Measurable VR Ads With Vertebrae
One of the great things about virtual reality is that it allows for the telling of stories in new and unique ways. By immersing a viewer in an experience, stories can be told in new ways that they had been previously unavailable without the technology. With these new stories come new opportunities for brands to engage in the story telling space as well, doing more than simply placing an interactive banner ad in front of a consumer. Why touch an ad when you can interact with it? But the problem is you haven’t been able to precisely measure exactly what’s going on in VR for ad purposes – which is where Vertebrae comes in.Coming out of stealth this morning with a $10 Million Series A announcement, Vertebrae is a headset-agnostic ad tech platform for VR with a variety of monetization solutions. Their CEO, Vincent Cacace, feels that VR can be used to allow advertisers to make “creative and compelling experiences in an immersive storytelling medium while serving as the conduit for monetization in a way that enhances the consumer experience.” It’s an admittedly lofty goal, but VR has the power to achieve this. A part of this is thanks to the fact that unlike other advertising forms, VR provides coordinates for exactly where and when a user is. Vertebrae takes this into account as they measure the full content experience – within an ad or an ad-rich environment, they can measure time spent and interactions with an item and provide metrics such as gaze-based tracking and field-of-view reporting. There’s a new level of engagement that VR provides that will allow for things like product testing and feature analysis in the long run. And there is industry interest in what they’re talking about – the IAB, for one, is interested in working with Vertebrae on establishing standards for VR advertising.One of the first areas that they’ve tackled is the film space. Lionsgate worked with them to create a “Blair Witch” advertisement to live before the VR horror game “Sisters.” According to Cacace, this is a space they’re looking to explore further in this space, along with the travel, automotive, and CPG spaces. With the interest in brands in premium VR, it will be interesting to see how things develop.
TV[R]EV is written, curated and incubated by the BRaVe Ventures team. Find TV[R]EV on Facebook and Twitter, and sign up for the newsletter to stay up to date on the TV[R]EVOLUTION.
