A tongue-in-cheek campaign, via creative agency Now We Collide, is encouraging Australian fans of American football to take the day off (with the blessing of their employer) to enjoy Super Bowl LVIII.
A contagious strain of Super Bowl fever is spreading across Australia and New Zealand, and cable sports channel ESPN is helping fans deal with the condition.
“The Super Bowl is being played on a Monday downunder, so sign me up for the Super Bowl Sickie,” said ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith.
“If you’ve got Super Bowl fever, no medicine is going to cure that, except watching the big game. Call in sick…trust me.”
Independent creative agency Now We Collide has partnered with Chief Executive Women (CEW) across their creative and marketing initiatives. This strategic partnership aims to revamp CEW’s Leadership Summit, driving awareness among Australian leaders and expediting progress towards gender equality.
CEW is the pre-eminent organisation representing Australia’s most influential women leaders across various sectors such as corporate, public service, academic and not-for-profit sector.
Their annual Leadership Summit, now branded as ‘Agenda 2033’, acts as a catalyst to reaching a future where gender equality is reality. An unmissable lineup of influential speakers and disruptors will take to the stage to identify tangible actions that people and businesses can implement to accelerate change across Australia.
Ann Burns GAIDC, CEW Member and Strategic Advisor, comments: “No one wants to wait 100 years for an equal future. We are a force for change and are advocating for more diverse voices at every table and women’s workforce participation enabled across all sectors. Our mission is to empower all women so they are economically secure and free from violence across their life course and that there is workplace flexibility for all to work and care.”
Burns continues, “Our Leadership Summit is for all leaders looking to take decisive action in the next ten years to accelerate our journey and to empower men and women to have the same social and economic choices. This is the forum where change is re-ignited and we set a new Agenda that is built on activation and collaboration.
“Working with Now We Collide has given us the creative inspiration to move ahead with confidence and set our passion in the context of action,” says Burns.
Naomi Young, Strategy Director at Now We Collide, said, “Key to the creative strategy was identifying the data-wow point we drew from the 2022 CEW Census*. Based on the current rate of change, it will take 100 years to have leadership equality.
“Accelerating this unacceptable statistic is at the heart of the new name, Agenda 2033, but also key to CEW’s action plan. This event will ignite a chain reaction to fast track equality, turning what could be 100 years of snail-paced change into 10.”
Young continues, “Partnering with the CEW team in their rebrand for the summit has been very fulfilling. Leadership development is a crowded space in the market, so creatively we needed cut-through, to clearly communicate the unique position of Agenda 2033.
“This is not just another leadership event or a day to shape your future self, this is about igniting change on a national level. The creative, from naming through to visuals in market, needs to inspire and activate people.”
Announced earlier this week, the lineup of speakers for Agenda 2033 includes notable individuals like Taryn Brumfitt, who was honoured as the Australian of the Year in 2023. Joining her are influential leaders such as Shemara Wikramanayake, CEO of Macquarie Group, Leah Weckert, CEO of Coles, and Kaylee Anderson, Victorian Aboriginal Engagement Lead.
BridgeClimb Sydney is putting one of Australia’s most iconic experiences back on the itinerary of international travellers, with a new campaign from independent creative agency Now We Collide.
Now We Collide launches campaign unveiling new name and look for digital transformation business Cocentric. Independent creative agency Now We Collide has worked with digital employee experience company Azuronaut to rebrand, creating a new name - Cocentric - brand values and visual identity. Cocentric improves the digital employee experience, bringing people and tech together to […]
For just the second time in history, Australia played host to the FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup, and in a first, ESPN would be broadcasting a major sporting event, live from Australian shores. Now We Collide was given the task of creating a social media led creative campaign that targeted a wide Australian audience alongside basketball fans to drive tune-in to ESPN’s live broadcast.
