Every first Monday in May, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art (aka the Met) hosts a red carpet event that attracts the world’s biggest stars, wearing the latest gowns from the world of high fashion. Last night’s Met Gala was themed, Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology, inspiring IBM and fashion house Marchesa to create a literal link between “man and machine.” The IBM dress is covered in LED lights that change color based on the emotional tone of Twitter users discussing it.
Craig and Chapman, the designers behind Marchesa, fed more than 150 images of their dresses and more than 100 red carpet photos into IBM’s Watson Color Theory Tool, which helped them pick the most appropriate colors to simulate audience emotions. Using the Tone Analyzer API to detect emotional tone of tweets about their dress throughout the evening, the Watson Color Theory Tool changed the color of the dress based on what people were saying.
The IBM dress was modeled by Karolina Kurkova, who encouraged her Twitter followers to interact with her gown throughout the night.
“This is an opportunity to show how technology can help us push the boundaries of creativity and have an interactive dress that’s a piece of art and a conversational piece as well—something that’s almost living and breathing,” says designer, Georgina Chapman. “And to us, that was just a magical idea.”
The IBM Cognitive Couture gown is the first of its kind to be worn at the Met Gala, although not the first dress to incorporate real-time Twitter reactions. In 2012, CuteCircuit debuted their Twitter Dress, worn by Nicole Scherzinger at the launch event at Battersea Power Station in London. Rather than change color, Scherzinger’s gown scrolled real-time Twitter posts across the fabric whenever someone used their designated hashtag.
As the market of wearable technology continues to gain popularity, brands are finding new ways to connect with their audiences.
“It’s a partnership between man and machine,” says Jeffrey Arn, IBM Watson strategist. “What cognitive means for fashion, unlocking new considerations and sharing expertise, breaks us out of our bias. There are implications all across the industry.”
ABC has been dabbling with virtual reality lately, having previously teamed up with Lexus to produce a special VR-related experience for the hit drama Quantico. But this time, the broadcast channel is stepping in a completely different direction.
Variety reports that a new 360-degree video that ties in with the immensely popular competition show, Dancing with the Stars, is available on both its main website, as well as its Facebook and YouTube channels.
Set to the tune of Donna Summer’s “Last Dance,” the video surrounds viewers with professional performers as they dance along to the beat. The experience is compatible with web browsers, and it can be viewed through virtual reality headsets using Littlstar’s virtual reality app.
This is just the beginning of ABC’s virtual reality experiments, as the company is hard at work on a number of new programs centered around the technology. A VR experience based around the hit show, Nashville, is set to arrive later this month, and more could be planned as the company’s fall season prepares to launch.
This all ties in with Disney’s (ABC’s parent company) bigger picture, as it released a Disneyland VR experience earlier this year (produced by VR camera maker Jaunt), as well as a Star Wars VR experience that could lead to bigger things down the road.
(Editor’s note:[a]listdaily is the publishing arm of the Ayzenberg Group.)
As the reliance on content and influencer marketing increases, so has the need for more reliable metrics to report earned media value. Until now, the industry was lacking a formal process to evaluate these values. Both influencer and social marketing are relatively new industries, so analytics to track them are not well-defined. Some social networks don’t even provide basic metrics to report success.
Having worked with several large brands on content and influencer-based campaigns across many verticals, we have been provided the perfect testing ground for EMV metrics. One campaign involved a client in the travel sector. This involved aligning the brand with a top-tier influencer to bring to life travel tips and experiences through a travel vlog video series. The campaign generated five videos and 66 total content pieces across YouTube, Instagram and Twitter. Based on EMV, these drove $143k in earned media value.
How did we arrive at that number? We wanted to put a stake in the ground and help facilitate a process for establishing a standard industry metric, so we decided to create the Ayzenberg Earned Media Value Index (or AEMVI). The AEMVI offers comprehensive benchmarks to evaluate campaign ROI, which we encourage all marketers to leverage. We also invite the community to contribute their feedback to help further establish the benchmarks.
