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The top 10 immersive campaigns to learn from

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Photo of tablet showing lzard image from Chevron experience

This morning, during my communications campaign course at the University of Oregon, a student asked me why we research best practices and try to find examples of successful campaigns that are relevant to our client.

It was a great question.

My answer to her also sums up why you should care about this article. Finding examples of campaigns that can be evaluated based upon performance metrics can be a great way to reduce the risk and anxiety around trying innovative tactics. “Imitate until you can innovate” isn’t a bad mantra and there’s no shame in copying something that has worked. 

A balance between leveraging previous success and pioneering new tactics

Of course, solely relying on previous campaign data to select your tactics can be an innovation killer — so it’s important to find a balance between leveraging previous campaign examples and pioneering new technology and tactics. You may not find examples on this list that are directly relevant to your work, however I hope you do find inspiration for innovative ways to engage and communicate with your audiences. 

These ten examples were sourced from my XR (extended reality) students, XR colleagues, XR faculty at the University of Oregon’s Strategic Communications immersive media program and my own personal research and work. I hope they will help demonstrate effective uses of immersive technologies to engage with and connect users around the globe. If you’re looking for an active group of XR communicators, try joining my monthly XR Pub Crawl, where we explore online worlds and immersive technologies used for marketing and communications. Previous pub crawls can be found on Twitch.tv/lisapeyton and our upcoming event can be found on LinkedIn

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Click on the links below each example to immerse yourself in the experience.

1. Breonna’s Garden

Why I like it. The Breonna’s Garden app is a perfect example of the magic that can come of a mixed reality experience. The virtual, living memorial for Breonna Taylor leverages many different types of 3D assets, 2D video and augmented reality to allow users to pay tribute to and celebrate Breonna’s life. The app features video footage of Breonna and her family along with a 3D hologram of Breonna’s sister and a 3D rendering of Breonna herself. 

The app brings to life a real-world garden and allows anyone, anywhere to join in the community, leave their own personal message and step into a wonderous, virtual flower garden in their own home. 

Technology used. AR, 2D video, holograms, and 3D avatar.

Immerse yourselves. https://breonnasgarden.com/

Read next: 10 rules for successful metaverse marketing

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2. Gatorade’s “Beat the Blitz”

Why I like it. “Beat the Blitz” uses high-end virtual reality to simulate what it feels like when a player gets dehydrated. It combines gamification, headset-based, immersive VR, and a 3D hologram of Peyton Manning to simulate getting dehydrated on the field and its impact on performance. Part educational tool and part VR game, Gatorade has done an outstanding job of building an experience not about the product but about their grand gift – hydration. They also crafted this experience with their target audience in-mind, recruiting an industry icon and using actual arm movement to simulate skills that players can relate to. 

Technology used. Head-set VR, 3D virtual content, holograms

Immerse yourselves. https://store.steampowered.com/app/748420/Beat_the_Blitz/

3. 2022 Oscars 5G portal

Why I like it. Streaming behind-the-scenes footage from the Oscars is nothing new, but this year Verizon used some innovative targeting techniques to create serious FOMO among those not yet armed with 5G. The live-streaming, immersive red-carpet experience used Verizon 5G to provide users access to several different 360-degree cameras placed on or around the red carpet. Viewers could choose the camera view they were interested in and get a real-time, interactive view of all the action. 

Verizon customers Googling the “Oscars” were strategically targeted to experience the AR portal through a web-based link, however if the link was shared with someone who didn’t have 5G – the experience wouldn’t provide both audio and video, creating a sense of missing out.  Wanting to make sure you can keep up with the latest online conversations about celebrities might just be a good enough reason to upgrade your phone. Or so Verizon hopes is the case. 

Technology used. Web-based AR, 360-degree live-streaming video

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Immerse yourselves. https://blog.insta360.com/oscars-2022-360-live-streaming-from-the-red-carpet-backstage-more/

4. Pepsi’s The Weeknd Super Bowl half-time experience

Why I like it. Pepsi partnered with The Weeknd to create an easy-to-use, AR portal that could be accessed using a simple QR code — no download required. The seamless experience from soda can or digital signage to the AR portal made this experience a true touchdown. The portal allowed the user to enter an immersive world of exclusive The Weeknd video clips and experience their halftime performance via 360-degree video filmed from the front row. The interactivity and immersion of walking into an AR portal helped to improve upon the traditional 2D halftime show, in my opinion. 