The creative strategy involved featuring high profile Opals players delivering inspirational lines to camera from a New York training camp, which NWC managed remotely. We then combined this footage with unique cell animation, game footage and commentary stings to set the scene for the home town showdown. Multiple exports were created with different calls to action. The first was to create awareness in the lead up to the competition, we then tailored messaging to game specific tune-in as each game approached. The creative was then A/B tested with sound on and sound off versions across different platforms.
The semi-final game creative - Opals v China on ESPN.
We ran the campaign using a blended social media strategy with the goal of reaching the widest possible audience and combining this with ‘active engagement’ to achieve video view completions.
The Opals did Aussie fans proud in the world cup, bringing home the bronze medal after narrowly missing out on the gold medal match. The USA claimed their third championship on the bounce but there was another winner out of the competition and that was the success of the sound on, vertical format video in our creative campaign, something that Now We Collide has been championing for a while now - Vertical video keeps soaring.
Sound on environments such as TikTok and Instagram Reels proved to be a great format to drive reach and engagement where we used the celebrity and inspiration of the Opals players to deliver piece-to-camera with a more ‘native’ feel to the TikTok/Reels world during the campaign. Also, because people tend to actively scroll TikTok and Reels as opposed to the more passive scrolling provided by other formats, audio becomes more relevant and powerful when making creative choices on these platforms. The TikTok campaign also included some tactical enhancements such as premium placement in feed and Super Like interactive add on.
The campaign reached over 2.5 million viewers across Facebook, Instagram and TikTok while engagement and 100% video views performance achieved was significantly above benchmarks and KPIs set. Not only that, and most importantly, the event has become one of the most successful for ESPN Australia in terms of audience numbers and viewing figures.
Just over 2 years ago we wrote about the “Rise of Vertical Video” and how we saw it as “one of the biggest opportunities for brands” at the time. Shift forward 2 years and it's clear that the prediction has become a reality. During that time we have seen the exponential growth of Instagram Reels, in 2021 Adam Mosseri, the Head of Instagram announced a focus on video and the tripling of Reels maximum running length to 90 seconds (while ads have a maximum running length of 60 seconds) – with over 1 billion active Instagram users every month the move into vertical mobile video has been one of the driving forces behind the success. Reels has now been expanded to Facebook as well which in turn increases the views and discoverability of Reels across both platforms.
Ultimately though, Reels was a response to the growth of what was then a new-comer to the vertical video scene – TikTok. TikTok has grown rapidly and whilst we recognised 2 years ago that they were a serious competitor to the incumbent leaders in social video at the time (Facebook and YouTube) we didn’t foresee quite how big they would get. In fact, data from the recent Hootsuite / We Are Social report shows that TikTok now leads in average time per month spent in app across Android devices globally:
TikTok’s undoubted success has been driven by their AI algorithm and the ability to curate and recommend the most relevant content to keep viewers hooked and scrolling for more. In this sense, TikTok has become a quasi social media and entertainment platform in one. TikTok now has over 1 billion monthly active users itself and is projected to reach somewhere between $8bn - $12bn in ad revenue in 2022.
Not to be out-done, in late 2020 YouTube launched their own YouTube Shorts vertical video and short-from platform for videos 60 seconds and less. YouTube Shorts is already driving 1.5bn monthly views and has in our eyes the advantage over both Instagram and TikTok in that it plugs into both the creator community of YouTube and the overall Google ecosystem, particularly search. Demand for YouTube Shorts has been soaring, in April this year Google CEO, Pichai announced that YouTube Shorts, is generating 30 billion views per day, which is four times more than the same time a year earlier.
So what does all this mean for brands and advertisers? In a word, plenty. There are the obvious creative ramifications we discussed in our original article – vertical video needs to be filmed or produced with the vertical 9:16 format front of mind mind – utilising all the available pixel space to maximise engagement with a feeling that is native to viewing and platform experience. With videos across all vertical platforms primarily watched with sound-on, this means that dialogue, sound and sound design has become more important than ever and revokes many of the previous recommendations around creating for a sound-off viewing experience.