Vincent Juarez, principal of ION and media, and I recently did a webinar about the AEMVI and got some intel at [a]list summit about interest levels on this topic. It quickly became obvious that while everyone has heard of EMV, few have a thorough grasp of the concept and how it can be used.
What Exactly Is EMV?
As a brief refresher, most media campaigns fall into three categories: paid, owned and earned media. Paid media includes placements that you can buy based on certain metrics like CPM (cost per thousand impressions) and CPE (cost per engagement). This includes posts on social networks, mobile popups and offline media like TV spots. Owned media has no placement cost since this is content placed on your own channels. Owned media has value based on the cost of buying an ad on your network or channel.
Earned media is the extended value of paid or organic social or influencer activity. Organic social is not owned media because one cannot buy a banner or ad placement on your social channel. There is no paid media behind organic social, therefore it is 100 percent earned media.
The amount of earned media your social content is valued at is dependent on how well the content performed. When you pay for placement, you are paying for a number of specific actions. Anything beyond what you paid for is classified as earned media value and this is dependent on the success of your content. For example, if you paid based on CPV, but also received a significant number of click-throughs, those clicks are classified as earned media. Earned media can be considered as such: If you stopped all organic social activity, how much paid media is needed to achieve the same earned media results?
Why Do We Need EMV?
Impressions are no longer king. We are living in an age of ad-blockers and social reach is declining for brand pages. Marketers are increasingly aware of the declining value of impressions and they are learning why engagement is the real metric to follow. EMVs validate the increasing use of high-engagement influencer and content marketing tactics.
Working at an agency, we understand the need to show the value of influencer and social campaigns. As such, we’re committed to updating our Earned Media Value Index regularly to maintain updated market values and fill this void in the industry. Our approach to determining earned media values is to be unbiased and as thorough as possible by using a comparison-based approach rather than relying solely on our own agency data.
We researched comparable reports and information on valuation/costs, grouping it into four main categories: auction based pricing, paid social and media campaign data, organic social data and third-party publications. Our report focuses on five key verticals: automotive, beauty/fashion, consumer electronics, entertainment and gaming. We evaluated all of our comps, threw out any major outliers, factored in whether campaigns were engagement-focused or funnel-focused and applied weights to the comps accordingly.
For more details on our methodology and rate cards that can be used to evaluate the ROI of your campaigns, a report is available for download here and the index is available in real-time on ayzenberg.com. The report is also syndicated and available through eMarketer.
To contribute rate cards to our study or to provide feedback, please email aemvi@ayzenberg.com.
As eSports continues to grow in popularity, more companies are entering into partnerships to further their brand exposure, and long-time gaming headset maker, Turtle Beach, is no exception. The company has partnered up with eSports team OpTic Gaming to promote its newest peripheral, the Turtle Beach Elite Pro Tournament Gaming headset, which is part of a line of Elite Pro gear that the company will begin manufacturing this year.
Other Elite Pro gear includes a Pro Tactical Audio Controller (T.A.C.) and accessories such as a microphone and an adapter for the Xbox One and PS4 consoles. All of these peripherals are built with competitive play in mind, making the tie-in with OpTic seem all the more vital for the line of products. As part of the promotion, the team will use the headsets for a number of its upcoming tournaments, including Call of Duty and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.
This year marks Turtle Beach’s 10th anniversary with creating and marketing gaming headsets, and the timing in partnering up with OpTic couldn’t come at a better time. “Everybody knows Turtle Beach,” said Hector Rodrigues, team manager for OpTic Gaming. “They’ve been around forever and have some great gaming headsets, so they definitely piqued our curiosity when they told us they were working on a top-secret eSports headset we’d be interested in seeing.
