Virtual reality today
Most of you have probably heard of the term virtual reality (VR), but probably not a lot of you have actually experienced VR. That may soon change however, since VR is becoming more and more affordable, due to the increase in affordable computing power that the consumer can buy. A multitude of companies have also jumped at this opportunity to create VR headsets for consumers to dive into VR with. A good example is Facebook, who spent roughly $2 billion on making the oculus rift in March 2014 (eMarketer 2016). Some even say that the development of VR is similar to social media in 2008, before it became mainstream (Morris 2016).
The business of VR
Companies are obviously interested in VR, but what will they do with it you might ask yourself? For Facebook its very obvious, they try to make VR part of their platform by making users sign in to their Facebook account when using their VR headset. But Facebook is not the only company that is interested in VR. There are a lot of potential applications in marketing that include promotion, market research, online sales, customer service, brand management, and public relations (Barnes 2016). An example of using VR as a marketing tool can be seen in the video below where it is shown how Lowe, a do it yourself company, uses VR to sell more to customers.
The consumer experience in VR
The most appealing part of VR is that consumers can get the most realistic experience of a product, service or place without needing to be at the physical location (Barnes 2016). Companies can use this to their advantage by ensuring that they have some form of themselves in VR applications that consumers with a VR headset use. A good example of this was Virtual Market 3, a social convention in an application called VRChat [1]. Companies like Panasonic and 7-eleven made booths to show products and have consumer interaction in VR. This is a step in having advertisements in VR and conquering the virtual reality as a company.
By Bas van Zundert
References
Morris, C. (2016). Virtual reality and the new sales experience. Available from:
http://www.campaignlive.com/article/virtual-reality-new-sales-experience/1392253
eMarketer (2016). Virtual Reality Is an Immersive Medium for Marketers: Marketers should
start experimenting sooner rather than later. Available from:
http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Virtual-Reality-Immersive-MediumMarketers/1013526
Stuart, B. (2016). Understanding Virtual Reality in Marketing: Nature, Implications and Potential. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2909100
Hi Bas,
VR is indeed such an interesting topic. I think, just as you explained, we only scratched the surface with regards to Virtual Reality, which makes the future of this technology so exciting. The video you included, incorporated that perfectly. This only goed to show how widely applicable this innovation actually is. It’s nice to think this technology is knocking on the door of the private sector, so everyone can enjoy this wonderful technology.
Hi Stijn,
Thank you for your comment! I hope we can enjoy affordable VR technology sooner then later as well.