This also means that video content including people and dialogue directly to camera within the creative has become more important than ever – driven by the success of a plethora of content creators – and for advertisers this is an important consideration. We have run a number of organic and paid campaigns across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube in which we have A/B tested different creative and we have interesting findings where for certain categories and demographics, people speaking directly to camera and engaging with audience one-to-one, have significantly out-performed all other creative.
One thing we have also been working on as an agency is optimising video creative for 95%+ or 100% video completions. This is because the video platforms are often optimised to reporting on a 3 second or up to 6 second video view and while this might be relevant for the platforms themselves to report on, this isn't necessarily a true gauge of how consumers are interacting with a brands content or ads. While there has been lots written on the demise of the average attention span there is also plenty of evidence available to confirm that if you reach the right people, at the right time with content that is relevant and of interest/engaging, they will dedicate as much time as needed. So we believe a truer reflection of campaign success is to understand and report on those higher video completion rates and optimise the creative and media strategy accordingly.
Data from numerous campaignswe have run here at Now We Collide over the last 2 years has shown that the growth in vertical video has been accompanied by much higher video viewing completion rates and the associated cost efficiencies which can be achieved and by optimising video to the vertical format, even higher engagement and efficiencies can be achieved.
So for now at least the rise of vertical video continues and is now an essential part of any digital and social media strategy and should be integrated into the channel mix accordingly.
US sports have continued their growth trajectory in Australia with numerous studies showing both participation and viewership have increased markedly. While demographics of fans skew younger than the average Aussie sports fan, the growth in US sports has been driven by both younger fans entering the market and existing sports fans being attracted from other codes.
Beginning in September with the NFL, and followed closely by the NBA & NHL, ESPN gives sports fans access to some of the world’s most prestigious leagues. Combine that with the MLB playoffs and the ever present UFC and you have all the drama, action and intrigue that sport fans know and love. So, while Aussie football codes such as the AFL and NRL finish up their respective seasons, sports fans from across all codes are safe in the knowledge that “Sport Never Ends”.
Targeting Foxtel subscribers, Now We Collide produced a campaign to show Australian sports fans the common ground amongst all sporting codes - although the games might differ in style, they’re packed with emotional storylines. From the highest of highs, to the lowest of lows, fans return each season to right the wrongs from seasons past or to witness teams build on the dynasties that will be remembered forever. This is the same for every sport, everywhere and with ESPN on Foxtel, this can be done anytime.
The integrated campaign features 3 broadcast TV commercials run across the Foxtel platform to retain existing subscribers and this was supported by print, digital display, and social media, with all creative, design and assets produced by the team at Now We Collide. The team took inspiration from recent US sporting events, and used game footage supplied by ESPN to create a narrative campaign that all sports fans can relate to. The creative is held together with motion graphics that combined elements from both the ESPN and Foxtel brand to create a familiar but unique art direction.
Five years ago, if you’d suggested to your boss that all staff should work half their week at home, I reckon you’d have been met with raised eyebrows.
But things have changed fast and employers have come to see hybrid work not just as something that’s viable – they’re now viewing it as genuinely advantageous.
This shift in how many in our industry are operating is just one reason why indie agencies have shone so brightly over the past few years.
We are now increasingly seeing how important agility is to powering innovation and delivering results. Speed to insight plus the ability to adapt and move quickly has become critical, and smaller agencies typically work without the legacy baggage of larger, traditional agencies.
The playing field has levelled between indies and larger global agency networks. Why? Technology improvements, shifts in the way we work, and access to global resources such as talent, research, software, hardware – you name it – mean clients no longer need to rely on big players to coordinate international creative ad campaigns.
The game has changed, permanently
The events of the last two years years caused a seismic shift in the way agencies needed to support their clients and this has continued into 2022. Indie agencies with a willingness to adapt have been able to thrive throughout thanks to a number of factors which were already in play, but have now become even more significant.