“So we invited Turtle Beach to the OpTic Gaming house here in Chicago to see what they had in store for us, and the moment they brought out the Elite Pro headset, T.A.C. and other gear we knew simply by looking at everything that this was a vast departure from what we were expecting. The more we explored and played with the Elite Pro headset’s features–like the cooling ear cushions, the adjustment you can make to the ear-cups for players who wear glasses, or how you can adjust the overall fit on your head — the more we knew it was revolutionary, and something that the OpTic teams would absolutely want to use. Turtle Beach brought their A-game with the Elite Pro, no questions asked.”
“Part of Turtle Beach’s core DNA is driving innovation that benefits gamers,” said Juergen Stark, CEO for Turtle Beach. “Given that we invented the console gaming headset space many years ago, we felt it was only natural for us to reinvent the gaming headset for the current era of eSports to meet the expectations of today’s competitive gamers.”
It also continues to give Turtle Beach a foothold in the competitive eSports market, with a product that not only fits in with the demographic, but also heightens the experience. “There are plenty of great gaming headsets and audio gear out there, but we saw the need to drive fundamental innovation to make it better for eSports,” Stark added. “The fact that OpTic Gaming–one of the best pro gaming organizations in the world — chose to partner with us because of the Elite Pro just goes to show this is another game-changing line of products from #TeamTurtleBeach that brings true innovation to the market.”
The partnership with Turtle Beach is the latest in a number of eSports deals, which includes one with Brisk in March to promote a new line of iced tea. Pre-orders for the Elite Pro headset are set to begin on May 24, with a release sometime after.
Sony turned 70 years old this year, and it came to SXSW in March to speak straight to the millennial audience the music, film and interactive festival largely attracts. The storied Japanese electronics brand’s message was diverse, and clear: this ain’t your daddy’s favorite Walkman and TV company anymore.
The creators of portable music are looking to reinvent their image through innovation and technology in order to regain a share of the marketplace the likes of Microsoft, Apple and Samsung have seized in years past.
The multinational conglomerate unveiled their Future Lab Program to the United States to share concept prototypes like open-ear headphones, personalized radios, haptic feedback technology and an augmented reality projector that turns any tabletop into an interactive, touch-sensitive display.
The program’s mission is to co-create future lifestyles—all with an open-door policy to procuring consumer feedback and improving the products, Jun Maruo, Sony Corporation’s research and development deputy president, told [a]listdaily.
“The main goal for Sony is to speed up and strengthen the research and development without getting sidetracked with what other companies are doing,” said Maruo. “By watching the mega trends currently taking place, we need to create our own long-term vision that we can own. That will keep us in a position of leadership.”
Maruo, who’s previously been responsible for designing and developing the Sony Internet TV, was in Texas with his Tokyo-based team soliciting real-time feedback from consumers as researchers and developers soaked in the notes for further inspiration back at the office. Using customer feedback to refine prototypes is a refreshing tactic from prototypical product launches that are usually under CIA-like lock-and-key.
“We want to be human-centric, and open direct lines of communication with society,” said Maruo. “We’re looking to evolve and hope to soon chaperone a new era of gadgets.”
The first product from the lab is “Project N,” a virtual headphone/neck wearable prototype featuring a Bluetooth, hands-free user interface that creates a new way of experiencing audio such as music and sound without having to insert any object into the ear. It also has voice command and takes pictures.
“The best way for the prototypes to hit market is to find a very specific use case, and if you can show that to the user, then they will have a need for it,” said Maruo. “Right now there are limited use-case scenarios. After sharing it at shows and getting feedback, we have to increase the reasons to use it. One component we’re looking for is incorporating artificial intelligence.
“The products will get made if Sony’s top executives see consumers getting excited about it,” said Maruo. “It could happen in one year.”
In 2008, MobilityWare released the free-to-play casino card game, Blackjack, on the Apple App Store and it became a success with a steady but stagnant user base for a number of years. Then, using new tools and technology, the developer decided to update the game, using analytics to make a few simple but effective changes that included:
Changing the amount of chips included in each tier of in-app purchase (IAP).
