3 Examples how VR & AR could help the Construction Industry

Co-written with fellow Strategic Digital Marketing student Paula Field

In today’s blog I will write about my student trip of a few months ago. On the 30th of October, I went to the University of the West of England (UWE) in Bristol with some of my classmates to attend a CIM event, where a presentation was given about three innovative applications of Virtual and Augmented Reality in the construction industry. As you may know Augmented and Virtual Reality is being increasingly used nowadays in order to promote and sell things in both B2B and B2C marketing. The latest technologies and developments have opened new ways of engaging with brands and their products or services. Therefore, I thought it would be interesting to give a recap from the event, since it highlights these technologies from a more business perspective, rather than an entertainment perspective.

Wonderland Collective

The business was co-founded by Graeme Lipschitz and his wife Lexi Fontein and has offices in London, Cape Town and Dubai. During their presentation they mentioned they had been at the helm of over 50 projects specializing in construction marketing, using new technology and a customer-led strategy. One of their case examples was a website for interior design and furniture business, where (potential) customers could furnish a room online and then view it life-size through VR bringing with it a greener more effective style of furnishing rooms through an immersive experience. Very interesting, since it provided the business and customer a new way of experiencing and engaging with their possible room decor. Graeme believes that by 2020 VR will surpass mobiles. Another point he made was the possibilities of VR for duty free shopping which would then be brought to the gate for you with API integration.

Sugar Creative Studio ltd

The business specializes itself in digital branding, apps and games. The Lead Creative and Studio Manager, Will Humphrey, presented an example of their apps, which incorporated VR and AR in order to provide a more immersive experience. Introducing the Mixed Reality (MR) of the digital environment into the real world, which can tie in real world data which is good for gaming. Will also discussed the future opportunities of school apps to take them back through history, science apps which can help to teach muscles and fibers of the body, although this is currently not regulated. For one of their clients, a Parisian commercial real estate and property developer, a campaign and brochure was set up, where the clients of the business could scan the brochure, enabling them to see a 3D model of a building complex concept with the ability to immerse the user within the building. See the video below for a better explanation.

Render

Last but not least, was Mark Miles, founder and managing director of Render. The business is an immersive technology specialist by designing VR, AR and MR solutions to solve multiple industry challenges for various global organizations. Mark sees virtual Reality (VR) as a key driver and component of digital transformation. He described this technology as CAD tech turned 3D and making it easy to understand and focuses on telling the story, which technically described as using the existing CAD assets, multiple departments – from R&D to marketing to training – can realise their content objectives all through a single adaptable software solution. He was very excited to discuss a training app – API focused on languages which would be distributed via the cloud, available to be downloaded, exciting times ahead. His case presentation was about a client, a supplier of safety products for the construction industry, for which they created a whole VR experience, where potential customers could experience, they safe products in a representative context and in the very location where they would be used. This included a VR roof top, where users could carry out the maintenance activities, while literally experiencing the products for themselves. Through this example, decision makers could immediately empathize with the risks that their workers daily face and their need for highly robust safety equipment. This case is highlighted in the video below;

Well this was the recap, I hope you found the examples of VR and AR in a more B2B context interesting.

Until next time!

Sources: CIM Event, White Paper: Virtual Reality Digital Transformation Discovering the Business Value of Virtual Reality in the Enterprise.

#USW_PR #prstudent #bestPRblogs #Marketing #PR #ImmersiveMarketing #VirtualReality #AugmentedReality #CustomerJourney #MixedReality