The first is their ability to leverage a satellite network of talented experts. These highly skilled and experienced professionals provide invaluable support, with small agencies better placed to flexibly choose who they engage for appropriate projects.
Additionally, with the advent of more advanced virtual work technologies, smaller, unencumbered agencies can more easily bring these experts into the fold to work in a more mutually productive way.
Secondly, I believe indies are uniquely positioned to deliver work remotely. In the past, large international agency networks had a monopoly on global client relationships, and great emphasis was placed on having many important people in rooms together.
But the game has changed. Now, a client in the UK typically cares a lot less if the agency they’re working with is in London or Sydney. And that’s a good thing, as it makes operations more efficient, opens up avenues to new talent, and drastically lowers overheads.
In this evolving context, we’ve seen a stack of indies doing great things lately. There’s a genuine ability to develop ideas and create content that is entirely market-specific, even when produced remotely.
A great example of this model succeeding is the ‘Checkout Catch’ campaign from Catch Group, supported by AJF GrowthOps. With both the agency’s creative team and Catch Group headquartered in Melbourne, they were faced with a challenge when a second lockdown was imposed. Ultimately, the campaign was shot in Queensland, but directed via real-time feedback from interstate – and the results didn’t suffer an iota.
Overseas examples are plentiful too. Remote filming worked a treat for US-based creative agency Mischief @ No Fixed Address. It produced terrific ads including Miller Genuine Draft’s ‘Unapologetically Beer’ and Shutterfly’s ‘Make it a Thing’ – both are well worth a look.
Staying creative and embracing adaptability
One of the reasons I chose this industry is because it is a ‘people’ industry – collaboration and human interaction are at the heart and that will always be the case.
However, now clients have more options than ever before to engage the right agency, they no longer have to hire the global agency group to get the best results. The playing field has been levelled and smaller agencies now have access to the same networks of expertise and resources.
The lesson of the last few years is that the old rules really no longer apply. Technology has shown us that businesses can thrive when their employees predominantly work from the comfort of their homes. Similarly, creative businesses don’t need to be leviathans to deliver brilliant results for their clients.
So if you don’t think you need a room full of VIPs to shoot the lights out with your next campaign, then consider what a smaller agency partner has to offer.
Now We Collide has created a new campaign for Meta which showcases the ingenuity of small businesses across APAC in its latest “Good Ideas Deserve To Be Found” global campaign.
The campaign will run across the APAC region and consists of four 15-second ads which bring to life the stories behind nine different small to medium businesses (SMBs) from countries including Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Philippines and Thailand.
“Good Ideas Deserve To Be Found” is designed to build awareness of tools and resources available to help SMBs connect with new audiences and grow their business online.
It is built on the insight that there are millions of good ideas out there, even though running a business and making it stand out to customers can be difficult.
“The last two years have been uniquely testing times for SMBs, providing some serious challenges with store closures and new opportunities with the explosion in digital retail,” said Meta Australia and New Zealand director of marketing, Alex Sloane.
“With this campaign, we wanted to draw attention to the wealth of resources available to help them use digital tools to even better effect, with the potential to create truly global businesses. We genuinely believe that “Good ideas deserve to be found.” and can come from anywhere.”
Meta 'Good Ideas Deserve to Be Found' - Stay Flower Japan
The campaign will be distributed via digital channels and Meta-owned platforms through Dentsu Media.
Each of the creative executions centre on revealing the ‘invisible’ product of a small business. One shows a boy wearing a bike helmet and pads apparently floating along, before an Instagram ad unit reveals the bike he is riding. Another features a woman practicing Jiu Jitsu apparently alone before revealing she is sparring with her instructor.
“We’re excited to be involved in a campaign that would help out many SMBs across APAC, especially as it was filmed at one of the more challenging periods of the pandemic,” said Now We Collide chief creative officer, Ryan Bodger.
“We had to grapple with these challenges as well, and our team was able to bring to life these stories from all across Asia either filming remotely or in-studio and on location in Sydney.