Redesigning of game lobby to better expose players to the different tables, in hopes of moving them up from lower to higher tables.
Segmenting, measuring and re-segmenting certain player experiences based on their spend behavior.
Increasing the frequency and sophistication of LiveOps campaigns—like the Halloween “Trick or Treat” and St. Patrick’s Day “Find the Leprechaun” promotions—that combine push notifications, in-app messaging, and sales.
Revamping the in-game achievement system to create both a sense of progression and a more robust set of goals for player to strive for.
The results were astounding, as the game soon saw daily active users increase by more than 300 percent, and in-app purchases rose by over 400 percent. To ensure it wasn’t a fluke, a similar approach was applied to Hot Streak Slots, which is now seeing steady growth, while other previously released games are being reinvigorated.
Alex Tarrand, senior manager of Live Operations for MobilityWare, spoke to [a]listdaily about how analytics can be used to add a few new tricks to some old games.
What convinced MobilityWare to revisit a 2008 game with new analytics data?
As a studio we wanted to experiment with freemium models as well as vet the value of a marketing automation tool. Blackjack was a simple ad-funded game that we felt had a lot more potential.
What were some of the trends you saw from reviewing analytics data?
The game employed only simple telemetry at first. When we decided to do the initial overhaul we added a marketing automation solution (push, IAM, A/B) and doubled the volume of event tracking to get a better sense of what our players were doing. We learned a ton! One of the biggest learnings was that our early retention wasn’t great. Our hypothesis was that players were not getting involved in our table system because it was too deep in the user interface (UI). We also suspected that players were dropping off as the game didn’t have a good sense of goals.
How were analytics used to improve Blackjack?
Once we added a dedicated data analyst and product manager, the game’s trajectory changed. We began diving into a few of the metrics that weren’t as healthy as we wanted them to be and enacting some real product change. In the case of early retention we implemented a new lobby that put the table system on the forefront, and immediately saw a jump in table engagement. We also added a robust achievement system and saw a baseline increase against all early retention metrics. Both features were arrived at, and later evaluated, using game data.
Does the approach also improve user acquisition for older games?
Absolutely, the market is so competitive that you need to have a polished offering to get players to install. Many of the changes have also positively impacted the player lifetime value (LTV), making it easier to continue to invest in the title.
In what ways did analytics help improve Hot Streak Slots?
So much! Slot games are surprisingly complex with hundreds of variables that can be employed to make individual machines more engaging. We read our machines weekly to make sure they are providing the expected results. Social casino, as a genre, needs more real-time analytical attention than most.
The results from Blackjack are quite impressive. Were you surprised by them?
Thanks! We knew that we had something special, but have been consistently surprised at the continued upward trajectory. Our live-ops team are always thinking of creative ways to engage the players through events, pairing these with new mechanics has enabled Blackjack to continue to exceed our forecasts and expectations.
Does platform (iOS, Android, Apple TV, etc.) play a role in how players engage with games?
There are some subtle metric differences between the platforms; however, one of the biggest drivers is ecosystem offerings. Apple continues to provide new venues for our industry that can increase engagement. We recently ported Blackjack to Apple TV and have been studying the platform through our analytics. The daily active user base is modest, but having a TV SKU allows you to open up more player conversations. We engaged players on social, as well as in-app, to evangelize the TV game and definitely generated some interest. In fact, we had one player reach out to our customer service team to find out if they can receive special TV promotions!
Can a similar approach be applied to puzzle games like Sunny Shapes?
Some general key performance indicators are applicable to both casual puzzle and casino, such as retention, conversion, etc. Sunny Shapes is unique in that it started as a wearable watch game first, then grew to into a more robust experience after it generated a lot of internal buzz. We are going to be watching it closely, but the breadth of analysis is more shallow than a game like Blackjack.
Will you be reviewing these games again, with newer analytics data, at some point in the future?
