Virtual reality could offer unprecedented immersion for brand audiences – if the technology becomes a genuine reality, according to an executive from one of the world’s biggest ad agency groups.
Speaking with Beet.TV for this video interview, Eric Litman, who became GroupM’s worldwide mobile SVP last June after the group’s acquisition of Medialets, the mobile ad tech company he ran, says VR could be disruptive.
“It’s a coming wave of entirely new devices and interaction modalities that are different from anything we do on our mobile devices,” Litman says. “You could conceivably browse an advertisers’ entire catalog, become deeply immersed in products, content backgrounds and stories and a lot of the emotion that brands want to bring to life.”
But he acknowledges it’s “really early” to go making grand bets for advertiser success. Gartner’s Hype Cycle on the topic doesn’t expect mainstream VR adoption for another five to 10 years.
“There are a couple of smaller ad-tech companies that have already figured out what the early ad units in VR might be,” Litman observes.
“We’ve yet to see any scalable consumer adoption of VR devices – that has to be there to get advertisers interested in a big way.”
We spoke with Litman after the Mobile World Congress. He shares his views on this year’s show and notable trends. Video is part of a series about MWC sponsored by Light Reaction. You can find additional clips from MWC here.