“By bringing the client into the studio ‘virtually’, we were able to closely collaborate throughout the production process, making approvals frictionless. We streamlined the process through live video offline edit sessions, bringing together various stakeholders from different locations across the globe.”
Now We Collide CEO, Keir Maher, added, “One of the more positive things the pandemic has given us, is the ability to work in ways we never thought possible.
“Quick adaptation to change has always been part of the Now We Collide DNA, but now it is built into our production processes and methodologies. This campaign is testament to our abilities as a nimble and effective team.”
Credits:
Creative Agency: Now We Collide
Production/Post: Now We Collide Media: Dentsu
VFX/CGI Post: Heckler Sound: PureSound Executive Creative Director: Ryan Bodger Business Director/EP: Naomi Young Creative Director: Shelby Craig
Meta Internal Creative Leads: Justin Yeo (Meta), Jonathan Cockett (Meta)
Director: Toby Morris
DOP: Dan Freene
VFX Supervisor: Jamie Watson (Heckler) Stunt Coordinator: Ray Anthony
Independent creative agency, Now We Collide has created a new campaign for Instagram and The Butterfly Foundation encouraging Aussies to challenge their perceptions of body image and beauty.
The “BodyKind Online” series features five key creators and influencers to share their “#BodyKindOnline” tips, including @alrighthey, @allira.potter, @oliviamollyrogers, @stylebydeni, and @katewas.
The influencers appear in various short form videos, speaking out about their own online experiences, clinically backed tips and advice to help young people foster positive body image and inspire more positive and kind behaviour.
The campaign aims to educate Aussies on how to navigate likes and comments, how to curate your feed to make Instagram a more positive place, using filters safely, and managing feelings of comparison to friends or influencers.
The campaign is based on a national social media and body image study conducted by The Butterfly Foundation, which found 40 per cent of respondents admitted they compared their posts to those of others, and 63 per cent said how others perceived their appearance online was important to them.
“Butterfly is proud to once again partner with Instagram and Now We Collide to foster a positive body image online. #BodyKindOnline sparks discussion and offers practical advice about how we can all be kinder to ourselves and each other’s bodies online,” said Butterfly Foundation spokesperson, Alex Cowen.
“It is imperative that everyone, in particular young people, are equipped with strong social media literacy skills to disrupt the negative feedback loop that can sometimes occur online.
“This campaign puts the power into young peoples’ hands and gives them the tools to reject unattainable appearance ideals, social comparison and the seemingly ‘perfect’ life that can fill our feeds.”
Instagram Asia-Pacific policy programs manager, Tara Bedi, said the social media platform was “committed” to reducing pressures surrounding body image.
“We’re launching safety campaigns and consulting on new tools and policies to ensure we protect the most vulnerable people on Instagram.
“The new campaign combines clinically backed advice from Butterfly with tips from some of Australia’s top creators to help young people navigate a safer and more positive body image experience on social media.
“It’s been a pleasure working with such a great cause and leaning on our partners at Now We Collide to help bring this campaign to life,” she said.
Managing partner and CEO, Keir Maher, added, “We’re so proud to be involved in a campaign addressing such an important cause. These videos are an intimate window into these five creators’ personal experiences and are a great way to connect and seek help for those who are undergoing similar circumstances.”
“We had to jump through hurdles to bring this project to life with lockdowns and Covid restrictions but our nimble team once again faced up to the challenge to share these invaluable stories.”
Full details of the campaign and Butterfly prevention programs for young people, professionals and parents can be found on Butterfly Foundation’s website.
There's been a noticeable rise in chatter around the push by 'Big Tech' to keep users inside their own platforms and ecosystems as more and more internet searches end without a click. So what is the role of great content and strategy within these environments?
It's interesting to see that now more than 50% of Google searches end without a click. Google search provides on-page content such as Wikipedia synopsis, shopping options, movie times, maps and directions etc. And they are all displayed within the first page of search without the need to click. The change has been gradual and subtle. Of course, when it comes to video, Google will promote YouTube as the one place they are happy for you to click-out to.
