Passers-by were transported from the streets of Europe to the States in a virtual reality stunt from British Airways.
Taking the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset outdoors, the airline wanted to encourage members of the public to ‘make [their] US trip a reality’, using pre-filmed footage including ice skating in New York, rodeo bull riding in Texas and running along the coast in LA.
This video highlights the campaign, showing the technology (which I LOVE) at work:
For completeness and whilst I’m on the subject, I’ve also been getting involved with virtual reality PR recently, helping to promote the work of new-ish client, virtual reality specialists Visualise.
In a similar campaign I meant to highlight on PRexamples.com from early December, Visualise worked with global travel agent Thomas Cook to deliver in-store virtual reality experiences, giving holidaymakers the chance to ‘look before you book’, or, as the Mail Online’s Vicky Woollaston better punned it, ‘try before you fly’.
Take a look at this in this teaser video, which includes a helicopter tour of Manhattan:
I know it’s a VERY PR to get unreasonably excited about how new(ish) tech can impact marketing, but having seen a big increase in brand interest since Facebook bought Oculus, the way virtual reality can showcase products and services to clients in an evermore-accessible way is, I think, something to get excited about.
Spotted on: Creative Guerilla Marketing
Posted by: Rich Leigh
Rich started PRexamples.com in January 2012. He runs personal PR and creative campaign specialist agency Rich Leigh & Company. In March 2013, Rich co-founded blogger outreach service bloggabase.com with 10 Yetis PR's Head Yeti Andy Barr. He tweets about PR stunts, campaigns and other media bits and pieces@RichLeighPR