The power of immersive experiences part 2

The power
of immersive
experiences
Louise Jorden / Exec Creative Director
Andy Marshall / Head of UX
Part 2
#psychofbx
@rufusleonard
@louisejorden
@andy__marshall

Augmented
Reality
Virtual 
Reality
Mixed 
Reality
Source: Wired
There are a number of
immersive technologies
emerging with the
current most popular
being Augmented,
Virtual, and Mixed
Reality technologies.
But there are other
technologies available,
such as projection
mapping or the more
recent 360 degree
technologies from
Facebook and YouTube.

Augmented Reality is a window on your world. It uses technology that layers graphics over the real world
and in real-time using your camera feed.
Apple recently announced it’s ‘AR kit’with a demo from Peter Jackson’s new studio Wingnut. These tools
are now getting into the hands of some amazing directors, such as Ridley Scott and James Cameron.

Virtual Reality is an artiﬁcial, computer-generated world is viewed through a headset.
By stimulating the users vision and hearing the users feels truly immersed and believes
what they are experiencing is real. This example shows is ‘extreme VR’where a virtual world
is mapped over physically space and objects to create a stronger sense of realism.

Mixed reality is a mix of AR and VR seen through a sense or
glasses and is a shared experience!
Here’s a demo from Magic Leap - a much hyped one but it
remains to be seen how this will fair once it becomes available.

The Age of Information
vs
The Age of Experience
EXPERIENCE,
EXPERIENCE,
EXPERIENCE.
Experience is
EVERYWHERE.
In this new era
experience brands have
to become much more
engaging, responsive
and immersive.

iGen
Move over Millennials
More than half the
World's population is
under the age of 30.
Never before has there
been a generation so
globally plugged in.
Generation iGen ignore
messages from brands
unless those brands
have earned
admittance to their
inﬁnite touch points.

Apple are set again to
game change, this time
the AR and VR industry
with the launch of ARKit,
transforming iPhones
and iPads into a ‘window
into the world’.
These brings powerful
tools into the hands of
designers and
developers, much like
the app explosion that
took place with the
introduction of the
iPhone in 2007.

Over the last few weeks
we’ve been drowning in
predictions about
volume and the size of
the market.
But amongst all the
noise one person worth
listening to is Robert
Scoble, who’s said,
“Apple is bringing out a
mixed reality iPhone
(next generation
augmented reality) that
will blow everyone's
minds. Actually, it's a
series of products that
Apple will call "the
future of TV.”.

But it’s not just about
humans advancing
technology - technology
also aﬀects our species.
The humble fork was
cutting edge technology
when introduced into
Europe around 250 years
ago.
Following its introduction
we’ve developed an
‘overbite’where our
upper teeth now
protrude slightly forward
of our lower teeth.
The fork has physically
altered our appearance.

Just like the aﬀect of the
fork 250 years ago,
today’s technology is
also changing us in a
number of ways
including physically,
socially, and cognitively.

100%
UK
51%
Spain
48%
US
29%
Physical change
It’s recommended
children and adolescents
have at least one hour of
physical activity daily.
But recent studies show
many are not achieving
this.
Technology is leading to
many of us spending
more time in front of
screens and, as this
survey suggests for
children and adolescents,
spending less time being
physically active.
Percentage of children and adolescents achieving one hour of physical activity each day
0%

Could this be our children’s future?
© Disney/Pixar

Social change
We can spend time
physically in the same
room but technology has
made it easy for us to
check out, mentally
spending time elsewhere
socialising with others.
Phones themselves are
becoming a symbol of
distracted behaviours.
Recent research showed
the mere presence of a
phone in someone’s
hand or on a table had a
negative aﬀect on the
quality of conversations
between couples.

Cognitive change
Our cognitive abilities are
also being aﬀected by
today’s technology.
Research from Microsoft
indicates an improved
ability to multi-task, but
a considerable drop in
attention spans, with an
average of 8 seconds.
This research draws the
conclusion that this is a
result of the prevalence
of smartphones and
their impact on our
behaviours.

