Virtual Reality: Hype Or The Future?
IPSOS VIEWS #14November 2017Virtual Reality:Hype or the future?Richard Garnham
Virtual Reality:Hype or the future?IntroductionKey takeoutsVirtual Reality (VR) technology has been around forat least a decade and you could say it’s clearly gonefrom sci-fi to sci-fact. However, it’s still seen as anew technology and has not hit mass adoption; sowhat has gone wrong? We’re only at the beginning of this journey and as thetechnology develops there should be further costsavings as the software/computer generated imagery(CGI) will become more cost efficient and better.Experts believed that virtual and augmentedreality in 2016 would deliver 4.4billion in revenue,however, it actually only achieved 1.8billion1 anda 6% adoption rate in the US2. In comparison, thesmartphone only took 10 years for at least 40%adoption in the US3.It’s not all doom and gloom, as many venturecapital and technology companies are investinglarge sums into this industry and in 2016 we saw 2.3billion invested4. It’s providing the foundation for other technologydevelopments such as Artificial Intelligence, the Internetof Things and even 3D modelling. Opportunities already exist within the research industryfrom shopper immersions to testing VR content forbroadcasting. Multi-sensory testing is going to be an integral part ofVR and AR and the researcher’s goal of getting closerto the ultimate consumer understanding.At Ipsos, we’re exploring this technology to identify howwe can make research better, faster, cost effective or evenmore engaging for participants and clients. The aim is toget closer to consumers’ real behaviour and emotion, aswell as a new level of insight.It’s only the beginning of our journey, but we knowfrom initial studies that ground-breaking opportunitiesare on the horizon. From understanding audienceusage and engagement with the BBC5, Healthcare (VRsurgeries), ethnographic immersions, airport journeys,testing automotive prototypes to leading FMCG brandsintegrating behaviour science principles to validate subconscious consumer behaviours.2
Virtual Reality:Hype or the future?Virtual Reality (VR)Virtual Reality is an artificial, computer-generatedsimulation or recreation of a real-life environment orsituation.It immerses the user by making them feel like they areexperiencing the simulated reality first-hand, primarily bystimulating their vision and hearing. Examples includeflight simulators for fighter pilot training and a virtualexperience of solitary confinement that gives you a tasterof what it’s like to spend 23 hours a day in a prison cell,produced by The Guardian.You can also experience VR with different types ofdevices such as HTC Vive and Google Cardboard whichalso provide differing levels of quality.AugmentedReality (AR)Augmented Reality is a technology that layerscomputer-generated enhancements atop a physical,real environment in order to make the experience moremeaningful through the ability to interact with it. ARis mostly developed into apps and used on mobiledevices. You might have seen some ground-breakingreleases such as Google Glass, Pokémon Go andAmikasa which helps you style your room and figureout your desired layout before you ever buy a piece offurniture.3
Virtual Reality:Hype or the future?Mixed Reality (MR)Mixed Reality (MR), sometimes referred to as hybrid reality,is the amalgamation of real and virtual worlds to producenew environments and visualisations where physicaland digital objects co-exist and interact in real-time. Anexample of this is Google’s Tilt Brush which allows youto paint in 3D space with virtual reality. Another exampleis the NFL (US National Football League) and MicrosoftHoloLens creating an immersive experience for fans towatch and interact with players, other fans and real-timeexperiences.In this paper we will cover the following areas: Applications for virtual, augmented and mixed reality,complemented with our initial learnings What metrics we can capture and how theycan add value to traditional research The future and its potential impact4
Virtual Reality:Hype or the future?Market research applications for virtualand augmented reality: The story so far In the following sections we will cover the differentresearch applications for virtual and augmented reality.We will highlight the key features, benefits, use cases,limitations and what is the future potential.We should note that, in most cases, it’s not astandalone technique, but can be used alongsideexisting research methodologies. It can beintegrated into existing methods, for example,AR can be used as another layer to bring a report/datato life when engaging with stakeholders or creatinga virtual environment to test product concepts, byoverlaying virtual elements onto physical products in atest environment.5
