Google Card­board is quick­ly democ­ra­tiz­ing VR tech­nol­o­gy and ear­ly advo­cates – includ­ing speak­ers at ad:tech San Fran­cis­co – insist it is much more than a flash-in-the-pan toy. That’s because it deliv­ers expe­ri­ences they describe with words like “mag­i­cal” and “breath­tak­ing.” And these are expe­ri­ences trans­port con­sumers away from real­i­ty and to an almost child­like place with strong emo­tion­al con­nec­tions, they say.

That, in turn, trans­lates to huge oppor­tu­ni­ties for brands once the tech­nol­o­gy reach­es crit­i­cal mass. So how close are we to that point? And what does that mean for mar­keters?

Discovering VR

Craig Dal­ton, CEO of device case man­u­fac­tur­er Dodocase, which makes a pop-up VR user, likens a consumer’s first expe­ri­ence with VR to “the first time look­ing through a tele­scope” when he or she expe­ri­ences “incred­i­ble joy and awe.”

And, Dal­ton notes, if a brand/marketer “is deliv­er­ing a smile to a human being, it’s a price­less oppor­tu­ni­ty.”

Fur­ther, Dan Fer­gu­son, direc­tor of dig­i­tal inter­ac­tive at design, visu­al effects, ani­ma­tion and enter­tain­ment stu­dio Reel FX, says visu­al con­tent is “not that impact­ful when it’s on a rec­tan­gle on the wall, but when you put on a head­set that is hooked up to an expen­sive device, it’s extreme­ly mag­i­cal.”

“That gut­tur­al reac­tion that peo­ple have – as soon as they see it, they know it’s some­thing spe­cial and impor­tant,” he adds. “When you can film some­thing in 360, it trans­ports you. We should be record­ing our lives like this. I could go back in time and see my fam­i­ly at var­i­ous stages of [our] lives and feel like [I’m] there.”

Moving Closer to Mainstream

And while VR is, in many respects, still a hot new toy, 25 mil­lion VR head­sets are pro­ject­ed to be in cir­cu­la­tion by 2020.

What’s more, Google Card­board enables smart­phone users to eas­i­ly turn the devices they already own today into VR devices.

“Our mes­sage is the 1.7 bil­lion mobile phones out there are VR devices – peo­ple just don’t know it yet,” Dal­ton says.

And, he says, Card­board is the VR “gate­way drug,” because it is so much more acces­si­ble than Ocu­lus.

And not only is Google Card­board on the verge of mak­ing VR much more com­mon­place in con­sumers’ lives, the tech­nol­o­gy is sim­ply get­ting bet­ter, which could also be the sign of a tip­ping point.

For her part, Valerie Carl­son, exec­u­tive cre­ative direc­tor at mar­ket­ing and con­sult­ing com­pa­ny Sapi­ent­Ni­tro, points to a scene in the movie Wild that “gives you the feel­ing that you are present in the red­woods with Reese With­er­spoon and made me feel the qual­i­ty of the work is bet­ter.”

Big Potential

And like the voice in the corn­fields in the movie Field of Dreams, now that the tech­nol­o­gy has been built (and ame­lio­rat­ed), mar­keters are com­ing.

In fact, brands like Dell and Chuck E. Cheese have filmed com­mer­cials with 360-degree cam­eras for more immer­sive con­tent, Fer­gu­son notes.

But there’s even more poten­tial than that for VR to deliv­er new expe­ri­ences.

“You have to test and learn and you have to fail,” Carl­son says.

In fact, Carl­son says Sapi­ent­Ni­tro has part­nered with con­trol plat­form Sixsense on appli­ca­tions that allow con­sumers to “grab things in VR, which is more ori­ent­ed to gam­ing, but has a piece for retail.”

In oth­er words, some­day we might shop in VR.

“It’s about human nature. Every­thing we do or buy has some­thing to do with con­nect­ing with oth­ers. And there’s huge poten­tial for con­nec­tion [with VR], Carl­son says. “Right now, e‑commerce is flat. It’s a web­site and you’re pok­ing but­tons and look­ing at flat images. We don’t cre­ate immer­sive expe­ri­ences, we can’t repli­cate the show­room experience…but VR is a true expe­ri­ence [that enables] new real­i­ties through immer­sion.”

Accord­ing to Carl­son, VR can trans­port con­sumers to the fash­ion cap­i­tals of the world and she is exper­i­ment­ing with how con­sumers want to move through spaces in part because brands don’t want to deliv­er the same con­sumer expe­ri­ences they do in brick and mor­tar loca­tions.

“There is a lot of desire to use exist­ing UI and meth­ods we’re com­fort­able with. What we’re hop­ing we can do is use oth­er forms of direc­tion­al devices and cre­ate new ways of mov­ing through spaces,” Carl­son says. “If you are in a space and it’s some­thing that is real – a place that already has visu­al mark­ers, you can try to use sound, music and voiceovers rather than the but­tons and arrows in e‑commerce. That alone is a mech­a­nism to bet­ter under­stand­ing.”

Fer­gu­son points to an expe­ri­ence with Sam­sung Gear that emu­lates the browsing/shopping expe­ri­ence and a user’s head becomes the mouse.

For Mitch Gel­man, vice pres­i­dent of prod­uct at web­site and media prop­er­ty brand Gan­nett Dig­i­tal, VR is about deliv­er­ing news to a new – read: younger – audi­ence and con­nect­ing on that target’s terms in part because VR is “an empa­thy machine” and allows news orga­ni­za­tions to deliv­er con­tent to users that “feel what they are see­ing in ways that do not exist today.”

“It height­ens the con­nec­tion to the sto­ry and removes bias with 360-degree views and con­nects peo­ple to news in way that can be fun again,” Gel­man says. “This emerg­ing sto­ry­telling tech­nol­o­gy allows us to be bet­ter sto­ry tellers.”

He points to an inter­ac­tive expe­ri­ence from the Des Moines Reg­is­ter, Har­vest of Change, which “told the sto­ry [of a farm] by build­ing a gam­ing envi­ron­ment and cre­at­ing dra­ma between old­er mem­bers of the fam­i­ly and whether they were able to pass it down.”

And Dal­ton points to a project with Elle Mag­a­zine in which the brand sent view­ers to influ­encers and worked with a cou­ture design­er to film a 360-degree immer­sive video and give influ­encers ear­ly access to a col­lab­o­ra­tive col­lec­tion at an exclu­sive loca­tion in Paris.

“The abil­i­ty of VR to trans­port you some­where you don’t nor­mal­ly have access is crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant,” Dal­ton says. “You have access to a chateau in Paris you wouldn’t have oth­er­wise.”

For his part, Gel­man says VR offers oppor­tu­ni­ties for prod­uct place­ment, brand asso­ci­a­tion and native adver­tis­ing with­in expe­ri­ences.

In addi­tion, he notes, “For us, we’re a news­pa­per com­pa­ny seen as cut­ting-edge,” which appeals to poten­tial adver­tis­ers.

But there’s still work to do.

Gel­man says brands must take advan­tage of Card­board view­ers and sim­pli­fy prod­ucts, chal­lenge norms and estab­lish best prac­tices.

Dal­ton agrees the indus­try needs VR best prac­tices, but it’s a worth­while invest­ment. Poten­tial is huge because most con­sumers will at least even­tu­al­ly end up with a Card­board device as a free­bie from a brand, he adds.

Where do you see VR’s mar­ket­ing poten­tial?