Ok, let’s try a little experiment…

Sit back and take a deep breath in…
Imagine you’re smelling a delicious cake. It’s sat on a picnic table on a glorious summers day.
Beyond the table full of treats is a beautiful garden – full of ﬂowers, buzzing insects and a
gentle wind rustling in the trees.
You can hear your friends chatting, feel the warmth of the sun on your skin and the taste of
the cake in your mouth.
And breath out..
This is a light touch but shows how receptive we are to engaging with immersive
experiences…
Picture this scene…

Story
Story
We think in terms of
stories, from how we
process information to
how we reconstruct
memories on the ﬂy
when we remember
something.
We are deeply engaged
with stories particularly
where they prompt a
strong emotional
response.
Research using fMRI
showed our brainwaves
literally synchronise
between speaker and
listener.

Multi-sesnory
A large percentage of our
brains is designed to
process visual
information.
Visuals are the quickest
route to perception.
But experiences through
technologies like AR and
MR by their nature are
designed to appeal to
multiple senses.
Things designed to
appeal to multiple senses
create much deeper
engagement.
Multi-sensory

Frustration -too hard
Boredom -too easy
Flow
Flow
Flow is a term deﬁned by
Hungarian Psychologist
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi
and describes the state
of becoming so fully
immersed in an activity
you lose your sense of
time and space.
In Flow the world around
you seems to fade away
and an activity that
might take an hour can
feel like it only took 20
minutes.
Flow is the optimum
state of any immersive
experience.

Experiences that facilitate a state of Flow are characterised by:
• Having a clearly deﬁned goal
• Providing a sense of purpose, and meaning
• Creating a sense of ownership over actions and decisions
• Clearly communicating what people need to do, with suitable guidance
• Supporting people in knowing what they can and want to do.

Boredom -too easy
Time - skill required
Difficulty
Flow
People’s skills in an
activity improve over
time.
Make things too difficult,
particularly early on, and
people will become
frustrated. Make things
too easy, particularly
later on in an experience,
and people will become
bored.
Flow happens in an
experience when
progressing through an
activity where a balance
of difficulty is provided.

Story
Multi-sensory
Boredom -too easy
Flow
Bringing these elements
together, immersive
experiences are designed
with a clear story to aid
in understanding and
recall of the experience.
They are designed to
appeal to multiple senses
to create deeper
engagement in the
activities.
And they are designed to
engender a state of ﬂow,
which is optimum in
creating focus and
enjoyment in an
experience.

Harnessing the power
Source: Admap, May 2017 - Eight lessons to better connect with customer journeys

High risk
Low risk
Lowreward
Highreward
In March 2009, WARC
published research that
demonstrated in the
digital era advertising
has fractured into
distinct models.
Insights were drawn
from a survey involving
over 6,000 regular users
and brand decision-
makers in 150 product
categories.
What WARC identiﬁed is
all products can be
viewed in terms of risk
and reward, splitting
them into four distinct
product categories.

High risk
Low risk
Lowreward
Highreward
The first product
category describes
products that are are low
risk and yield little reward
for customers.
These are defined as
‘Routine’ products - day
to day items that we all
buy.
Deodorant / batteries /  
furniture polish / petrol / bin
bags / office supply stores
1. Routine

High risk
Low risk
Lowreward
Highreward
The second category are
products high in risk, but
that still yield little
reward for customers.
Products here include a
ﬁnancial products,
broadband and phone
contracts and also
include other high risk
decisions such as car
tyres.
Products in this category
are deﬁned as ‘Burden’
products.
Insurance / tyres / credit cards /
banks / telcos / tax services
2. Burden
1. Routine

High risk
Low risk
Lowreward
Highreward
Products in the third
category are low risk but
come with a high reward
to customers.
These include products
like beer, cake and
sweets which have their
obvious rewards but also
includes things like
greeting cards, which are
rewarding in other ways.
This category is defined
as ‘Entertainment’.
2. Burden
1. Routine
Beer / cake / greeting cards /
coffee shops / fizzy soft drinks /
sweets
3. Entertainment

High risk
Low risk
Lowreward
Highreward
The fourth category
represents products that
are high in risk, but also
yield high reward.
Many‘big ticket’ products
sit in this category, such
as game consoles or
holidays.
But not all products are
‘big ticket’ and products
such as baby food and
home improvement also
come with inherent high
risks.
Products in this category
are defined as ‘Passion’.
2. Burden
1. Routine
Beer / cake / greeting cards /
coffee shops / fizzy soft drinks /
sweets
3. Entertainment
Designer clothing / holidays /  
game consoles / baby food /
organic food / home improvement
4. Passion