Virtual Reality:Hype or the future?Shopper Experiences: In-store behaviourImmersing consumers into a full-scale virtualsupermarket, shopping centre or even high streetenables us to test different scenarios in a scalable andflexible manner. With the development of a computergenerated (CGI) virtual supermarket/aisle, we can fullyimmerse consumers. They have the ability to movearound and interact with the environment, picking upproducts from the shelf as well as testing multi-sensoryapplications such as hearing and smell. We can setthem tasks like finding certain products, or ask themif they noticed any Point of Sale materials throughouttheir experience.It can help efficiently answer questions like, ‘How canwe quickly and easily understand consumer motivationswhilst in-store?’ or even ‘How do people engage withdifferent store layouts and shelving environments?’.We know it can be easily scaled up from qualitative toquantitative methods, quickly and efficiently. For example,once you’ve created the CGI environment and testedwithin a small group of participants, you can then rollit out to be tested on a larger group. You just need thespace (warehouse) and enough hardware (VR headsetsand PCs) to carry it out. On top of this, you can work in analmost real-time environment by changing stimuli quicklywhilst the consumer is still immersed.Some Ipsos countries are already working with thistechnology and their approaches are shared globally.This means it’s not limited by cultures or geographicboundaries as it’s a technology that can be adaptedto anything within reason! For example, our Italiancolleagues developed a CGI shopper environmentfor a global FMCG brand that the UK team arenow using to demonstrate to the local client team.In the Netherlands, they tested a completely new storeconcept for sports apparel in Virtual Reality to understandhow the store environment feels to be in there and able tomove around inside.In the future, researchers will be able to set up multisensory testing within these environments to trulyimmerse the consumer into that environment. We willalso be able to understand their neurological responsesto different environments and stimuli as the technologywill provide more accurate eye-tracking heatmaps andEEG analysis.6
Virtual Reality:Hype or the future?Product testing:pack and new concept evaluationWe instantly saw the benefits of using virtual reality inconcept and product testing. We can use it to bring new/revised pack designs to life for evaluation in differentvirtual environments and take clients’ CGI designs to testthem with consumers before any physical prototypes aredeveloped. You can also use augmented reality to overlaythe digital prototypes on existing products within the aisleitself. Being more agile with testing multiple prototypeswhilst in a real store environment.It can help to answer questions like ‘What elements ofthe design draw consumers’ attention and how do theyreact?’, ‘How can we optimise the pack design and dothis in real-time whilst in test phase?’ or even ‘How canwe tap into all the senses with the product? We cancombine VR with eye-tracking technology to explorewhether the concept/prototype can be located in differentenvironments and whether it attracts attention.A clear benefit with using this technology is itstransferability to any country, any culture or even sociodemographic-participants just need access to a headsetor smartphone. This approach also allows consumers tore-design and annotate the concepts to indicate how theywould change/improve them.Another example is our work in testing prototype cars(Car Clinics) in virtual environments against the traditional,physical environment. Results indicate participantsunderstand what is expected within the virtualenvironment and still produce similar level of insight anddepth compared to traditional methods.In a recent project, we worked with a global FMCG brand,across multiple European countries, to test multipleconcepts and designs in VR quickly and efficiently,negating the need for expensive physical prototypesand using easily accessible smartphones for devices.We generated heatmaps through the integration of eyetracking to build a clear picture of where people gaze anddwell, indicating where their brands should be placed inthe future.The future for this technology will most likely allow brandsto streamline their product development supply chain asthey will be able to create, modify and test their designsin CGI with different markets involved at the same time.For example, this would obviate the need for the UK tomake modifications, send them to China, and wait fortheir feedback.7
