Ivan RisticIvan Ristic

It’s no surprise that Virtual Reality is a hot rising topic for consumers. 2016 was always pegged as the year for the emergence of VR and that is certainly how it will be remembered, but the more interesting development is how brands will leverage 360° VR experiences to engage with their target customers.

This is likely going to be a key focus area for clients as they start developing their 2017 marketing plans, and it’s not just digital and video production agencies that can reap the rewards of this trend: there is a significant role for PR firms in delivering impactful 360° Virtual Reality content as part of their communication activities. 

The content is all around us

Tech companies have had an important part to play in the rise of the 360° video trend, with many launching their VR tech gadgets. In fact, this year alone we have seen the Samsung Gear 360, the Oculus Rift, PlayStation VR and HTC Vive all become available for consumers. As the proliferation of consumer VR tech devices increases, including simple cardboard viewing masks that make VR accessible for everyone, so too has our appetite for VR content with many 360° videos appearing on our Facebook feeds and racking up millions of views on YouTube.

Since launching in September 2015, Facebook 360° has become a compelling mode of story-telling for publishers and creators, with people watching more than 1 million hours of immersive video from over 20,000 uploaded VR videos on the platform. For comparison’s sake, Google is witnessing the same soaring response with viewers watching over 350,000 hours of YouTube videos in VR, using Google Cardboard.

One of the main reasons that brands are taking notice of VR as a story-telling platform is because it is not just Millennials that are clocking up the views, according to eMarketer, in addition to the 80 percent of Generation Z internet users that are interested in virtual reality videos, 64 percent of Baby Boomers are also spending time in these 360° environments. VR really is for everyone.

News and storytelling with VR

Virtual reality tells amazing stories in a more immersive way, building a connection between the viewer and the environment, helping to offer experiences that someone would otherwise never be able to do. In effect, it is one of the most powerful visual story-telling platforms that exists.

Even the media are jumping on the VR bandwagon, identifying that 360° videos are an effective way to tell their stories, essentially transporting the viewer right into the center of the action. USA Today’s VRtually There, the New York Times Daily 360 and the Washington Post’s VRroom are a few of the early adopters that will likely be remembered as the early pioneers of VR storytelling.

Investing in a VR platform makes sense for news organizations because it can help build empathy by literally putting the viewer in another person’s shoes. Therefore, through news based 360° videos, you can experience almost anything — from what it would be like to stand in unity with protestors at Standing Rock to walking through a deprived Syrian Refugee camp or the destroyed city of Aleppo.

The VR train is leaving the station

As clients start building their 2017 PR plans, they will inevitably already have thought about how they can incorporate VR into their communications — regardless of their sector. The key for PR agencies is to accept the brief and not assume that it is an activity more suited for a video production and digital agency. The beauty of 360° Virtual Reality videos is that they can be created by anyone, with relative ease.

As PR professionals, we are the expert story tellers, it’s what we do for a living. We need to view VR as a new medium for delivering our clients message to their stakeholders, however I am sure most agencies would be reluctant to incorporate VR into their communications planning due to a lack of experience with developing video content.

At Diffusion PR, we were recently faced with this challenge from our client CyberLink, a multimedia technology company. We were tasked to develop a VR campaign idea that would showcase its video editing suite of products — a request we had never received before.

Our team came up with the idea of creating the first ever 360° VR video of a runner taking part in the New York City Marathon, which would be shot, edited and posted for viewers within 24 hours of the race. We learned everything there was to know about shooting in VR, trialing different camera options, using multiple stabilization techniques and studied how to use the editing software. Once we worked out the process, we seeded the video idea as exclusive content to TIME Media, who promoted it across all their publications and its LIFE VR mobile application — all for free. This is a great example of how stepping out of the comfort zone of our specialism was rewarded with a great earned-media opportunity for a client.

In the words of Ray Soto, Design Director of emerging technologies at USA Today Network: “Next year will be the defining moment for virtual reality in news as organizations around the globe build teams to support the emerging platform. Expect a shift from experimental passive video to interactive video.”

360° VR is clearly here to stay and with news organizations set to invest heavily in 2017, it’s crucial that PR professionals make sure we are also along for the ride.

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Ivan Ristic is President of Diffusion PR.