Top 10 Virtual Reality Campaigns 2015

Call it ���The Year of Living Virtually.���

In 2015, virtual reality slowly began its emergence from Gartner���s ���trough of disillusionment��� after early hype���embodied by names like Second Life, There and Vivacity���proved to be too much, too soon for many users and brand marketers alike.

Today, other names, like Oculus Rift and Google Cardboard, have driven a whole new wave of 360-degree experiences that do more justice to both ���virtual��� and ���reality������with immersive, photo-realistic or full-motion video environments that are famous for throwing off equilibrium. Indeed, so far tending to be less like a first-person videogame, and more like a wrap-around-movie, VR can be an out-of-body experience as users' brains try to make sense of the virtual verisimilitude.

But once they do: WOW���to the point that investment bank Piper Jaffray predicts the market for VR content could top $5.4 billion by 2025. And brands have taken notice of all the buzz in a very big way.

While VR���s cousin AR (augmented reality) has seemed to momentarily lose a little altitude in recent campaigns, virtual reality marketing is ascendant���and accelerating.

Not that it has all been pure magic. But it���s been ���magic enough��� to point to promising things in the year ahead.

For now, some outstanding initiatives from what has been a very big year for VR.

GEN WOW AWARDS: TOP 10 VIRTUAL REALITY CAMPAIGNS 2015

 

10. OCEAN SPRAY: 'THE MOST BEAUTIFUL HARVEST'

Ever wanted to experience a cranberry harvest up close? Me neither. But the bright red spectacle of flooded cranberry bogs is a breathtaking, if rarely seen, event. Enter: Ocean Spray���s ���Most Beautiful Harvest.��� It���s online for now, and apparently optimized for Oculus headsets. But still worth checking out.

9. DIOR: DIOR EYES

 

The House of Dior goes high tech with a virtual reality experience���provided through, one must note, a Dior-branded VR headset���that drops you into the backstage world of a runway show. Of course, the thought of fashionistas wearing geeky headsets is fun in and of itself.

8. MINI USA: 'BACKWATER' & 'REAL MEMORIES'

 

MINI USA is big on short online films featuring its cars, so it made since that the brand would be among the first to take 360-degree video for a test drive. Two such films, ���Backwater��� and ���Real Memories��� are definitely worth a gander. For whatever reason, I and a few other people I know found the video slightly out of focus, requiring that I pull the viewer away from my eyes. More importantly, while the 360-degree view was more immersive than standard video, IMHO it doesn't add much to the proceedings. On balance, however, this is a noteworthy effort that could mean great things ahead���as does a new 360-degree trailer (released today, but specifically made for the new Samsung Gear VR headset that launched today) for the upcoming VR companion to 20th Century Fox���s hit film, ���The Martian.���

 7. NEW YORK TIMES: VR CAMPAIGN

 

MINI USA released ���Backwater��� as part of an ambitious VR promotion from the New York Times. The campaign was part of an effort to launch a new series of virtual reality news videos that have included an 11-minute documentary called ���The Displaced,��� about the global refugee crisis, and a VR film released earlier today on vigils in Paris in the wake of last week���s terrorist attacks. My favorite: A behind-the-scenes look at the making of a New York Times Magazine cover. In a way, this campaign has done more than any other to push VR into the mainstream. How? By sending more than 1 million Cardboard VR viewers to subscribers. Respect���and a heartfelt "thank you"���to The New York Times.

6. PATRON: 'ART OF PATRON'

 

Hell, Patron is more likely to have many of us seeing double, let alone bothering to futz around with VR goggles at the same time. Throw in a bee���s eye, 360-degree camera view, and this is an immersive experience that is perhaps better enjoyed before the imbibing begins. But worth it, all the same.

5. TARGET: 'THE HOUSE ON HALLOW HILL'

 

The idea behind this VR experience (along with Target���s ���Ghoulish Graveyard and ���Candy Carnival���) had me thinking a lot about ���Hotel 626,��� that super-creepy online game from Doritos' Snack Strong Productions several years back. In my second book, THE ON-DEMAND BRAND, I talk about how this photo-realistic haunted house came complete with hair-raising moments like finding your photo on a wall of victims (due to a photo slyly snapped at a surprising moment using your computer���s own camera) and mid-game calls to your mobile phone to truly freak you out. Target���s family-friendly, purely 360-degree video-based VR is nothing like that. But it still made me think about how gobsmackingly terrifying ���Hotel 626��� and its sequel ���Asylum 626��� could be in the VR age. Not that anyone���s hinting, Doritos.

4. MARRIOTT HOTELS: 'VIRTUAL POSTCARDS'

 

Marriott Hotels continued its "Traveling Teleporter��� initiative this year, with a VR booth that included "4D" elements���not just visuals, but heat, wind and mist. And it launched a new, cross-selling ���VR Postcards��� series that enables guest at the chain���s New York Times Square and London Park Lane locations to order up "VRoom Service" for a Marriott-branded headset that helps them ���visit��� Beijing, the Chilean Andes and more.

3. AT&T: 'IT CAN WAIT' DRIVING SIMULATION

 

AT&T has been getting a lot of buzz in recent weeks as one of the first advertisers to take advantage of Facebook���s new 360-degree advertising solution. Its entry put viewers behind the wheel of up-and-coming race car driver Ben Albano. But I liked this moderated, public service-oriented VR experience, which showcases the potentially deadly consequences of even glancing at your mobile phone while driving. A nice (or more accurately, chilling) complement to the campaigns��� immensely powerful ���Close to Home��� TV spot and its longer-form online video. 

2. VOLVO: 'VOLVO HOLOLENS' & 'VOLVO REALITY'

 

Okay, I'm cheating a bit on this one. Volvo just released this video promoting a cool new AR/VR initiative with Microsoft HoloLens to help sell more cars. But the far simpler Google Cardboard ���Volvo Reality��� experience (above) works at a more emotional level. Technically this came out late last year, but I first tried it out in early 2015 and it has remained one of our favorites throughout the year). In talking to Framestore, the company behind this experience, I learned that developers have discovered having some kind of set track versus full autonomy, and anchoring the user with a ���vehicle��� of some kind, helps the brain orient to the environment far more easily. If this app is any indication, they couldn���t be more right. A virtual test drive that���s virtually amazing.

1. QANTAS: 'VIRTUAL DESTINATIONS'

 

This is either instant justification for the VRevolution, or a sure sign of the Apocalypse. Perhaps a bit more intuitively than Marriott���s cross-selling effort, Qantas whets your appetite for exotic locales by planting you there in 360-degree splendor. My simultaneous wish and fear: Once companies start producing VR content like this that lasts not minutes but for hours on end, the human race may just opt out of the ���reality��� part of the equation all together���at least when they aren���t physically going to these amazing locales.

Which VR campaigns made your list? Which should we add to ours? Please share!

 

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