Virtual Reality (VR) in marketing and brand experience

Major brands such as Adidas, The North Face, and Coca-Cola are all engaging in creative campaigns where you can experience something exciting with the help of virtual reality-bril. This is largely what virtual reality is about; instead of passively watching something, you can actually experience it with a VR headset.

Adidas TERREX clothing campaign

This VR-campagne from Adidas was created based on the selection of their target audience. For the launch of a new outdoor kleding- and accessories line, Adidas wanted to give their customers, particularly the sporty outdoor types, an unforgettable experience. However, it is impossible to physically take everyone mountain climbing, so the campaign was designed in virtual reality. Using 360-graden camera footage of climbers Ben Rueck and Delaney Miller and a newly developed interactive 3D VR environment, people could now climb the mountain themselves with just a VR-bril. During this virtual climb, you encounter various points on the mountain where you can receive information. From handy climbing tips to real-life experiences of Ben Rueck and Delaney Miller, to new product information about the newly released Adidas-kleding.

This VR experience was played in more than 50 Adidas stores in 10 different cities in China for several weeks and was also available at various Adidas-evenementen (including in Germany).

Somewhere Else x Adidas: Delicatessen VR (2017)

Travelling inside a virtual fridge

This video from Boursin is now a bit older (2015), but it was one of the first 360 VR videos to uniquely market a product. In the video, you take a virtual journey through the fridge where you encounter various products. These products are all ingredients in Boursin, and you regularly come across a stray pack of Boursin herb cheese. The video is a very fun experience that everyone can enjoy for free. The video can be viewed on a relatively simple mobile VR headset. You just need to start the video on the YouTube app and then place your phone in a Google Cardboard or similar device.

This video was played at various food festivals in the UK. In a fun (and very accessible) way, visitors were able to experience this, and Boursin managed to create a cool experience with their brand in the spotlight.

Boursin® Sensorium 360 Virtual Reality Experience (2015)

Celebrating King's Day virtually

King's Day is, of course, one of the biggest and most well-known holidays in the Netherlands. But due to the corona-crisis, it unfortunately could not take place physically this year, 2020. Due to the 1.5 meter-maatregelen, no events were organised for a large part of the year, which is, of course, very disappointing for many people. Both visitors, organisers, and artists were very disappointed. However, VRROOM managed to develop something incredibly cool for this.

In 2020, the first virtual King's Day became a reality. The VR experience was developed in collaboration with several well-known brands (including Heineken, Unox, and DSQUARED). People who wanted to attend the festival could buy a ticket that allowed them to log into a virtual space. This space was a fully recreated square in Amsterdam, with Madame Tussauds and an orange windmill in the background. There were even tickets available for VIP areas, where you could get even closer to the artists (in VR)! All proceeds from these ticket sales also went to a good cause.

This VR experience was best enjoyed by users who had a VR-bril such as HTC Vive or Oculus Rift, but it could also be experienced without a VR-bril. During the virtual King's Day, there were various DJ livestreams that could be viewed on a computer or on your phone.

The virtual King's Day was eventually attended by more than 10,000 users and received international attention. It is a great example of how you can integrate virtual reality into "real" life and gain a lot of (media) attention!

Kingsday VR Festival Aftermovie (2020)

Training in virtual reality

You might not immediately think of it, but KLM is one of the most progressive companies in the field of virtual reality. The VR-afdeling of KLM is rapidly developing all kinds of cool virtual reality applications. One of the applications of VR at KLM is training employees.

One of these training sessions, for example, is operating the passenger bridge. KLM's development team has created a complete VR-simulatie where the user stands at Schiphol and has to operate the bridge. All the actions you would need to perform in real life are included in this simulation. At the end of the simulatie-training, you get an overview of which actions you did correctly and incorrectly, and what you can do better next time.

This way of training is not only fun for employees because they work with new techniques, but it is also very cost-effective. The advantage of virtual training is that you only need to simulate the virtual space once. For large projects - such as operating the passenger bridge, it is therefore much more efficient to do this in VR than in real life.

KLM Passenger Bridge Training in VR (2019)

Film trailers and campaigns in VR

One of the biggest advantages of virtual reality is that the experience is much more immersive. As a user, you are much more immersed in what you are watching. Instead of just looking at a screen, as you do with films, you experience the VR through the eyes of the character. In other words, you are in the film yourself! Films cleverly use this by incorporating VR-ervaringen into their campaigns when they release a new film.

A good example of a film-genre that lends itself very well to VR is horror. IT (by Stephen King) takes advantage of this particularly well with each new Chapter release. There is something very scary about being so close to the clown from IT without being able to turn your head away. Sure, you can close your eyes to avoid seeing the screen in front of you; but the fact that you have the headphones close to your ears remains very realistic (especially when VR-experience is used, for example, by having footsteps come from different directions).

Another particularly fun (and relatively simple) VR experience that is more aimed at children is "Elliot's Flyover" 360 Video Experience from the famous Walt Disney-film "Pete's Dragon". In this experience, you watch a 360-graden video where you sit on the back of a dragon. This experience is perfect for film campaigns because it is, of course, a dream come true for many children!

IT - FLOAT: A Cinematic VR Experience Trailer

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