Digital Marketers: 3 Ways to Use Virtual Reality to Revolutionize Digital Marketing Experience

As a digital & interactive marketing expert, you believe that 2017 will be an exciting year for virtual reality development. Virtual reality has opened up brands to the potential of technology that they have never experienced before. As a graduate student at Northwestern University in Medill Integrated Marketing Communications program who has interest in digital marketing, I have found two articles that highlight how Virtual Reality is a trend to watch in 2017.

In the article Why 2017 could be the year of virtual reality, published on Theweek.com, Alejandro Alba mentions how Virtual Reality technology broke far out of the gaming world last year. That it only lives inside a headset but can transport you anywhere in your imagined worlds draws many giant companies such as Samsung, Marriott Hotels, The New York Times, Hollywood, Microsoft, Apple and Facebook, just to name a few, into the real world of Virtual Reality. Facebook, which owns Oculus, also said last year that it will make the experience more social allowing users to travel the world and hang out in virtual dream homes.

Source: ABC News

Claire L Evans from Theguardian.com points out another interesting consideration to make Virtual Reality a hit in the article Virtual reality may look cool, but it will feel empty without community. She mentions that experiences from Virtual Reality are impressive but they will never truly feel real until they can be shared, “The reality is more than just places, but it is about people”. An example of a primitive version of the Virtual Reality hangout game called Habitat is given because its players were so involved, fell in love, formed a community, and even started religions. So, the game became a real community made of people. It is important to understand that Virtual Reality’s convincing environment is so real that the users want to share it with their community. So, according to Evans, to make it extremely effective, marketers should design a strategy that “makes space for real social interactions within virtual environments.”

These two articles have shown that giant companies are seriously jumping into this trend and trying to develop a community and making it social, especially Facebook. So, after reviewing these two powerful articles and reviewing relevant studies, I have developed three key points to consider when forming a digital strategy using Virtual Reality.  

• Experience beyond boundaries - Create a new kind of experience that is so real, yet goes beyond the boundaries of consumers’ reality.

• Immerse in daydream - Gives importance not only to the Virtual Reality itself, but also to the surrounding brand experience. It creates a believable and interactive brand experience that engages consumers’ body and mind, allowing them to be immersed in a daydream.

• Create a community - Virtual Reality is not fun if you don’t use with other people, so there should be a community for Virtual Reality users to engage with.

Remember, sooner or later Virtual Reality will come and on a much grander scale, digital marketers should start thinking about it now before it is too late.

About the author: Prae Sarasin is a graduate student at Northwestern University majoring in Digital and Interactive Marketing, and Brand Strategy and pursuing the Medill School of Integrated Marketing Communications program. Upon graduating in December 2017, I am interested in pursuing a digital marketing position. For more information, you can contact me at LinkedIn or Twitter.

School PR Professionals: 3 Tips to Better Engage the Public in Public Education

You plan for months and months for an event; the night of the meeting you’re excited to share with everyone your budget for the upcoming year, but three people show up. I used to have these experiences in my role in marketing/communications for public schools, and through my current graduate program at Northwestern University’s Medill Integrated Marketing Communications program, I have found two articles related to public engagement that you might find interesting. 

In his article "From Short-order Cooks to Gourmet Chefs: Recipes for Innovation in Public Engagement," Matt Leighninger, executive director of the Deliberative Democracy Consortium in Washington, D.C. and Hamilton, Ontario, talks about how the core goals of public engagement have not changed. Rather, what’s changed is the use of innovation in “…trying to develop more productive, dynamic, and long-term relationships…” He talks about the changes that have taken placed in the past 10 years to engage the public in decision making and problem solving. Leighninger then talks about the limitations of these strategies to produce long-term changes in the ways schools operate. After presenting the basics of engaging audiences, he presents several ways in which some educators are using innovating techniques to engage the public in day-to-day life of schools through interaction and collaboration.

In another article titled “Community Engagement Builds Trust for Redistricting,” Kelly Avants, director of communications for Clovis Unified School District in California, talks about community engagement from a perspective of decision making, specifically regarding redistricting. She lays out four steps for building community trust and support for change (through engaging key audiences). Her strategies are not only tactical, but also strategic as well. For example, she talks about really listening to what people are saying and being prepared to use and act on that information.

Based on these two articles and what I am learning in my graduate program at Medill, here are three action items you can do now to better engage the public education in your district:

• Map Your Stakeholders: Determine who your stakeholders are what their interest in your district is.

• Find Your Stakeholders: Look for the places where your stakeholders interact so you know where to reach them (don’t forget to find which online communities they’re a part of).

• Consistency, Consistency, Consistency: Don’t wait until key decisions are to be made or issues arise; engage your stakeholders throughout the year to developing lasting relationships.

As a school PR professional, these are simple tips you can start using today to continue engaging your stakeholders in your school district. Engaging the public in your district is a key element to success in continuing to improve education for all students.

Jane Flis is currently a graduate student in Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University, expecting to graduate in 2015. Before starting graduate school, she worked as a marketing and communications specialist for an urban public school district of 20,000 students in Wisconsin for four years. Prior to that, she was a marketing and communications coordinator for a community education program shared jointly by three public school districts in Minnesota and an intern for another public school district in Minnesota. She holds a bachelors degree in communications from the University of Minnesota.