I’m 100 percent positive we will. We examine our analysis daily and add additional tracking with every new mechanic. We have also done a lot of work around segmentation in order to make each player’s experience more relevant and tailored to them. We re-factor our segmentation on a regular basis; like most things, there’s always room for improvement.
A new report from Newzoo, with data compiled by TalkingData, indicates that China has become the definitive leader in mobile gaming, with $7.1 billion in annual revenue for this past year. But that’s child’s play compared to where this year’s numbers will go.
The report, titled Mobile Advertising & User Acquisition In China, shows that China will continue to flourish with mobile games, as it is expected to top $10 billion in 2016, and eventually reach $13.9 billion by 2019. This is a great leap forward compared to 2014, when the market made a much smaller $4.5 billion.
As a result, the overall games market is slowly being dominated by mobile efforts, which will grow from 33 percent in 2015 to 48 percent by 2019.
MAUs also increased year-over-year, rising by 80.4 percent on Android and 21.7 percent on iOS between the end of 2014 and 2015. Meanwhile, the number of active mobile game devices grew to over one billion in Q4 2015, a major increase from the 800 million reported for 2014.
Newzoo does point out a slight note of concern with growth rate. Even with a 25 percent increase in active mobile game devices for the year, the quarter-over-quarter rate did see a slight drop-off by 4.8 percent.
NetEase’s Tom van Dam spoke to GamesIndustry International about the drop-off, explaining, “Direct user acquisition isn’t very successful in China. You can’t buy users like you can in the West,” he said. “For example, we did a UA campaign, spending $100,000 to buy users. I can’t recall exactly, but I think we got $2,000 back. Those users don’t monetize, and they can cost up to €50 [$57.5 USD] a user.”
Still, there was plenty of selection, as the market saw 16,500 mobile games across various Chinese app stores, with 50 percent in the casual and card genres. As for new launches over the year, role-playing and strategy games ruled the roost, and are likely to overlap these categories by the end of this year.
As supported by other recent reports, things will continue to rise for the Chinese gaming market, although the new user growth may be some cause for concern. Fortunately, with so many games to choose from, and many Western developers trying to get in on the action, there should be something that draws them in.
Rovio is a game company that flew to new heights in the merchandising business, successfully launching a slew of tie-ins to its bestselling mobile game franchise from the very early days. With a Hollywood feature film hitting the big screen on May 20, Rovio and Sony Pictures are pulling out all of the stops.
In total, more than 100 partners worldwide are coming together to deliver $250 million in promotional value to both The Angry Birds Movie and the new Angry Birds Action! mobile game. For example, McDonald’s is launching a themed Happy Meal program to 120 markets worldwide, which will include exclusive codes for the pinball-themed game (which ties into the movie).
From interactive movie posters embedded with game codes to an in-theater sound technology that unlocks exclusive content, Rovio and Sony Pictures are letting the birds fly early. Wilhelm Taht, executive vice president of games at Rovio, explains how the new game and movie will tap into its global fan base in this exclusive interview.
How do the BirdCodes work?
We’re adding an augmented reality experience to some of the movie partners through BirdCode technology, where you scan codes provided by partners like LEGO, H&M, McDonald’s, and Pez. They’re pushing out both the Angry Birds Action! game and the movie over the next month.
How many codes are out there?
Over a billion BirdCodes are going out into the wild over the next month. We’re taking a big partnership approach that’s in tune with the movie itself. After you get to Level 2 in the game, you can start entering codes.
What do these codes unlock?
There are more than two dozen unique BirdCode experiences that have been developed within Angry Birds Action!. For example, each of the six LEGO Angry Birds play sets come with their own different augmented reality mini-game, which is unlocked by scanning the BirdCode found on the last page of the building instructions.
You can play a Whack-a-Pig mini-game by scanning codes on McDonald’s Happy Meals, drink cups, wrappers, and tray liners and also take selfies with characters from The Angry Birds Movie.
