, VRFocus will keep you up to date with developments.