Virtual Reality:Hype or the future?Content Evaluation:VR media and advertising contentWe’re only at the beginning of this journey as VR content israpidly growing from games to TV shows, documentariesand films, so it’s vital to test how well the content willresonate with the audience. VR can help to answerquestions from ‘What kind of content is most attractiveand relevant to a given audience?’ to ‘How can we quicklyand efficiently test multiple ads in a real-life environment?’.How do everyday people experience VR in their home?With the BBC, we got underneath the skin of theexperience to truly understand how people experienceVR, the content and how it resonates with them.Multi-sensory testing is going to be an integral part ofVR and AR and the researchers goal of getting closer tothe ultimate consumer understanding.Ipsos’ VR out of home, pre-testing approach uses acontrolled VR or 360 video environment to recreatehow adverts are experienced in the cluttered real world.A pre-recorded route with digitally integrated billboards/ad displays shows a variety of ad concepts and can befurther integrated with neuro and biometric measures tounderstand the participant’s emotional reactions to theVR content or ads.This enables us to: Test ads in near real-life environments, which wouldotherwise be impossible to simulate in the real worldand find out which ad locations might have the optimalimpact for your brand. e.g. 360 video of a highstreet with outdoor advertising spots and get themto experience it with different ad concepts each time. Achieve cost savings by developing virtualenvironments vs. physical, so expensive prototypescould become a thing of the past. e.g. participants arestill able to interact with digital concepts within a VRenvironment and it’s more easily adaptable comparedto real-life testing. You can easily and quickly change these environmentscompared to physical. Access a reality that only VR/AR can bring i.e. nowhereelse could you have an audience ‘literally’ walk withthe dinosaurs. Bring immersive context to scale - across multiplemarkets and even in people’s homes, efficiently andat the same time e.g. run the same study using thesame environment in China and US.8
Virtual Reality:Hype or the future?One industry that has truly embraced the virtual realityindustry is the adult entertainment industry. In 2016,Pornhub’s VR portal went from 30 videos and a handfulof views a day to over 2,600 videos and more than500,000 views a day in a space of 2 months6. They tookadvantage of this technology diversification and they’venoticed that viewers want to be immersed even moreand use it to escape real-life situations and issues.From the work we’ve conducted with the BBC, it’s clear thatthe future for VR content will need to focus on resonatingwith audience and not just being a ‘novelty’ production.Content makers need to tap into the audiences’ needstates such as escaping, relaxing, empathy and learningas the content needs to be impactful and have a strongstory. They want substance.From the workwe’ve conductedwith the BBC,it’s clear thatthe future forVR content willneed to focus onresonating withaudience andnot just beinga ‘novelty’production9
Virtual Reality:Hype or the future?Storytelling:Bringing insightsto lifeWe are continuously looking at how we can bringreports, insights and data to life for clients. Making it moredigestible and actionable is critical. A new opportunity forresearch is to harness the power of VR, 360 video andAR to get stakeholders closer to their results as well asthe consumers/audience.A clear example is the use of AR triggered content. Froma report, infographic, video, physical object or imageto provide further content such as additional reports,images, videos or even surveys.We’ve been working with AR technology for a while nowand have started to see how it enhances the experiencewhen reporting back on our findings. It really does providean interactive method for more effective storytellingand offers an engaging way to share results across anorganisation.Limitations:Being realisticAs with all new technology, there are still limitations andteething problems, especially as we’re still in the earlyadoption part of the lifecycle. It’s worth considering thefollowing when working with this technology, but weexpect this to improve over time.It’s not real and as human beings we are climatised tophysical, natural, real-life environments. However, whenthinking about ‘real’ you ask yourself: How do you define ‘real? If you break ‘real’ down, it’sabout what you can feel, smell, taste and hear, then‘real’ is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain. You can use 360 video to capture real world orenvironments and still immerse consumers into thisenvironment. Computer generated VR is a ‘nearreality’ experience and will only become more ‘real’ something to ponder on! The technology is still expensive, especially trulyimmersive VR as it typically requires tens of thousandsof pounds to create a VR environment. Hardwarelike headsets needs to come down in price whilstimproving its quality. 360 video is a lot more cost effective and not asintense on the senses, especially sight. Disorientation. Moving in a world that feels real withoutactually moving has been proven to cause nauseaafter extended use. Developers need to figure outsolutions or accept limited usage at a time. AR can be socially distracting. When everyone livesin their own version of reality, will they still be able torelate to one another? Pokémon Go brought peopletogether, but will every AR app? It’s a virtual environment or layer (AR) and does notcapture all the characteristics of ‘real-life’ situations. Forexample, feeling weight is only starting to be introducedand still way off becoming a mainstream addition.10