Designs on H&M apparel include BirdCodes that unlock an endless runner mini-game starring Red, Chuck, or Bomb. Virtual Pez candies can be unlocked in the game by scanning codes on Angry Birds Movie PEZ dispensers. Even The Angry Birds Movie posters have codes on them.
How are you working with retailers?
There’s a real-world scavenger hunt through retailers like Walmart and Toys ‘R’ Us, which will have codes on display. Scanning them unlocks additional power-ups and a different character (Red, Chuck, Bomb, or a Pig) that provides a key to a mystery box in the game.
What separates this Angry Birds game from anything else out there?
It’s a pinball arcade game that’s the first game featuring the movie characters in full 3D glory. From a storyline and folklore point of view, takes place before the Piggies have arrived at Bird Island.
How does the game connect to the big screen film?
At the end credits, the game prompts you to open up Angry Birds Action!. There’s an audio watermark that unlocks and opens up the Piggy Island level. It also unlocks an alternate ending to the movie. Normally you’d see something at the end of the credits, but we’re doing that exclusively in-game. You don’t need any online connection to make this “movie magic” work.
Will this audio technology also work later with the home entertainment version?
It will work later for the DVD and Blu-ray, but we may have some additional tricks up our sleeves for the home edition.
Who are you targeting with these activations?
We’re catering to diehard fans with some of these things, providing something unique and fun for fans of the movie and the Angry Birds.
What’s the reception been like since launching the game?
It’s at the top of the charts across the globe and it’s been rated high by users worldwide.
How are you working with Sony Pictures in cross-promoting the new game and film?
Sony’s promotional program is directed towards the movie, as it does with “triple-A” Hollywood blockbuster movies. The game has been a unique aspect of the whole program, and has received a lot of additional spend from marketing partners.
How does the licensing of the new movie characters fit into the overall merchandising we’ve seen from Angry Birds for many years?
We have a big licensing program that’s been running for the movie for a long time already. There are quite a bit of licensees out there. There’s a huge number of licenses working on movie assets for the Angry Birds brand, as well. The new birds have arms and legs, so consumer products will look and feel different than they used to.
We just saw the low-budget Ratchet & Clank movie make less than $5 million in the U.S. in its opening weekend. What are the challenges of translating a game for the big screen?
I’m not going to comment on other movies. But in general, video games have been a challenging thing to take to the big screen for a wide variety of reasons. One of the biggest challenges is the narrative has not always been fantastic in video games, and it’s challenging to translate that into an interesting story that runs for 90 minutes. Also, it’s oftentimes a very hardcore story. Big video game brands are often weapon-aggressive and have a hardcore background that can be challenging to bring to big screen.
What do you feel Angry Birds has going for it on the big screen?
We have over 3.5 billion downloads of the franchise and over 100 million active players worldwide. The movie is a very tongue-in-cheek, humorous, four-quadrant, family-friendly film. Telling the origin story of how this struggle between the pigs and birds began has been resonating on a global basis. We’re not taking anything as given. Cinema is a challenging business, and we don’t know how things are going to go. We do know nothing has entered cinemas worldwide like Angry Birds.
One of the highlights from last month’s [a]list summit in Seattle was Activision Blizzard senior vice president Mike Sepso discussing the growth and evolution of eSports, which has gone from a small level of competition to a multi-million dollar business enterprise in just a few years’ time.
Credit that to the “millions of passionate fans who really love and engage with this as a content type.” He also credits the “personalities behind the sport,” who help keep fans engaged as they tackle a number of games, including popular favorites like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and League of Legends.
Sepso talked about the popularity of eSports, and how its reach was actually eclipsing other pro sports, including the NHL and Major League Baseball, and is almost on par with the NBA. Obviously, it still has some ways to go to catch up with the juggernaut that is the NFL, but that’s pretty impressive considering eSports has only been around for a few years.
There’s still room to grow on the revenue front, as eSports only generated under $4 million for total annual revenue, which is small potatoes compared to other big sports. Still, Sepso noted big opportunities for brands and star players to step up and find support through sponsorship.
