Summary: When smartphones were introduced a little over a decade back, it heralded a major technological revolution where people could access the internet on their fingertips. Aroon Kumar explains how augmented and virtual reality will further revolutionise how we will experience the world.

Smartphones ushered a revolution when they were first introduced. Effectively, they brought a radical shift from the previous generation cellular phones where you could only call and text. Media, videos and music could be consumed easily on smartphones and integration with the internet created a whole different user experience. Today though, when smartphones are the norm, we stand at the cusp of another revolution - one that will be driven by Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) technology capabilities.

Virtual reality has started driving an important change  - which is the evolution of storytelling to story living.

Augmented Reality is a direct or indirect live view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are ‘augmented’ by computer generated perceptual information, ideally across multiple sensory modalities, including visual, auditory, haptic, somatosensory and olfactory.

Virtual Reality is also a computer-generated scenario that stimulates experience through senses and perceptions. The immersive environment can be similar to the real world or it can be fantastical, creating an experience not possible in our physical reality. Augmented reality systems can also be considered as a form of virtual reality that layers virtual information over a live camera feed into a headset or through a smartphone or tablet device giving the user the ability to view three or four dimensional images.

As per Ignacio Zuccarino, head of creative at Google Zoo – Within five years different kinds of lenses will make the majority of the mobile platform. In five to ten years, cars could also be our chosen mobile weapon. And ten years from now, maybe we will be searching and posting from our heads, courtesy brain implants. Mobile will become our own body. We are already seeing that mobile devices and human bodies are merging into one thing.

All the new android phones support the VR platform ‘Daydream’, developed by Google. Hence 74% of smartphone users are ready to access related content. On the other hand, Apple is also heavily investing in AR & VR technologies. It has recently released ARKit, it’s Augmented Reality platform for iOS. With more adoption of these platforms, VR and AR are becoming massive technologies. And when it comes to platforms, devices and adoptions by users, they are both scalable.

The story living experience has taken a big leap with VR & AR. They both have the potential to deliver ad messages in a much more powerful way than formats such as text, static images and traditional videos. The multi-sensorial communications help people see, hear, feel and identify better with other peoples’ experiences. The early adopters like Disney, Google Zoo & others have embraced these solutions as these are robust projects, expensive and take time to create.

And creating a virtual reality story gives the audience the final control over the brand experience. The true power of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality lies in empathy which will help the users to put themselves in the shoes of someone who they aspire to be or try to understand various characters.

What will be the brand experience that you want to create with Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality ?

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