Immersive storytelling

Corporate storytelling in the experiential age

It is well accepted that there is no more effective way to engage audiences, be they consumers, colleagues, clients, employees or shareholders, than with stories. But what happens when new technology fundamentally changes the way stories can be told? 

Alex Book, co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Arcade, the digital practice specialising in augmented reality, outlines the potential of immersive technology for today’s corporate storytellers.

You may be aware of terms like ‘immersive technology’, ‘augmented reality’ and ‘spatial computing’. You might even know what they mean – although, if you do, you will also know that you remain in the minority. They all relate to a form of digital experience that has long been envisaged but is only now reaching a level of maturity that makes it viable for mass uptake.

‘Immersive technology’ is the generally accepted umbrella term for the hardware and software that make it possible to experience digital content in three dimensions, as opposed to the two offered by the screens we are surrounded by today. 

The main effect of adding this third dimension to digital experiences is that it brings people closer to the stories being conveyed. To understand this effect, we need only look at the language used to describe it. Engagement with traditional media tends to be described with three verbs: read, watch and listen. All of them are passive, with the audience in ‘receive’ mode. By contrast, immersive tech has introduced a new vocabulary of media consumption, full of words like explore, discover, follow, play, collect, move and, most of all, experience. All of them are active, participatory and immersive in every sense of the word. 

The visually arresting, physically and emotionally engaging experiences that characterise immersive technology offer an entirely new way for storytellers to inspire their audiences, and are the latest in a long line of technology-driven media revolutions. If Gutenberg’s 15th-century press made it possible to tell stories to the masses, and the movie film camera let us show them, then immersive technology is the way they can be experienced.

The two main types of immersive experience are virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). What’s the difference? In short, VR is about enclosing users in an entirely virtual environment and is generally experienced via a headset, whereas AR is about bringing digital content into the user’s physical environment and is often accessible via just a smartphone.
VR is superb at ‘transporting’ users to another place in space and time; AR is about better engaging audiences with the space and objects around them.

AR received a massive boost in public awareness with the launch of Pokémon GO in 2016, a game in which players collect fictional creatures by moving around in the real world to find them. The creatures, once discovered, can be viewed and photographed as if they really are a part of the player’s natural environment. Although this raised AR’s profile, the game also made it easy for some to dismiss the technology as being ‘for kids’. But AR isn’t just about games, any more than TV is just about soap operas.

AR is becoming an established tool across almost every consumer and corporate sector. Society is consequently becoming more familiar with it as we begin to encounter the technology more often in our everyday lives. History shows, however, that business often takes many years to adopt the same technologies and channels for corporate audiences that it uses in consumer communication. Many seem to forget that, consumer or corporate stakeholder, we are all just people. The barriers between our personal and professional lives have all but disappeared and the way we engage with stories as consumers is how we expect to engage with them as professionals.

This is why AR has such potential for investor relations and corporate comms. Treating corporate audiences as human beings means using the same tools to engage with them – and, increasingly, that means AR. Businesses at the forefront of this immersive revolution are using it for a variety of purposes, but all are designed to elicit a more powerful emotional connection to the stories being told. From visualising and analysing data in three dimensions to better engage annual report readers, to bringing key corporate figures into the audience’s environment as holograms, to allowing potential investors to see, examine and interact with new products still at concept stage, AR is proving its worth in the corporate world.

Jeremy Dalton, PwC’s Head of VR/AR, is delivering headlines from the company’s Seeing Is Believing industry report as a hologram. The experience is triggered by the report itself, and is delivered via the web with no app download required.

This is not to say that all AR is effective. For as long as AR remains unfamiliar, it will have the power to amaze, but the novelty factor alone is not enough. Like any medium, it has to be selected consciously, used for purpose and expertly crafted to deliver against a clear set of strategic objectives. 

But so long as immersive experiences adhere to these basic requirements, there is little doubt that immersive technology, and AR in particular, will change the way we tell, show and experience stories for good.

What is AR used for?

AR is a medium, like TV or the internet, but it can present content in three dimensions, not just two. It is used for a wide variety of purposes, from entertainment to education, art to demonstrations, with almost every application being of potential benefit to the corporate world.

The tool: IKEA Place

IKEA became an AR pioneer when it first developed an app way back in 2013 that let users virtually place and see certain items of furniture in their own homes. An update that made the most of rapidly evolving smartphone technology came in 2017 with IKEA Place. Today it is possible to fill an entire room with virtual IKEA furniture to see what it might look like. Don’t like that colour? Change it with a swipe. That bookcase too big? Switch it out. Other ‘try-before-you-buy’ applications quickly followed and are quietly revolutionising the world of fashion and cosmetics in particular.

The game: Pokémon GO

Pokémon GO is the game that became a global phenomenon in 2016 and continues to be one of the biggest apps in the world today. Seeing the little characters as if they really were in your local park, on your street or even in your home, changed players’ relationship with their world. Suddenly, Pokémon didn’t just exist in some imaginary, far-away land – they were here, living with us, for ‘real’.

The art gallery: Meet Vermeer

Google Arts & Culture is, unsurprisingly, an immersive tech pioneer. One of its projects brought all of the Dutch master Vermeer’s greatest works – spread across many different galleries around the globe – into one virtual venue. ‘Visitors’ anywhere on the planet could hold the gallery in their hand, peer into it and then step inside.

The lesson: Landing on the Moon AR

As augmented reality becomes a better understood medium, it is being embraced by storytellers of all kinds. News organisations are no exception, and TIME is at the forefront, releasing the TIME Immersive app in 2019. Its first experience tied in to the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, and brought Apollo 11 and its lunar module into school classrooms and people’s homes around the world.

The Luminous view

Corporate reporting and Investor relations are both a science and an art, and neither stands still for long. AR and VR technologies offer new and exciting ways to engage investors but, to do this effectively, they must be informative and stimulating, exploiting their potential to offer something not available via other media while enhancing the message of the IR team. 

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