Experience Manifesto

Some Updated Thoughts on VR Today

I've been spending time back in the world of VR again and have been looking at what's happening today through the lens of 20+ years of VR experience. I feel like we're where we were in the mid-90's with VR. Lots of talk, media coverage and experimentation. People trying to figure out how to move beyond games or very short form content. With many of the major film festivals adding some kind of VR event, we're starting to see some interesting content being developed. Although much of what I saw at Tribeca FF was interesting, edgy and experimental, it wouldn't have the mass audience appeal needed to drive VR mainstream. That's not to say artistic experimentation is bad or shouldn't be done, just that it's not the content that drives big, consumer engagement.

And while the tech needs to be further developed, it's not what's holding VR back as much as I think people feel it is. I have put tens of thousands of people through VR experiences and I rarely heard complaints about refresh rates or field of view. Not to say it doesn't happen, but people are much more excited about the possibilities than they are frustrated by the limitations. The average consumer is still much more excited about the potential. They key is for the content to be created with those limitations in mind. For example, I see many VR experiences where the action takes place in front of the viewer, rather than taking advantage of the 360 degree experience VR affords. So people don't understand the unique value that VR can bring to content.

Today, we're also focusing mainly on the visual elements of VR, with some 360 sound starting to come into the experiences. People like Jacki Morie are starting to explore how smell might be added to VR experiences and as tactile feedback gets better, that will increase engagement within VR experiences as well.

By next year, we should see some significant additions to the content available. Google Daydream launched this fall, bringing with it a new set of tools to create VR experiences. They're also looking at hardware like camera rigs, that will make it much easier for companies to create VR content.

Ready Player One in production for 2018 release, and that should drive a great deal of interest and hype into how VR will impact our daily lives. I would also guess that other movies will come with some great promotional efforts, helping to drive VR more into the mainstream. As with production tech in general, the cost will decrease and the quality will increase, making it much easier for people to make and share content.

On the plus side, you also have a group of Gen Z'ers coming up that played Poptropica and the online version of Beanie Baby's (I know our household spent heavily for my daughter to play this online) and who totally understand what VR can do. As Google, the NY Times, NatGeo and others continue to build content for education, we will continue to train future audiences about the power of VR. Waag Society in Amsterdam built a cool education experience a few years back that allowed students to go to specific spoke in Amsterdam and see what that spot looked like in the past (I believe the 1600's). We'll see lots more of those educational experiences in the future as well.

As for what it needs to overcome, first is the stigma that it's a gaming tool. If people are primarily hearing about game applications, they won't be looking for ways to incorporate VR into their everyday lives. Yes, the HMD'S need to get better and smaller, there is still some resistance to put it on for some segments of the population. The biggest obstacle is compelling content that takes us from gaming into education, training, virtual tourism and other areas where people see real value.

A lot of ad agency people I spoke to in the past were intimated by the process of creating a VR experience. The trick is understanding the non-linear aspects of VR. And in the advertising world, that's an enormous, cognitive leap for people used to building stories that go from a to b to c.

Yes, VR has really come a long way since I first got involved and it's really exciting to look at where it will be in the very near future.

Big Brother vs. Little Brother

A few days ago, another video surfaced of a woman berating a cashier at Michael's. She went on for quite some time and the video has been viewed over 4 million times since it was put up. Later, David Armano asked if it was appropriate to continue to shame her and what the appropriate response was to what she had done. Many people were passing around her name, address, etc., and people have raised over $22K for their cashier involved.

In part because I was part of the Glass Explorers program (I wore Google Glass every day), and in part due to all of the privacy debates happening right now, I’ve been thinking about Big Brother vs. Little Brother in today’s society. Now, I don’t remember where I first saw the term Little Brother, but it was used to describe what happens when regular people are recording everything you do, not the government. And that started me thinking about the role of context in this discussion.

I’m not going to debate today whether or not the government should be doing what it clearly has been doing, that’s for a much longer post, but let me start with this premise. It is the hope, that the government is doing what it’s doing with some sort of context happening. That it is using the data it’s collecting and reviewing to look for patterns that might indicate potential problems. Yes, I know that there are a lot of issues with this and I do not mean to gloss them over. But for the sake of this discussion, think about the patterns they’re looking for. It’s about putting your actions into context, so that they have the opportunity to make us safe.

Little Brother, however, is not about context at all. It’s about taking a moment in time and making that the whole story. So it’s the woman who videotaped her experience in Dunkin’ Donuts and ended up making herself look bad. Who knows, maybe she had lots of bad experiences there (although everything indicates she did not), and this one time, she was not being herself. But that’s now we all see her. There is no context at all.

And that's what happens with your brand too. You can have thousands of great customer interactions, but thanks to Little Brother, that one bad experience is now how everyone see's you. And without context, the audience doesn't know what lead up to the experience they're watching.

Are you prepared for Little Brother? Thanks to everyone having cameras on their phones and things like Google Glass coming into the mainstream, Little Brother is growing every day. As I said in Really, You Do Control the Message:

People amplify the message you start. Start with a great message and that's what people will amplify. Have a bad message and that's what they'll pass along.

And thanks to SM, people can really amplify that message today. I use to enjoy watching people on "Smile, You're on Candid Camera" and watching all of those crazy reactions. Well, today, you still have to keep smiling, but the camera is no longer hidden! Are you ready for your candid close-up? Is your brand?