In a panel discussing why eSports is at the nexus of consumer trends, Andy Swanson, vice president of eSports for Twitch, who compared eSports to poker, in that it’s based around a large community. Technology has been able to play a huge part in competitions, especially being able to watch them live.
Dan Ciccone, managing director of rEvXP, also had plenty to add, especially when it came to Pepsi’s recent eSports promotion with the Brisk brand. “I really applaud these brands, because they are working with us to back away from some of those traditional metrics that everyone in this room is held to, and they’re providing somewhat of a creative latitude to approach the space differently than they do traditional marketing.”
However, those approaching eSports should do it the right way, according to Swanson. “What you can’t do is just say, ‘I want to market eSports.’ It’s just too generic.”
The full panel can be found in the video below, and provides a great deal of insight into the success of eSports.
The NFL Draft culminated this weekend with 253 prospects being selected. All of them—including a slew of undrafted ones that later found a home—fulfilled lifelong dreams. Some are preordained franchise saviors. Most will be forgotten names a year from now.
Brands like Visa used the stage to film 360-degree virtual reality videos with prospects like Paxton Lynch, Braxton Miller, Shaq Lawson and Jaylon Smith.
Then there was North Dakota State football quarterback Carson Wentz. Wentz became one of the greater gambles in recent draft history when the Eagles traded up to the No. 2 overall pick to snag him because the signal-caller’s skill set is largely unproven against supreme competition. Being born and raised in Bismarck, he’s largely an unknown person outside state lines, too.
What better way to introduce a franchise quarterback to fans than through cross-platform storytelling, right? That’s exactly what ESPN did, giving Wentz a coming out party of sorts by featuring him on the cover of ESPN The Magazine and also across TV and social media through the television network’s first 360-degree video segment.
ESPN used Nokia’s new VR camera Ozo to capture the quarterback prior to him being drafted. It was one of the first pieces shot with Ozo. “It was a cool experience—definitely different, but enjoyable,” Wentz said, per Fortune. “I believe it will be very cool to watch and see exactly how the camera captures everything around it.”
VR and 360-degree video has quickly developed into a new frontier for experimental storytelling ranging from legacy brands to traditional journalistic institutions toiling in the medium. To keep up with the waves of innovators knocking on content’s doors, equipment is maturing faster than first projected in order to enable an industry. Tally this as another win for the “immersive entertainment experiences” column.
Launched last November, the Ozo is the latest VR camera aimed at professional content creators. It allows real-time 3D viewing, with an innovative playback solution that removes the need to pre-assemble a panoramic image.
Shaped like the size of a human head, the futuristic Ozo is dressed with eight lenses and microphones. Each lens is separated by the equivalent distance of a person’s eyes; it’s designed to mimic what humans are able to see, and hear. Each lens has a 195-degree field view, 2Kx2K resolution per eye, and shoots 30 frames per second. It was made available in the European market in March. Priced at $60,000, it’s a sizable statement for Nokia to announce a return into the hardware since selling the handset unit to Microsoft. Last week, Nokia and Walt Disney Studios struck a deal designed to give Disney marketers and filmmakers the tools they need to create engaging VR content via access to the Ozo.
Stuart English, who’s responsible for worldwide sales development for the OZO, joined [a]listdaily at the Silicon Valley Virtual Reality Expo in San Jose, California to talk about Nokia’s newest technology.
When you think of Nokia, you don’t associate it with VR. Why was Ozo introduced to the market?
Nokia is over 100 years old. It was a paper mill company, originally. What do you do with paper? Communicate. And what’s Nokia probably still best known for? Cell phones. What do you do with those? Communicate. Nokia is in the communications business. We look at VR and basically say ‘this is a medium that’s the next phase in communication.’ We believe we have some core technologies we’ve learned in the cell phone business and are applying it to the VR industry as well. This is the future of audio and visual communication. But, fundamentally, we believe we can make money with it.
