Is the future of communication immersive?

24 October 2018

We recently attended a morning insight session put on by VMAGROUP. Here is a wonderful summary of the morning’s learnings by Mark Burrett (Senior Consultant, Internal Communications Practice at VMAGROUP).

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Greater empathy; a lasting and provoking message; emotional responses up by 25% and engagement levels increased by 2-3 times. This was just some of the powerful content shared at our most recent event hosted at Digital Catapult on the Power of Immersive Media in Communications.

What is immersive media?

Immersion is ultimately when you forget the message entirely, forget you are the audience even, and instead fall into a newly manufactured reality. Here are a few key ways in which it is delivered:

360 degree videos – also known as immersive videos or spherical videos, these are video recordings where a view in every direction is recorded at the same time, shot using an omnidirectional camera or a collection of cameras.

Virtual Reality (VR) – Through a headset, VR is a technology that creates the illusion of being somewhere else through computer created stimuli.

Augmented Reality (AR) – The word “augment” means to increase, extend, or make better. AR can be understood as a form of VR) where the real world is expanded or enhanced through the use of virtual elements, usually overlaying those elements on the view of the real world through the use of a visual device.

Some useful articles to help further explain:

https://www.wired.com/story/wired-guide-to-virtual-reality/https://www.lifewire.com/augmented-reality-ar-definition-4155104

Max Cleary, Partnerships Lead for AI, Immersive & Blockchain at Digital Catapult addressed the topic of immersive content in the workplace brilliantly. He shared the challenges communicators face in cutting through the noise, and the opportunities immersive presents.

Here are some of the key points:

In the Immersive technologies market, $3bn have been invested in 2017 worldwide with an expected $120bn by 2021. There are over 1000+ companies in the UK that specialise in immersive media which represents about 10% of the global production revenues for Immersive, 4th in the world overall.

The Challenges

Cutting through information overload
Promoting socially interactive audiences
Driving Leadership engagement, visibility & authenticity

The Opportunities

Humanising the brand
Crisis communications
Improve media relations with a more transparent approach
Experience the brand in new ways & create loyalty

Find out more about Digital Catapult at https://www.digicatapult.org.uk/, where you can learn about what the UK’s government-backed innovation agency is doing to drive the adoption of emerging technology. Here are some links to its immersive accelerator programmes for startups, augmentor.co.uk for next generation immersive tools and creativexr.co.uk for innovative content creators.

Next up was Scott Shillum, Managing Director of vismedia.agency and all round immersive guru sharing some excellent case studies on how they’ve supported their clients communication challenges from media relations to stakeholder engagement to employee engagement and internal communication. There was even a special guest appearance from Nicholas Pollard, Group CEO of Cory Riverside Energy who articulated perfectly how a recent immersive project has impacted their organisation, both internally and externally. Nicholas confessed to knowing very little about immersive media at the start of this project and went on to encourage communicators to simply start sharing this technology with senior leaders. Whilst there was some inevitable number crunching involved, it became very clear, very quickly that creating an immersive experience of their business was the only solution to their challenge.

You can check out their brilliant work and the full case study here: https://vismedia.agency/portfolio/coryimmersive/

So what is the key message we take away from this event? Put simply, Immersive Media is our future. The opportunities for brands are seemingly infinite – it’s viewed by many as the dawn of a new form of media. It’s a fascinating subject and one set to dominate digital strategies for decades to come.