All About 360 VR Advertising Part 2: Gamified 360 VR Ads

Gamified 360 VR ads are a great way for brands to tell a story, immerse consumers, and even engage them to interact with the ad. But what are gamified 360 VR ads?

Gamified 360 VR ads are basically 360 VR ads that are playable. If you recall our first installment on “All About 360 VR Ads” we talked about 360 VR advertising, misconceptions about it, and we even talked about some of the 360 VR ad formats available out there.

Today, we’ll be talking about another 360 VR ad format – one that leverages a lot more interactive elements. But first, let’s talk about video games and virtual reality.

The World of Video Games and Virtual Reality

Video games are a way of storytelling. With them, you can take people to other worlds or even give them the ability to do things they can’t do in the real world. Unlike linear tv shows and movies, video games give you the capability to be in control of your fate. You’re no longer a bystander that’s passively watching content fed to your screen, you’re now an active player in the video game world.

The world of virtual reality is very similar and also very different from the world of today’s non-VR video games. Just like video games, virtual reality is another way of storytelling. With it, you can be either a bystander or an active player in the virtual world. What’s different though is that with VR you’re at the heart of it all. No longer are you viewing things from faraway, you’re actually in the scene itself – engaging and interacting. With VR video games, the concept of no longer being a bystander, but an active participant is totally different, because instead of controlling a character in a video game like some sort of puppet, the character is you.

With this in mind, it’s no surprise that the video game industry has been one of the first to fully embrace 360 degree and VR technology. It combines two methods of storytelling into one and leverages the advantages that both of them bring.

Advertising: A Different Type of Storytelling

If you think about it, ads offer brands the ability to connect with the consumer by telling a story. Sadly, not many advertisers see it that way or they fall far short of the mark. Consequently, this has contributed to ad blindness, lower ad engagement, and abysmal click through rates.

If you ask most, an effective ad is one that tells a story – and not just any story that’s hashed for the sake of making an ad, but a story that really connects with consumers. If you check out the stats on engagement and views for the highly creative ads that are produced just for the Super Bowl, you’ll certainly find evidence to support this. (Check out this article from Ad Week for more on ads and storytelling).

The element of storytelling is what makes 360 and virtual reality ads very effective, because it gives you many more tools to work with. Also, 360 and virtual reality technology lets you tell the consumer a story while immersing them in your product or brand – sparking an emotional connection that a standard ad can rarely, if ever, do. Imagine, then, what would happen if you combine the user control of video games, the immersion of 360 & virtual reality, and advertising together and create a whole different way of telling stories through gamified 360 VR ads?

Something New: Gamified 360 VR Ads

The concept of gamified ads is not a new one. It’s not unusual if, at one time or another, you’ve already experienced one and even engaged with one. In fact, it’s been proven that game-like ads are a more effective way of advertising. According to a study, gamified ads have a 6% higher engagement rate than traditional ads. Gamified ads are so effective that they can generate CTRs that reach a whopping 28.8%, which is pretty impressive considering that traditional rich media ads only have a CTR of less than 1%.

On the other hand, 360 VR advertising is also showing promising results. In one of our 360 VR ad campaigns, our 360 VR ad (which was made out of 2D assets) performed 13x better than the industry average when it came to engagement. To further compound this, one study shows that 51% of people are more likely to buy a product from a brand that leverages virtual reality than one that doesn’t. With these stats in mind, it’s not a stretch to suggest that gamified 360 VR ads will be very successful in terms of effectiveness and overall ad engagement.

Gamified 360 VR ads have the potential to be a game changer (no pun intended) in advertising because they offer the opportunity for greater storytelling and brand immersion while handing control over to the consumer.

Let’s say your product is an all-purpose cleaning product like Mr. Clean and you’d like to advertise your product using gamified 360 VR ads. A great 360 vr ad then would include a game where you have guests that are about to come over and you need to clean up before time runs out. Mr. Clean, who is also in the 360 VR ad, is at the ready when you need help on which of the Mr. Clean products would work best to clean up particular messes. Before you know it, the consumer is learning that the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser is just the ticket to tackle those messy fingerprints on the wall and the rust around the kitchen sink while the Multi-Purpose Spray is the perfect solution for cleaning up all the grime in the oven. Before you know it, the brand has connected with the consumer via a story we can all relate to (cleaning before guests come over) while also providing entertainment as well as communicating key brand messages. As an added perk, by successfully cleaning the house in time, the user is rewarded with a coupon. It’s a win, win, win all around!

Another example of gamified 360 VR ads is creating a hide & seek game in which consumers have to look around a 360 environment and search for characters from a movie to win a free movie ticket or maybe even searching for items you would pack in your suitcase and if you find them all, you get a coupon for airline tickets or a hotel stay (see a gamified 360 VR ad demo).

Once you start thinking of different ways you can gamify your 360 VR ads, the possibilities are endless! From mazes, running games, first person shooters, survival challenges, puzzles, you name it! By blending the success and popularity of games and gamified ads with the effectiveness and immersion of 360 and VR technology, we have yet another example that the next level of ad engagement has truly arrived.

Stay tuned for part 3!