It's incredible to look at the most recent 'Internet Minute' chart for 2019, there are actually more YouTube videos watched in a minute than Google search queries made.
How will great content provide meaning, sales and loyalty?
All this is making the challenge for companies and their brands even greater. How can they still provide meaning, sales and loyalty in a constantly shifting online environment? Will clicks to websites and 'owned channels' become a thing of the past as online behaviour begins to change?
For sure! So ensuring a well planned and executed creative content strategy which performs specific marketing functions and ultimately delivers on business objectives becomes ever more important.
Written by Keir Maher, CEO at Now We Collide, an independent creative agency based in Sydney, Australia. We use insights, strategy and clever, creative thinking to produce contagious advertising campaigns and content for today's connected brands and consumers.
With the sheer amount of podcasts out there, we thought we'd share three of our favourite content marketing podcasts with you.
This Old Marketing
The Content Marketing Institute has brought back their regular podcast. It's a fantastic resource for anyone in marketing, advertising, content production, media or social media. Joe Polizzi and Robert Rose originally coined the term 'content marketing'. They described it as the ability for brands to generate and produce their own content to fuel brand storytelling and marketing objectives. They discuss the latest developments in the world of content marketing and also provide opinion, insights, strategy and case studies. It's worth checking out.
Face 2 Face
Face 2 Face is a homegrown Australian podcast. Each episode discovers how Aussie marketers and creatives like Spotify, Volkswagen, Kathmandu and Telstra are using digital and social media platforms to succeed in a connected world.
The Now We Collide team led creative development, as well as design and production of the integrated campaign materials including video, email, digital and print assets. We collaborated with Facebook, Wooshkaa and Clear Hayes to develop the podcast series. Since it's launch it has become the number 1 business podcast in Australia. With in-depth interviews with some of our industries leading brands, along with real-life insights, the series is well worth a listen. (Well, of course, we would say that 😉
Behind the Numbers
The eMarketer Behind The Numbers podcast is great for getting a quick hit of the latest global news and trends from the world of digital media and digital marketing. Because they cover all the big stories and emerging trends using eMarketers research and data pedigree. And episodes feature global leaders in their field to provide strategic insights and opinion on the implications of emerging trends and developments for business.
Written by Keir Maher, CEO at Now We Collide, an independent creative agency based in Sydney, Australia. We use insights, strategy and clever, creative thinking to produce contagious advertising campaigns and content for today's connected brands and consumers.
We used to say seeing is believing.Now we have to say ‘experiencing is believing’.
It seems about 1 in 5 briefs we work on at the moment have a VR video component as brands and agencies look to explore the possibilities of the immersive and engaging world of 360 video and virtual reality.
The next 18 months will be a telling time. Let's see how audiences transition from standard video viewing to embrace VR and invest in a personal headset, closing themselves off from the real world to engage with the most immersive form of video content.
For anyone that has put on the Samsung Gear VR, Vive or Oculus, there is usually a wow moment when you realise just how immersive and engaging the VR video world can be. One thing is for certain we are just at the beginning of where the technology will lead us. It will be exciting to see what other AR/VR players like Magic Leap, Sony and Microsoft can bring to the table.
We know that premium publishers and tech giants are getting on board with big investments. Google is working on a VR version of Chrome. NBC and Samsung broadcasted the summer Olympics in VR. Hulu, Crackle, Jaunt, and Within already have dedicated apps, or “theatres,” where viewers can consume massive amounts of VR content.
The NBA (National Basketball Association) has also started creating longer form VR experiences with its mind-blowing VR production ‘Follow My Lead’ which tells the story of the 2016 NBA finals, taking audiences behind the scenes for an experience like no other.
Content innovation can lead to commercial investment
Now more than ever we are seeing significant brand dollars being spent on VR experiences that prove that content innovation can lead to commercial investment, leaving audiences feeling inspired by the bravery and courage of a brand to do something different in the VR space.
