Every year, marketers and agencies take a stab at April Fools’ Day. It’s a great opportunity to convey good and funny messages. Some brands—notably Google—inserted a playable Pac Man game into its map. This isn’t the first time Google bring a childhood game to life especially for April Fools’ Day. At the same time, Reebok is unwilling to left behind to taken this opportunity to go viral. Since Reebok always celebrates the athletes who pour their sweat and tears into workouts, this time it made a difference with a novel signature fragrance—Swět, a distinctive blend of human sweat acquired from the actual drop of fitness enthusiasts. Will the smell of fitness go in vogue? Who knows, but it is really funny.
Here is a brand early on the action and I think is the most interesting one. Travel portal Jetsetter utilized Virtual Reality technology to create the world’s first virtual reality hotel, offering culinary, immersive spa and nightlife experience. Actually, it has recreated the virtual experience by creating a microsite with its best features, Guests can experience snorkel dive under the crystal-clear waters, bathe in the sunshine and chat up other guests at the same time. Surprisingly, they can also enjoy cocktail in the e-bar. Just imaging the majestic experience lures people to try.
On April first’s morning, Jetsetter released a new sale for this kind, even though the hotel’s booking site has already known for its great deals on luxury hotels. As the sale advertises, purchasers will “be among the first in the world to experience a virtual reality vacation” with “levels of personalization not available at traditional hotels” and “the best design elements and amenities curated from among Jetsetter hotels and distilled into one hotel experience.” It still sounds fantabulous regardless the fact that the VR hotel experience ended up of being completely different from what has been advertised.
What do you think of when you hear the words virtual reality (VR)? Is that mysterious or sophisticated? As the matter of face, the virtual reality uses computer technology to create a simulated three-dimensional world, in which a user can explore and manipulate with a ‘illusion’ that what he experience is happening in the real world. Generally speaking, VR experience consists of two constitutes, say three-dimensional life-sized images and the ability to track a user’s motions, particularly the head and eye movements, and the capability to adjust images correspondingly to reflect the change in user’s perspective.
Currently, a majority of virtual reality experience prioritizes audio and visual components over other sensory factors. However, stimulating all senses of a user will enable him/her to have a wider breadth of information, particularly the sense of touch. In the VR environment, a user would experience immersion, a feeling of being a part of the virtual world and is able to have interactions with the surroundings in a meaningful way. The terminology describing this combination of the sense of immersion and interactivity is telepresence. According to the computer scientist Jonathan Steuer, telepresence is “the extent to which one feels present in the mediated environment, rather than in the immediate physical environment.” Simply speaking, an effective VR experience leads user hardly to being aware of his/her real surroundings and just focusing on the virtual environment attentively.
For immersion to be effective, a user must be able to explore a life-sized virtual world and also able to change perspectives and have interactions constantly. True interactivity requires the capability to modify the environment and timely and appropriate respond to users’ actions. If a virtual environment changes in an unpredictable way, it risks disrupting the user’s sense of telepresence.
Related links:
http://digiday.com/brands/jokes-brands-play-fool-april-1/
http://www.oyster.com/articles/45689-exposed-we-reveal-the-truth-behind-jetsetters-virtual-reality/
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/gadgets/other-gadgets/virtual-reality3.htm
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