12 Jan 2024
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Mike Boland
AWE Talks: Balancing the Wow and How of XR
AWE EU 2023
Welcome back to AWE Talks, our series that revisits the most engaging content from AWE’s catalog of conference sessions. Now that AWE EU 2023 has concluded, we have a fresh batch of sessions to dive into.
This week, we examine best practices for bringing XR into retail experiences. What are the right and wrong ways to do it and how can you find the wow and the how for successful activations? Virsch shows us how.
See the summarized takeaways below, along with the full session video. Stay tuned for more video highlights each week and check out the full library on awe.live and AWE’s YouTube Channel.
Speakers
Axel Deitrich, Virsch
Gabriella Chihan Stanley, Virsch
– Immersive tech has strong potential to transform retail spaces.
– This can be for immersive product demonstrations or brand-building.
– The latter involves adding to the broader experience of retail spaces.
– For example, Virsch built VR experiences for a home lighting retailer.
– This included a "From Flame to Future" history of light experience.
– It also built a game for children in the store to ward off zombies using light.
– Another VR game let couples help each other through puzzles in the dark.
– In all cases, the goal was immersive experiences that are on-brand.
– This could also get customers and visitors into a thematic headspace.
– Through these successful activations, Virsh learned a few key principles.
– First, they learned to balance the wow and the how.
– In other words, have a wow factor but also concrete goals and execution.
– They also suggest leading with the heart and following with the hardware.
– This means to aim for fun and emotion and let technical execution follow.
– Lastly, there's no such thing as risk-free innovation.
– Because XR is early, the playbook is still being written and risk is inherent.
For more color from Deitrich & Stanley, including deep dives into their retail activations, see the full video below...