WARC’s research also
looked at positive and
negative emotional
associations with
products, in addition to
perceived cognitive
eﬀort in both ‘fast’
thinking (subconscious,
automatic, emotional
thinking) and ‘slow’
thinking (eﬀortful,
logical, calculating).
Emotion and
Cognition

Deodorant / batteries /
furniture polish / petrol /
trash bags / office supply
stores
1. Routine
2. Burden
Insurance / tyres /
credit cards / banks /
telcos / tax services
Beer / cake / greeting
cards / coffee shops /
fizzy soft drinks / sweets
3. Entertainment
4. Passion
Designer clothing /
holidays / game
consoles / baby food /
organic food / home
improvement stores
Slow
Fast
Cognition
Emotion
Negative
Positive
Routine purchases were
found to have a typical
end to end from
awareness to purchase
and use of 9 days and
customers had little
interest in continued
engagement post
purchase.
These are products in a
crowded market with low
interest with little that is
experiential and the
opportunity here is to
leverage immersive
experiences to create
differentiation.

stores
1. Routine
2. Burden
Insurance / tyres /
3. Entertainment
4. Passion
Designer clothing /
holidays / game
organic food / home
improvement stores
Maintain position
The opportunity for
brands in this quadrant is
to maintain their
position, particularly for
those who lead the
category.
More than all other
product categories these
are brands that can jump
on the technology to
stand out and grab
attention.
Tell stories in a new,
surprising and
unexpected ways.

The Shell Hydrogen VR experience shows how a brand in this product category can
bring to life a complex story in a visual and immersive way to enable people to take in,
and ultimately retain more information.

Gillette Clinical Clear Gel Pressure Chamber
Gillette teamed up with Discovery at SXSW this year to create the Gillette Clinical Clear
Gel Pressure Chamber, an immersive VR experience showing men how their bodies
react to stressful scenarios like canyon swinging and rollercoasters.

stores
1. Routine
2. Burden
Insurance / tyres /
3. Entertainment
4. Passion
Designer clothing /
holidays / game
organic food / home
improvement stores
Slow
Fast
Cognition
Emotion
Negative
Positive
Burden products are
tasks that require a lot of
cognitive eﬀort. If you’ve
ever completed a
mortgage application,
you’ll appreciate how
much eﬀortful thinking
goes in to it. We can’t rely
on mental shortcuts for
these types of products.
These are also products
with the most
touchpoints at the start
of a customer’s journey
but with very little
engagement post
purchase.

stores
1. Routine
2. Burden
Insurance / tyres /
3. Entertainment
4. Passion
Designer clothing /
holidays / game
organic food / home
improvement stores
Support Decision
Making
The opportunity for
brands in this quadrant is
to use technology to
support customers in
their decision making.
These are products
where there is a vast
opportunity to present
complex data in new,
surprising and
meaningful ways.
And beyond this, creating
an immersive experience
can be used to make an
otherwise mundane
process enjoyable.

We can see this happening already. The Citi HoloLens Workstation is aimed at pro-traders
and allows them to view very complex data through a deeply immersive experience.

And we can see others experimenting in this area, though using VR to make a payment
with a virtual payment card is perhaps not the best use of this technology!

stores
1. Routine
2. Burden
Insurance / tyres /
3. Entertainment
4. Passion
Designer clothing /
holidays / game
organic food / home
improvement stores
Slow
Fast
Cognition
Emotion
Negative
Positive
With little risk and high
reward, customers
generally have high
positive emotions
associated with products
in the Entertainment
category.
There tend to be fewer
touchpoints up front
initially, but once the
decision has been made
to ‘get it done’then there
are many more
touchpoints happening
and it’s here that brands
have license to really
push the boundaries of
immersive experiences.

stores
1. Routine
2. Burden
Insurance / tyres /
3. Entertainment
4. Passion
Designer clothing /
holidays / game
organic food / home
improvement stores
Fully Immerse
Many products in this
category are those we
don’t really need, but
who also typically have
the largest marketing
spend.
The opportunity for
brands here is to full
throttle and to really
leverage the latest
technologies to create
fully immersive
experiences.

