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Maritime Museum tests power of virtual reality as new medium poised to swamp market

sub shotThe Australian Maritime Museum has become one of the first organisations in Australia to launch a fully fledged virtual reality (VR) project, but the producer of the film has warned marketers to be wary of building bad consumer experiences as they rush to market.

Ad agency Ensemble, has created a virtual reality tour of the Museum’s popular Submarine exhibit, led by a former sub commander.

The experience uses Samsung’s soon to be launched GearVR devices which use Galaxy phones to take users on a tour of the sub, allowing them to experience it in full 360 degrees.

VR is predicted to boom next year with the release of devices from Facebook-owned Oculus (developer of the Samsung GearVR), Sony, Microsoft and others.

Marketers  are expected to be among the early adopters of the technology but Ensemble executive producer, Andrew Garrick, has warned an entirely new approach to advertising will be needed.

He said where marketers had become so used to  “linear’ model of video, the freedom offered to users of virtual reality meant creators needed to guide their audiences or lose them.

“If you are not being guided through it is not going to work,” said Garrick.

“You have to think of it like a cut scene from a first person shooter.where people are guided through the narrative which makes it more fulfilling.”

He said marketers needed to avoid being caught up in the potential of the technology and consider the basics.

“The challenges are not so much technical, but about storytelling,” he said.

Simple technical challenges remained, such as stitching 360 degree scenes together and making sure camera crews were invisible.

He predicted that there would be some pretty average attempts at VR marketing in the early stages as marketers rushed to the technology simply because they could and danger that some consumers could be turned off by poor implementation.

He also admitted that while the Maritime Museum project had been completed with modest budget, the quality of the VR experience would relate closely to the budgets available and “cheap” solutions would be counterproductive.

While currently set up at the Museum, the experience is totally mobile, meaning it can be taken to schools and other locations and be used as an external marketing device for the museum.

The 360 experience can also be shared through Facebook.

Simon Canning

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