7 Ways VR in Digital Marketing Has Been Used Successfully by Worldwide Brands
The world’s biggest corporations in marketing and business are making the most of virtual reality, integrating it into their digital marketing campaigns and beyond. A powerful engagement tool, they allow consumers get up, close, and personal with their favourite brands.
The top 3 ways VR is used in digital marketing is to increase brand awareness, accelerate a purchasing process, and to offer a more personalized approach to a customer. To understand how VR can apply to your brand, here are 7 examples to draw inspiration from.
Lowe’s
Lowe’s set up a virtual reality initiative in some stores in what they called a ‘Holoroom’. Customers could come in and see what their house would look like a post-home improvement. You could select designs and products to visualize placement in a home. Similarly, IKEA recently launched their own VR app which placed furniture in your room and allowed a customer to see the look, feel, and fit.
McDonald’s
McDonald’s created a Happy Meal Box that folded into a VR headset, providing a simple, affordable way for kids to experience virtual reality. This simple fun tool encouraged children to partake in the tech revolution. As evidenced in this campaign, incorporating VR into marketing doesn’t need a huge investment.
Merrell
Merrell, a hiking shoe brand, launched an innovative hiking shoe with Trailscape – a 4-D multisensory hiking experience. The company used Oculus Rift to showcase tactile elements of walking on different surfaces. The film helped to cross-promote the brand’s outdoor gear.
The New York Times
The New York Times delivered Google cardboard VR glasses to their subscribers, encouraging them to use these to watch specific films. These were given as a reward for brand loyalty, while sharing educational, info-driven news-friendly film. The emotional intensity of the film made it so that consumers came to associate a similar engaging feeling with the newspaper.
Volvo
Volvo used VR – in one of the most impressive applications there is on this list – to test drive a vehicle. If you don’t have a dealership nearby, you could use VR to put yourself in a Volvo essentially downloading the experience to your smartphone. This put Volvo on the map for innovation, popularizing that sort of 360-degree landscape view which can be used in so many different ways.
The North Face
The North Face offered fans a VR experience in the form of giving them the opportunity to visit Yosemite National Park, Nepal, and other landmarks. Immersive and specialized, a person can explore, feel their way through an environment, and more.
Thomas Cook
This UK-based travel agency launched a VR digital marketing campaign allowing travel agents the chance to experience a trip in an initiative called ‘Try Before You Fly’. Although this didn’t set the world on fire, it does exemplify the growing need in hospitality and tourism to show accommodations, activity, and tourism attractions in an up-and-close way.
All these uses of virtual reality demonstrate the potential that exists to use the customer to customize their own experience with a brand. If you provide them content with options, like VR does, the customer will engage in the way they want to. Digital marketing strategies that incorporate VR into video, email, social media, content marketing, and more could soon to become the norm. Do you want to innovate your marketing plan? Speak to the experts at Unlimited Exposure today.
