Virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality. Whatever you want to call it, virtual reality (VR) is the new frontier for marketing communications. Almost 1.8 billion people globally already have VR devices. They’re called smartphones.
Anyone with a smartphone and a VR viewer can experience a rudimentary but nonetheless effective version of the Samsung Gear VR – or soon to be commercially available Oculus Rift. The adaptability of smartphones allows for bitesize VR experiences on devices that people around the world already own.
So, is 2016 a watershed year for VR? Estimates predict there will be more than 12m VR sales by the end of 2016 and globally, by 2020 the VR industry will have shipped 30m headsets. Some advertisers are already exploring the realm of virtual reality but where does the opportunity sit for PR?
VR could be considered the ultimate channel. It’s fully immersive and almost uninterruptible in comparison to other media. In VR you have a consumer’s undivided attention, the dream for earned-media storytellers. This means PR professionals are perfectly positioned to pioneer the new age of virtual reality.
Personally, I’m a huge advocate of VR and believe it’s time the PR industry fully scoped out its potential. I’m not talking about the introduction of VR into a pre-conceived experiential idea but, instead, true integration of the technology as a new media outlet and platform for future campaigns.
VR will undoubtedly have an impact on the future of journalism, especially with news outlets constantly looking for ways to bring back straying audiences. At the end of last year, The New York Times partnered with Google on a VR advertising project. Handheld Google Cardboard VR units were delivered to more than a million subscribers of the print newspaper. Using their smartphone, subscribers were encouraged to download a special New York Times VR app.
This partnership was such a success that The New York Times announced last month they would send out Google Cardboard once again but this time to online subscribers. Can you see where this is going?
The success of this partnership is demonstrable proof that VR will not just live in the consumer or experiential PR sphere. There will also be significant opportunities for financial and corporate communication professionals to use VR as an alternative story telling mechanism.
If you’re still in any doubt about the potential of VR then think of it this way: VR could be the medium that future-proofs the PR industry for the next 10 years, filling the void that print media is set to leave behind. And if you’re on top of it now, you’ll be there to ride the wave. Because it’s only going to get bigger.
Miles Freeman is account manager at Lexis
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