Coca-Cola is a product associated with Christmas through advertising and in 2015 the
Coca-Cola Company created the Coca-Cola Christmas Spirit VR experience, allowing people
to take in an immersive 360-degree VR experience as you ride on Santa Claus’ sleigh.

Cadbury created an augmented reality app to take product
experience to another level. Place a Cadbury’s product in the
view of the app and it reveals and number of interactive games.

stores
1. Routine
2. Burden
Insurance / tyres /
3. Entertainment
4. Passion
Designer clothing /
holidays / game
organic food / home
improvement stores
Slow
Fast
Cognition
Emotion
Negative
Positive
It’s no surprise that Passion
products evoke the highest
positive and negative
emotions.
These also trigger the
highest cognitive load, both
in slow, eﬀortful, conscious
thought and subconscious
thought through heuristics
and mental shortcuts.
Passion products also have
the longest end to end
journey, on average from
awareness to use in 44 days
with high engagement in
touchpoints and with the
highest expectation of
social interaction
throughout.

stores
1. Routine
2. Burden
Insurance / tyres /
3. Entertainment
4. Passion
Designer clothing /
holidays / game
organic food / home
improvement stores
Reassurance and Trust
The inherent high risk in
products in this category
paves way to the
opportunity for brands
to create experiences in
a more contextual way
that will provide a deeper
sense of reassurance and
that will instil trust.

Dulux have created a virtual space to help retailers discover diﬀerent store environments
and trial potential store layouts for its products. This enables over 4,000 professional
decorators, store staﬀ and employees to receive advanced training on product knowledge,
application techniques and the essential principles of colour, design and sustainability.

Thomas Cook partnered with Samsung Gear VR to create ‘Try Before You Fly’, a VR
experience available in ﬂagship stores in the UK, Germany and Belgium. These invited
potential holiday-makers to experience a series of VR ‘taster’ holidays, such as a helicopter
tour of Manhattan, or a visit to Egyptian pyramids, all without leaving the store.

Many fashion brands have continued to invest in digital experiences, such as
the 360° Woman Fashion Virtual Reality Diorama by Dior, which allowed
participants to view collections from their own home.

As you can see there are
many, many potential
use cases of the
technologies.
And we’re getting past
the early adopter’s stage
- these are steadily
becoming more
mainstream.
Data Visualisation
Recruitment and training
Events and education
Product launches
Brand / campaign testing
Customer service and feedback
Co-design and creation
Rapid prototyping
Space planning
So many potential use cases…

ROI is of course understandably important for many who will be asking the question of
whether or not this is a good investment for their brand and products.
This is very reminiscent of the early days of the Internet when we were being asked,  
“Why do I need a website?”.
The same questions are being asked now and if you wait too late to commit it may be too
late to truly beneﬁt from the investment.
ROI

With this type of power
comes great responsibility.
With these types of
technologies it’s no longer
suﬃcient to consider the
welfare of user only where
the user is operating in a
high risk capacity, such as in
health care.
With technologies like AR
people can interact with the
experience almost
anywhere, and so all users
should be considered at
high risk.
Michael Baker, for example,
a 21 year old from Oregon
was playing Pokémon Go at
1am and was stabbed
(though not too seriously)
when he mistook a
complete stranger as a
fellow player and challenged
him to a battle.

Immersive experiences are becoming mainstream
Consider the role of stories and narratives, designing for
multi-sensory experiences, and creating a sense of ﬂow
Consider your product through the lens of risk and
reward and how this aﬀects the role of immersive
experiences for you and your customers
Key takeaways

Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, Sherry Turkle. 
https://sherryturkle.com/books-research/alone-together/
Apple’s ARKit 
https://developer.apple.com/arkit/
Microsoft research on attention spans 
https://advertising.microsoft.com/.../microsoft-attention-spans-research-report.pdf
Flow theory (psychology) 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)
Eight lessons to better connect with customer journeys, WARC 
https://www.warc.com/Content/Article/Eight_lessons_to_better_connect_with_customer_journeys/
111075
References

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