Have you heard of immersive content? If not, I bet you’ve seen some… in it’s simplest form it could be 360 virtual tours – a pretty dirty phrase in marketing – but it is in it’s more exciting forms such as 360 degree video or ‘deep-zoom’ GIGA-pixel panoramas that the content is making waves.
If you follow Kickstarter (the world’s largest crowd funding platform) or any tech blogs like Gizmodo or TechCrunch, you will notice a huge surge in awareness of immersive or ‘virtual-reality’ content and products. There are new 360 cameras, virtual reality headsets, apps made for big brands such as BMW, bands such as Muse have 360 apps, as does TopGear Magazine, Wimbledon’s app this year featured 360 video and 360 stills, and so on.
So why is this? Why is everyone so excited about 360/immersive media/virtual reality (whatever you want to call it!)?
- Brands want unique content – everyone is looking at standing out digitally and by allowing people to get inside and interact with the content is a great way of doing that. There are huge opportunities for industry firsts, especially in the 360 video parts of the industry.
- Huge rise in the number of tablet and smartphone devices – these devices are providing more interactive content, increasing user awareness of 360 and utilising inbuilt functionality in the devices such as the gyroscope. Psst try the TopGear 360 app here: TopGear 360
- Immersive content solves ‘2D’ problems – Westfield came to us last year saying they were struggling to display their experiential locations to clients without site visits. umi 360 interactive mapping solved this issue: Westfield Interactive Rate Card
- Increased dwell times – we regularly see average dwell times in excess of five minutes on our Immersive Experiences, far beyond the number of seconds typically captured on more ‘traditional’ 2D forms of digital media.
- Perfect storm of technology – cameras, computers, internet speeds and structure have all converged to allow 360 content to be displayed in full HD resolution and downloaded without excessive buffering.
Immersive content also allows for great social media integration. It’s best known use is with giga-pixel (deep-zoom) panoramas at sports events where users can zoom in to the crowd, spot themselves or friends and then tag themselves. We actually did this for the 100m Final at the olympics, allowing you to zoom in and see Usain Bolt crossing the line and the expressions on everyone’s faces! 100m Final GigaPixel
When combined with clever social integration, these giant images allow brands to continue to engage with their audience post event and are well set to go viral.