Ozo is a ground-up redesign for what’s referred to as telepresence VR. The concept of telepresence is that we can take you from where you are right now, and relocate you to another location that you couldn’t otherwise be. When we designed the Ozo, we looked at the current technology and converted that. You can’t get to the point you need to be from building a camera based upon a rig-based concept. You have to do a ground-up design. When you look at the Ozo, it’s very clear that it’s different. By having eight cameras around the ball, it means that we can virtually look between pairs of cameras and see the world like humans. It delivers a very natural stereoscopic visual viewpoint.
How are you trying to build awareness and increase sales? What’s your pitch?
Sales are actually going very well since shipments started late March, primarily in Los Angeles because that’s the storytelling capital. The way the camera tends to get sold is through specialized resellers. We have three resellers in L.A., and two in New York. It’s not at a consumer price point. If we take a look at cinema-like cameras, there are DSLR-types consumers can buy. But the guys who actually make movies, they use cameras that are $60,000-to-$100,000. The reasons they use those—yes, picture quality—but those are professional tools they can rely on, and they actually make the creation of content very efficient. It lets them monitor what they’re shooting on set. If you don’t use professional-level tools making professional content, it will cost you more money. You’ll lose efficiency on set, and spend more time in post production. Anything you might think you’re saving in equipment costs you’re getting straight back in operational costs. Ozo takes care of that.
Who is your target customer?
VR does not imply consumer-level cameras. What VR implies is consumer-level consumption. So, back to movies. A $100,000 camera is used to make the movie, but we only spend $15 to watch it in the cinema. That doesn’t mean everyone who watches a movie is going to make one. What we’re selling is a professional VR camera. So who’s going to buy it? Movie companies, advertising agencies, companies who rent out equipment. There are a lot of intimate and explosive stories being told with the Ozo.
How does the Ozo create new storytelling methods?
I wouldn’t pigeonhole it to cinema-style storytellers. That is one of the genres we get into. What I will say is that because of the way Ozo works, it really asks you to rethink the way you tell a story because traditional cameras have been observing things remotely from the outside in. When you reimagine this as a human being’s head, you can reimagine the story from the inside out. It even impacts simple storylines like a roundtable interview. It becomes an all-encompassing set.
Are consumers ready for VR?
They are. Every time I place a headset on the consumer, their reaction is ‘I love it.’ I think it comes down to if we’re connecting the right story to the right viewer. I think the technology is ready. The story needs to be the right fit. The most important thing is to get the audience to transition through the stages of regular video, flat monoscopic VR, and then the fully immersive with headsets, and let them choose what they’re most comfortable with.
How does VR enable brands in their marketing campaigns?
A lot of agencies are spending money to produce 2D content. For an extra incremental cost of shooting a piece in VR, why wouldn’t we do that? The set and actors are already there. For brands, they have to evaluate what the effectiveness of VR is versus the regular piece. I don’t see it as a ‘one or the other.’ I see it as a both. VR works because, particularly with headsets, you are locked into the storyline and you are ready to receive the message. There is no way to escape it. You’re in that messaging. It has the potential to be a much more powerful and emotional medium.
What are some challenges VR has to overcome for it to be adopted?
VR has to demonstrate it can entertain a mass audience. There’s challenges in any work. Do people want to watch movies or sporting events in VR? Because that typically is paid for through advertising, and it needs eyeballs and numbers to justify the investment. Some of the golden rules are you get consumers to experience good content. Sometimes it’s better to have a more limited amount of excellent content than a massive amount of mediocre ones. There’s a risk of turning people off that way. On the technology side, the cost of accessing it is pretty low, particularly with your cell phone with the Samsung GearVR and Google Cardboard philosophy. You’re really leveraging a piece of technology the consumer already has. The incremental cost of getting into VR is actually pretty low. From that side, I think the industry is in pretty good shape.