The Reality of Virtuality: Harness the Power of Virtual Reality to Connect with Consumers

Virtual Reality (VR) technology has become more sophisticated and widespread. Consumers embrace it for gaming and entertainment. New industries are using it to showcase their products and services, with VR experiences becoming more immersive and realistic than ever. Where does VR fit into your marketing strategy? How can your brand use it to leave a lasting impression on users or, at the very least, drum up excitement around the experience? And how can your brand utilize VR to interact with your target market to improve consumer engagement and loyalty? The Reality of Virtuality is both practitioner-oriented and evidence-based, showing marketing managers in the B2C and B2B sectors how to design a compelling VR marketing strategy and leverage it for their brand. This book discusses how to select the appropriate VR type dependent on resources, technology, and audience. It shows how to align the VR experience with marketing objectives (i.e., consumer engagement, brand building, attitude management, selling in VR, product co-creation, publicity, awareness building and more), and how to create a purpose-driven VR experience to ensure it is engaging and meaningful. Lastly, it shows how to incorporate VR into the consumer journey, the ways to reach consumers before the VR experience, and the long-lasting effects after it. The authors use examples, references, and industry expert opinions throughout to fully illustrate each lesson, giving marketers a solid foundation for their VR endeavours in the field today and in the future. Virtual Reality (VR) technology has become more sophisticated and widespread. Consumers embrace it for gaming and entertainment. New industries are using it to showcase their products and services, with VR experiences becoming more immersive and realistic than ever. Where does VR fit into your marketing strategy? How can your brand use it to leave a lasting impression on users? And how can your brand utilize VR to interact with your target market to improve consumer engagement and loyalty? The Reality of Virtuality is both practitioner-oriented and evidence-based, showing marketing managers in the B2C and B2B sectors how to design a compelling VR marketing strategy and leverage it for their brand. It discusses how to select the appropriate VR type dependent on resources, technology, and audience. It shows how to align the VR experience with marketing objectives and how to create a purpose-driven VR experience to ensure it is engaging and meaningful. Lastly, it shows how to incorporate VR into the consumer journey, ways to reach consumers before the VR experience, and the long-lasting effects after it. The authors use examples, references, and industry expert opinions throughout, giving marketers a solid foundation for their VR endeavours. Contents Introduction Part I: Selecting VR Type Based on Your Resources Chapter 1 VR Technology Chapter 2 The Spectrum of Immersion Chapter 3 VR Content Features: Graphics, Sounds, and Narrative Chapter 4 Sensory Inputs in VR Part II: Selecting VR Type Based on Your Customers Chapter 5 Your Customers’ VR Readiness and Ways to Improve It Chapter 6 Customer Involvement-Based Strategy Part III: Purpose-Driven Design of Your VR Chapter 7 Boosting Consumer Engagement via VR Chapter 8 Changing Attitudes and Building Your Brand via VR Chapter 9 Storytelling in VR: Reality Versus Fantasy Chapter 10 Selling Your Products in VR: V-Commerce Chapter 11 Co-Creation in VR Chapter 12 VR-Based Events Part IV: Incorporating VR Into Your Customer Journey Chapter 13 Pre-VR: Reaching Customers Chapter 14 Post-VR: Managing the Relationship Conclusion Appendix List of Figures List of Tables Index