A great example of a brand investing in VR
One thing we know for sure is that when you are inside a VR experience you are the most captive audience a brand can have and the experience you create needs to be compelling. There is no other form of media right now that is as immersive as a branded VR video experience and brands need to take advantage.
The Numbers
Greenlight Insights released results this week from its survey of 1,300 adults that found the majority of consumers, 71% of them, feel that VR makes brands seem “forward-thinking and modern.” However, there’s even better news for brands’ bottom lines: 53% of respondents said they’d be more likely to purchase from a brand that uses VR than from one that doesn’t.
“We’re seeing specific VR activities have unique emotional footprints, offering fascinating insights for those who are considering their VR strategies,” Steve Marshall, SVP of Research and Consulting for Greenlight VR, said in a statement announcing the findings.
What is the perfect branded VR video experience?
It comes down to the brand objectives and how people will contextually be viewing the experience. When people are in groups with one person viewing a VR experience the viewer doesn’t want to feel trapped inside for too long (4-5mins max). They will want to share or talk about their experience soon after. When a viewer is alone with VR, the sky’s the limit, a viewer will stay engaged for longer and want to stay immersed.
‘Virtual reality by definition intensifies the impression of reality. All the viewer’s senses are heightened including sight, sound, and motion; content that delivers fully immersive experiences will be in high demand.’
Content that delivers a fully immersive experience will be in high demand
This potential for VR storytelling will take branded entertainment to a whole new level. Imagine Apple showcasing its VR capable iPhone 8 (yet to be released) where viewers can take part in a Mars landing and film the experience in first person using features on the iPhone 8. Viewers could zoom into the phone to play with a realistic, 360-degree model of the device or even watch a video shot with that new device, thereby zooming into an entirely new storyline set on Mars.
The Production Value
There are a number of aspects when considering the production value of producing VR or 360 video content.
VR is not the same as 360 Video.
While the two can be packaged up as a VR experience, there is a difference between the two. 360 video is effectively filming a real-world environment with a 360 camera, which can be produced in 2D using a whole range of cameras from consumer to prosumer or in stereoscopic 3D using more high-end professional-grade equipment.
Once captured 360 videos can have 3d, overlay graphic elements or interactive hotspots added to make the experience more engaging. A great example of a mixed live-action 360 video shoot and 3D environment can be seen here with Google Spotlight Story Help.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-XZhKqQAHU
Help uses a mix of studio, 3D and real-world 360 videos. This is, of course, a pretty amazing experience best viewed in VR and not desktop. VR environments, games and stories that are completely virtual are created in 3D and compiled using software like Unity 3D or Unreal Engine.
2D vs 3D
If done right, VR created as a 3D experience is always going to be more compelling. 2D is a great way to create a high-resolution experience and keep production costs down. Poorly implemented 3D and 360 video footage can cause a great deal of discomfort to the viewer including headaches, eye strain or nausea. With a 2D video, you’re getting more resolution out of the device because you’re not having to stack the left and right channels (or top and bottom channels) within the phone’s limited resolution. Oculus CTO John Carmack explains, “People that are resolution-picky will probably prefer monoscopic videos, which can have twice the resolution of stereo videos. The stereo effect may not be worth anything to you if you can't get past the blurring.”
How To Get Views?
Virtual reality viewing roughly falls into 3 categories. First are desktop and mobile video player with no headset (think Facebook or YouTube 360 native players). Next are expensive headsets tethered to a computer, aimed mostly at gamers, like the Oculus Rift or the HTC Vive. Finally, there are mobile viewing experiences that combine with a smartphone, like Samsung's Gear VR or Google's Cardboard.
Marketers need to think about how and when audiences will be viewing their content and ensure they are driving people to experience branded VR through a quality headset. This should be coupled with the distribution of content to key VR publishers for optimal reach across platforms and devices. As with any type of video content distribution and seeding, a strategy is paramount.
