8 Springfield businesses using 360º video

Businesses spend a lot of time and effort illustrating their value to potential clients.

Photos can be a good way to do that. So can well-executed graphic design and copywriting. And sometimes, video is the best method for a business to get their vision out into the community.

However, one of the most agile and immersive ways businesses can tell a story to their target audience is through 360º video.

Essentially, 360º videos — or spherical videos — are a still image or a video shot with multiple cameras simultaneously. That content is then stitched together to produce a three dimensional environment that can be viewed in a web browser or in virtual reality via a smartphone-based cardboard viewer or head-mounted display, creating a far more immersive media experience than flat video or photography.

Cardboard viewers are inexpensive and can be custom-branded like McDonalds’ recent Happy Meal VR promotion in Sweden:

Happy Goggles - A virtual reality headset made from a Happy Meal Box.
360 video drives viewers to share, subscribe, and view other videos, according to Google. Their research shows that 360 ads earned 41 percent more actions than a standard ad. Also, the average engagement rate on mobile ads is around 2.5 percent and between 10 and 15 seconds. With a 360º ad, engagement rates average around 85 percent and 16 seconds.

Those are crazy engagement numbers. So, it’s no surprise that 360º is pervading the bleeding edge of marketing practices.

And it’s not just international companies like McDonalds entering this space. Many companies and organizations right here in the Ozarks are taking their interactions with the community to the next level.

The applications for this technology are numerous, but here we are going to focus on how local businesses are using this technology to promote themselves.

The Alchemedia Project

The Alchemedia Project —an agency in the Marlin Network — provides some pretty inventive, cutting-edge marketing concepts to their clients. An example of that is an interactive 360º video they created for McCain Foods. The video integrates interactive graphics into the experience in order to simulate an interaction with a restaurant owner and allow the user to make choices along the way — sort of like a choose-your-own-adventure, but with potato products.

Oculum Works

Oculum Works does great work! We know this because they made a 360º scan of our last office at the eFactory — complete with a digital spectre of Self founder Charlie Rosenbury.
They list their services as: 360º video curation, 3D tours, VR content. They’ve done beautifully rendered work for a number of Springfield businesses.

Zenith Climbing Center

Using a Matterport 3D camera, Oculum creates virtual tours of showroom floors, homes on the market, and the be-Duded offices of local immersive startups — among a number of other applications.
Zenith features their entire climbing gym as a 3D showcase on their website, thanks to help from … yeah, you guessed it — Oculum Works. There are a few predetermined tours through the gym that control the user’s navigation through the space, from the highest hold to the matted floor.

Or users can explore the virtual gym free form. It’s almost like being there.

Grizzly Industrial

Grizzly Industrial, a national machinery manufacturer, has their Springfield showroom available online in its entirety online. Wanna get a close-up look at the latest variable-speed benchtop lathe from your couch? No problem. Grizzly’s got you covered.
Spherical video is a perfect way for businesses to promote a large number of products at once, and to do so in an exciting, engaging way. If you could only show a potential customer one picture, why not make it a picture they want to look at?

Murney Associates

Like Oculum, Murney — Springfield’s largest real estate firm — also uses the Matterport camera.
This technology is invaluable to the real estate industry. Agents can walk clients through homes remotely, any time they want without disturbing the seller, and the home can be revisited as many times as the client wants to see it.

For example, a homebuyer can see the floorplan for each level, a dollhouse view of the entire interior, and then they can move through each room, foot by foot.

Mattertags could also be used to highlight craftsman features and specific details about the home, such the most recent renovation or design concept supplements.

Audio Acoustics

Audio Acoustics virtually recreates actual locations with computer-aided design software. With these virtual spaces, their customers are able to visualize the placement of sound equipment like loud speakers, projector screens, and acoustic panels with the help of a Google Cardboard viewer. This is a great way for both parties to avoid wasted time and resources.

As the technology becomes more and more accessible, virtual planning will become a must. Why tell your client what something will look like when you can show them?

Springfield News-Leader

The News-Leader has used 360º content on Facebook to create engaging and versatile content that can inform, entertain, and create an emotional connection with their audience.

Springfield Missouri Convention and Visitors Bureau

Sean Dixon, the Director of Marketing at the Springfield Convention & Visitors Bureau, says the Bureau has big plans for 360º going forward — and they’ve already employed it to capture iconic Springfield locations like the aquaria at Bass Pro and the Jordan Valley Park fountains.