Dive Brief:
- IMAX Corp. and IMAX China Holding, Inc. completed phase one of a $50 million virtual reality fund to finance high quality VR content, according to a press release.
- The goal is to produce at least 25 interactive VR content experiences over the next three years across all VR platforms, including IMAX VR centers.
- The most notable investor in the fund for marketers is WPP, one of the world's largest and most well-known advertising conglomerates.
Dive Insight:
While most of the investment partners for the fund are China-centric — suggesting China might be one of the lead marketplaces to adopt VR technology at mass scale — the inclusion of WPP should be of interest for marketers worldwide. Traditional ad agencies and conglomerates like WPP have had issues keeping up with a rapidly shifting digital landscape, and WPP's stake in the fund could be an effort to get in front of bleeding edge advertising channels as they begin to break into the mainstream.
While VR has often been seen as hype-driven or somewhat gimmicky item on the marketing front, research has proven it has measurable value outside of the "wow" factor. A recent report from YuMe and Nielsen found that immersive VR brand experiences achieve a 17% higher emotional reaction than flat 360-degree video, and a 27% higher reaction than traditional 2D content, along with notably higher engagement times.
The fund's goal to produce high quality content "across platforms," also suggests the initiative will extend beyond IMAX screens — a smart move given that Juniper Research found consumer spend on VR hardware might surpass $50 billion by 2021. The goal for advertisers and brands now is to actually take the time to develop smart campaigns that are well-suited to the technology as opposed to simply hopping on a trend.