As virtual reality continues to become more popular, and dedicated VR devices dropping in price to the point where the average consumer will soon start seeing them as a valid option, it is no surprise to hear that Google is working on new ad formats to take advantage of this trend. Virtual reality obviously creates a very immersive experience for users, which will give marketers a lot of opportunities to really impress their audience, and hopefully turn them into sales.
The recent announcement from Google about these VR ads marks a big leap forward with this technology. The announcement came from their incubation team, known as Area 120.
The developers blog said, “At Area 120, Google’s internal workshop for experimental ideas, we’re working on early-stage projects and quickly iterate to test concepts. We heard from developers that they’re looking at how to make money to fund their VR applications, so we started experimenting with what a native, mobile VR ad format might look like.”
They continued to explain that their goal is to make an ad format that is not disruptive to the users, and easy to develop for marketers and developers. Their solution is to provide virtual reality users a small cube in the environment, which will, when activated, open up a video ad. This takes advantage of the virtual environment that users are used to, and something that will be unique to VR.
This ad format currently will work on Google Cardboard, Daydream, and Gear VR headsets. A limited number of test partners are working closely with Google on this to create ads specifically for these devices. As the market for these devices continues to grow, these types of ads are going to have a lot of potential for advertisers and marketers throughout every industry.
