Pokémon Go was an overnight success 20 years in the making.
The free app has captured the imagination of users worldwide. It is a phenomenon and a great example of a perfect storm. Launched at just the right time and with a very clear audience in mind, Pokémon Go provides a topic of conversation, a social currency, a shared experience and the gamification of life – all of the main ingredients for immediate stardom tied up in one tidy, and free, package.
But it offers nothing new. While it’s certainly smartly delivered and does a great job of tapping into the #FOMO (fear of missing out) effect that lies at the heart of Generation Z, it uses technology that has already been very successful for many big name brands.
Without question, Pokémon Go’s meteoric success has thrust augmented reality (AR) into the limelight like never before. But AR has been an experiential marketing mainstay for a number of years now. It was way back in 2010 that The Museum of London released its Streetmuseum app, which blended the old with the new to bring history to life.
Back then this was very impressive. But these days the magical impact can be so much more. The technology now exists to ensure that any additional elements added to a viewers’ experience are in the right perspectives and positions to allow for the suspension of disbelief much more freely. And that, fundamentally, is the key to telling a great story.
The ultimate storytelling platform
AR captivates through its ability to blend reality with non-reality. What’s truly special about live creative technology – namely the partially-immersive AR and fully-immersive virtual reality (VR) – is that it allows stories to be told in ways that have never been possible before.
As audiences, we’re used to participating in tales through the lens of a TV or big screen. But we’re not yet fully accustomed to being in the story ourselves.
At the recent launch of Madame Tussaud’s Ghostbusters Experience in New York, the franchise’s original director Ivan Reitman commented that the amazing thing about VR is that “you’re in the middle of it … most storytelling doesn’t have us [the audience] in the centre.”
And he’s exactly right. That feeling of not only being part of, but also central to, the narrative is what makes immersive technologies both hugely powerful and engaging.
The rise of hyper reality
The Ghostbusters experience is already receiving rave reviews due to its ‘hyper reality’ approach. This allows physical and virtual objects to play off one another seamlessly, creating unforgettable moments for wannabe spook-catchers.
Right now, many eyes within the marketing industry are on what Magic Leap – the cinematic reality start-up that has reportedly secured a secret lab at Lucasfilm – will do next. The only demo that Magic Leap has released so far (see the video) is basically Pokémon Go on steroids. It really is incredible, and yet this is merely the tip of one very big iceberg.
Pokémon Go has shone a worldwide spotlight on AR technology. But make no mistake, it’s the fully-immersive world of VR and hyper reality that will be leading the way in the future.
Hugely emotive user journeys
VR’s single biggest strength is that it allows brands to create completely unique stories and environments. This offers huge storytelling possibilities: the ability to transport audiences back to any point in history, to speed up time, to slow it down, to visit places that are not humanly possible, to break the laws of physics. The only restriction is the creativity of the storyteller.
Looking at this from an education standpoint, the opportunity is vast – it’s little wonder that heavyweights like Google, Facebook and Microsoft have invested so heavily in its development. And once Apple comes to play, things will get even more interesting.
With Cardboard viewers making VR mass-market for the first time, and products such as Figment’s VR phonecase heading to market soon, you can expect to see a whole new world of virtual narratives opening up.
VR’s distinctly unique storytelling capability, combined with CGI filmmaking, presents incredible opportunities to present life-like scenarios. It’s this aspect that makes it such an emotive experience, and why charities such as WWF-UK are now using VR to get important messages across.
The more immersive, and realistic, you can make something, the greater emotional response you will get back in turn. And only by tapping into real emotions can brands win over audiences and make sure their message is heard loud and clear.
Joss Davidge is director of the unexpected at BEcause Experiential Marketing
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