Interesting post on marketing, virtual reality, and Apple from NSShadowcat:
‘What value do I, as a customer interested in the Rift, get out of looking at a bearded man with a Rift strapped to his face and his jaw dropped?’. Obviously the message is ‘the Rift experience is jaw-dropping’, but how do you convey that to me across a screen? Show me a simulation of what using the thing might look like in a video? Maybe. But doesn’t watching a 2-D simulation on a screen inherently take away the experience AR/VR is selling in the first place? The best such a video does is make me curious to have a first hand experience.
And:
Let’s subject phones to the same situation. The iPhone 6S page shows off its build, design etc. beautifully but still doesn’t give me — a customer interested in buying a phone — a sense of what my experience with the thing would be. Which is why Apple’s ads try to embody the iPhone experience — nimble, fantastic and excellent. (Take the first 6S ad — my favourite 6S ad — for example; also, the Cookie Monster ad is a marvel that sells you the same joyful, humane experience and there isn’t even a human in it.)
And:
The best an AR/VR simulation video can achieve is to inspire the curiosity to check one of these things out in person. I can think of no product that has a similar ‘see it in person to know what it is’ pitch to it. Cars, phones, watches, home appliances are all products you know a lot about before you go for the ‘What does it feel like in person?’ store visit.
If and when Apple gets into virtual reality, they’ll be in a strong marketing position. Not only is their brand one of the most well know in the world, easily eclipsing anyone else in the VR space, but they have many years of experience marketing the experience of something that can’t be experienced without a store visit.
Interesting read.
VR is a curiosity at this point. I like the talk that Apple is doomed if they don’t get their VR act together soon.
If Apple ventures into VR, they will do it because it has advanced past the curiosity stage. They will then offer a solution that works for their customers.
Until then, it;’s the fat guy with the headset and drooped jaw.
I bet all who say that they will not but any goggles on their head are exactly the same people who said that talking to phone on public is stupid. Most people talked about mobile phones like people are skeptical about VR/AR. Like it is said in most apple business studies that customers do not want the new thing until they do not want anything else.
On the other side apple coming after first generation is the place they are most comfortable. They are not the innovators in a sense that they create market segment. They iterate. They take existing product and make it better. Case and point of that iPhone. Case for them leading the way apple watch. I wear it everyday but even I see that it does not have an coherent story or use case. It really is throwing everything on the wall and watching if anything sticks.
VR/AR is a leap where everything disruption happens again. This is where it will be measured if apple really is ready to cannibalize sells to jump to something new. All these marketing analyses will be tried.
Right now i am worried. Apple is right now like Nokia in 2006. Exactly:
Biggest company, taking all the profit on industry. Very sure they are the best and fast to tell that every indicator show them that their quality is only getting better. Products are numerous and very hard to say which is the best. They are teaming up with fashion industry even the same ones. They are selling the green image. And more importantly iPhone se and both iPad pros are not from their roadmap, they are reactions to changing markets.
Things change fast and next disruption is coming.