Virtual Reality:Hype or the future?What’s happening atthe moment?VR and AR technology has gained a lot of attention overthe past few years, despite it being around a lot longer.Google Cardboard and Pokémon Go have started todrive more mass awareness in consumer markets, butwe’re still way off mass consumer adoption of VR. Expertsbelieve AR will see mass adoption before VR.VR is gaining most traction in the gaming andentertainment industries, specifically for the adultentertainment industry (as mentioned previously!). Asthe technology becomes cheaper and improves inquality, this will likely broaden its adoption into industriesranging from market research to healthcare.With 2.87 billion smartphone users in the world by theyear 20203, mobile VR and AR is starting to offer thepotential of more mass consumer adoption. With thelaunch of the Apple iPhone X and AR being a standardsystem app, this will naturally drive the adoption rateand usage. This means that consumers will becomeaccustomed to this technology.We will potentially see the more immersive hardwareand software companies, like HTC Vive, Oculus,Amazon Alexa and Google Home (Internet of Things– IOT) becoming more cost effective and adaptableto consumer homes. For example, you walk intoone room and Alexa will ask if you want to play FIFA(football computer game) and by responding ‘yes’a headset (VR/MR) will appear. It will probably bewithout any controllers as the sensors within theroom will pick up your hands and feet.At the moment, VR is limited to a user’s visual andauditory senses, but we will no doubt see it start tocater to all the other senses, providing the true ‘realityfactor’. It will be very difficult to break the barrier betweenthe virtual and real world, but hardware and softwaredevelopers are already looking at how they can providea truly real, immersive experience.VideoA market just outside Nairobi, Kenya,which showcases how we can immerseconsumers into hard to reach placesfrom anywhere in the world using 360video technology.11
Virtual Reality:Hype or the future?Future future Sci-Fi or Sci-Fact?Over the coming years, you may hear the term ‘mixedreality’ used more and more, as VR and AR may startto collide with each other; it covers both, plus any futuredevelopments that may impact our approaches. It will mostlikely be a more advanced form of technology comparedto VR or AR when they stand alone, as we envisagemixed reality combining advanced technology such asmulti-sensors, advanced optics and next generationcomputer power. We see mixed reality becoming one ofthe strongest contenders for mass adoption, especiallywithin the research industry.At Ipsos we’ve partnered with Market Logic to create anArtificial Intelligence (AI) Bot to help users navigate ouronline knowledge platform, Insight Cloud, in a new way.With the advances of AI, the Bot can find what peopleknow they want but also what they don’t know they want– it’s discover not search.Leading on from this is the potential rise of hyper reality.This is where the technology is integrated or part of thereal world and they comfortably interact with each other.This will mostly be led by hardware that involves a headmounted virtual retinal display which superimposes 3D,computer-generated imagery over real world objects.Microsoft HoloLens is already on the market and offersa version of this, but it’s still quite limited with the fieldof view. There is a lot of buzz around a company calledMagic Leap. Large technology organisations havealready started to invest and support their developmentwork. The market awaits its Beta product that is meant toprovide this mixed reality experience.The forecasted VR sales are not entirely in line withpredictions yet and you could say it’s all still quite niche,especially for the market research industry. However, weare only at the beginning of this virtual journey and whoknows what opportunities await us. At Ipsos we’re notfearing this uncertainty as we’re already testing out howother data capture techniques like heart rate monitorsand voice sentiment analysis can be integrated.Working in partnership with the Royal ShakespeareCompany (RSC), we’re capturing and uncovering thetrue emotional response of theatre-goers to the TitusAndronicus production, using these exact techniquesmentioned above. The RSC have long seen the potentialfor VR and AR within live theatre and matched withour capabilities we are truly pushing the boundaries ofconsumer understanding. If the adult entertainmentindustry can embrace it 13/only-6-of-americanswill-own-a-vr-headset-in
Virtual Reality: Hype or the future? 5 Market research applications for virtual and augmented reality: The story so far In the following sections we will cover the different research applications for virtual and augmented reality. We will highlight the key features, benefits, use cases, limitations and what is the future potential.
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