The art of marketing is essentially the art of storytelling. The basic goal of marketing, its raison d’être, is to tell a story that will create an emotion in order to influence an action. I strongly believe – as many around the world do – that virtual reality as a storytelling platform is the ultimate emotion creator.
There is simply no way, next to physically transporting someone into a real-life experience, to convey emotions and generate emotional responses the way VR enables us to. Take the old saying about a picture being worth a thousand words, combined with the 2014 Forrester Research study which asserts that one minute of video is worth 1.8 million words, and then add the immersive qualities unique to the VR experience. The combination of these elements makes up a powerful tool to tell and share your message.
In April, manufacturers, broadcasters, content creators and storytellers gathered at the National Association of Broadcasters Show in Las Vegas to discover the latest creation tools, as well as to be inspired by industry leaders during challenging talks, discussion panels and workshops. From journalism to cinema and live broadcasting, it was clear that 360VR is quickly being adopted as the next platform to tell the most compelling stories.
Virtual reality was front and center during the show, as was made evident by the first image seen by show attendees: a mobile VR headset. In my opinion, this is due to the broadcast potential of mobile VR. Thanks to microprocessing technology’s constant growth and advancements, the mainstream future of VR is rapidly evolving from a tethered experience to a mobile experience. Early this year, the GSMA predicted that there will be 5 billion mobile subscribers by this summer.
The numbers don’t lie: Samsung shipped nearly 5 million Gear VR headsets in 2016, while Google shipped more units of the Daydream View in two months than Oculus did throughout the year. The mobile VR platforms are coming into their own quite rapidly in order to supply the oncoming onslaught of content. Because out of all the VR headsets, 98% of them were for mobile VR.
Samsung is the current frontrunner of the content and manufacturer wars based on those sales numbers, the 600+ apps it boasts, and by having been out of the gate much sooner than Google. They have made the creation and sharing of 360° content easy and accessible (read: social) to all through their Gear 360 camera. The best-in-show camera is Samsung’s latest innovation, the first pro-level livestream-ready stereoscopic 360° camera. The Samsung 3D 360 will perfectly work with the new live stream platform, VR Pass Live.
That being said, Google’s strategy is not manufacturer/content-driven; Google wants its Daydream Platform/Operating System to be the backbone of VR. This was made evident via the Google I/O 2017 announcements: The updates coming via Daydream 2.0, that Samsung S8 will be part of the 11 Daydream-compatible smartphones by end of year, Google Seurat technology, and most important of all, Google WorldSense.
The proper tools make the result and there were lots of great tools for creators to peer at and try out at the NAB Show. As experienced storytellers, we were excited to see the latest and greatest solutions for 360° cinematography and VR.
And when it comes to solutions, we prefer Mettle. We’ve been using their products ever since the very first plugin and have never looked back. For over a decade, we have put all our trust in the G-Technology content storage solutions so it came with zero surprises when we found out that its products were being used by cloud storage services around the world. A proper stabilizer solution is crucial, and we tested a few. For “first-person” type of footage, the Feiyu Technology G360 is simple to use and does the job. This only works with smaller cameras for now, such as the Samsung Gear 360 camera. For larger-scale projects, where a camera the likes of Nokia OZO is going to be used, the remote-controlled Mantis 360° from Motion Impossible solution has worked great for us thanks to its fully modular build that allows you to use it in multiple ways.
A happy editor makes for better content. This is why we decided to scale down and simplify. The aforementioned G-Tech products allow for easy management of footage. Portability has become a huge factor for us so “all-in-one” solutions have taken over more traditional recording rigs. The H5 portable recorder from ZOOM has gone from backup to the main solution because of its ease of use and replaceable microphone capsules.
These are the types of solutions that you can depend on so that you can concentrate on the message to be delivered. When it comes to delivering messages, a multi-platform approach will always be preferred. Traditional video, television and movie formats are not going anywhere anytime soon. Just like the arrival of smartphones, virtual reality is not meant to “replace” any of these mediums, but rather add and enhance their multi-platform capabilities. The existence of one format does not signify the disappearance of another.
When a new platform for storytelling appears before us, we need to take notice and find the best ways to use it to tell our brand or product’s story. Virtual reality allows us to forge an emotional connection with our targeted audience like no other format, making VR the ultimate storytelling platform. Some have even referred to VR as the “last” platform (the only more immersive experience would entail getting plugged-in like Neo in The Matrix).
Mobile VR is where I urge marketers to focus their energy and budgets. Not only because it is where the industry giants, manufacturers and broadcasters seem to be directing their energies and budgets, but because it makes your virtual experiences available to a larger scale, enabling you to create a deeper relationship with your audience. This is something you can only get with VR, the ultimate storytelling platform.