Technology used. Web-based AR, 360-degree video, QR code

Immerse yourselves. https://www.8thwall.com/aircards/pepsi-halftime

5. Intel’s Microsoft Build AR experience

Why I like it. One of the few B2B examples on my list, Microsoft and Intel partnered to create a fun and playful AR experience for their developer audience. I was fortunate enough to work on this project, full disclaimer, so I’m a bit biased but also had an insider’s view of the project from start to finish. 

The biggest win for this campaign was piloting a mobile-based technology like AR for what has in the past been solely focused on desktop assets like blog posts, solution briefs and YouTube tutorials. These more traditional assets are extremely important when engaging with coders and developers who are focused on business solutions, however building awareness for these solutions doesn’t have to be ho-hum. Developers (in fact all of us!) love to be hands-on and prefer interactive experiences where they can help control and interact with the story. AR allows this type of interactivity and immersion along with helping to simulate complex, technical solutions. 

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Technology used. Web-based AR, 3D scalable content, QR code

Immerse yourselves. https://build.rpr.to/

6. Chevron

Why I like it. The second B2B campaign on this list may surprise you, as it was built by a more traditional brand — Chevron. Chevron has been at the forefront of using immersive technology to engage its high-stake audiences like policy makers, Chevron executives, partners, and customers. One of the brands first attempts at immersive storytelling was their VR experience simulating life onboard an oil rig. The high-end, headset enabled experience used 360-degree video, 3D content and spatial audio to recreate the working conditions of one of the most dangerous places on earth. The experience rolled out to Chevron rig employees’ friends and families, allowing them to see where their loved ones worked for the first time. 

On the heels of this experience, Chevron crafted an AR campaign to be featured at the World Oil and Gas Conference in Washington, DC. Once again, they wanted to leverage innovative storytelling techniques to engage conference attendees in new ways. Instead of using VR, which would force attendees to wear a headset, they opted to use iPad Pros to display AR digital content. The experience featured their newest facility on an isolated island and told the story of conservation and innovation within the oil and gas industry. The experience also featured several rare wildlife species only found on the island, brought to life through animated AR, 3D content. 

Photo by Lisa Peyton.

Technology used. VR, AR, 360-degree video, animated 3D content

Immerse yourselves. https://martech.org/chevron-storytelling-uses-purposeful-immersive-experiences-to-engage-stakeholders/

7. The New York Times’ AR mask experience

Why I like it. The Times is no stranger to immersive journalism, and they have been at the forefront of leveraging AR and VR for education. The mask experience does an excellent job of educating users on why masks work. By taking the viewer inside the fibers that create the masks materials and simulating the activities of Covid molecules, it becomes apparent how masks trap and block the virus.

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This is a great example of taking a user someplace they could never go in real life and visualizing something they could never see with the naked eye. 

Technology used. AR, 3D content

Immerse yourselves. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/30/science/wear-mask-covid-particles-ul.html

8. Jaguar and Gorillaz

Why I like it. Jaguar crafted a unique, immersive experience for one of their hardest to reach target audiences – top engineering talent. As many companies are moving toward becoming technology providers finding employees who can develop digital platforms and help digitize services has become challenging. To reach this group, Jaguar partnered with the popular band, Gorillaz, to craft a fully immersive world where coders and developers could participate in a challenge that would fast-track the most talented developers into Jaguar’s talent pool. 

Using the Gorillaz already popular mixed-reality app meant the campaign had a built-in captive audience and allowed Jaguar to focus on crafting a mind-blowing experience instead of acquiring new users. Since this campaign launched, Jaguar has continued to use innovative tactics to build an ongoing relationship with developers as they have recently announced a new coders academy that builds upon the initial approach of this campaign. 

Technology used. Mixed-reality, alternate reality game, influencer, and celebrity endorsements

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Immerse yourselves. https://media.jaguar.com/news/2017/06/jaguar-land-rover-and-gorillaz-seek-new-engineering-talent-alternate-reality?q=&start=0&brand=jaguar

9. Ally Bank AR Monopoly

Why I like it. This fun and engaging campaign brought together several immersive technologies and a popular game that was sure to spark some nostalgia in its target audience. Ally Bank was hoping to get new customers and raise brand awareness in several key markets, so they crafted an AR-based scavenger hunt. 

Placing signs with the campaign QR code around popular urban locations, users could scan the code to experience entertaining AR content and enter to win cash prizes. Publicity campaigns like the one shown above that featured a real-life Mr. Monopoly helped to drive the buzz around the contest and build awareness among the target audience. 

Leveraging a game that is all about money helped to make this campaign feel in keeping with Ally Bank while at the same time evoking a sense of fun and taking users back to their childhood. While these types of scavenger hunts are becoming more popular, Ally was among one of the first to use this type of experience to try and promote business services. 

Technology used. QR codes, AR

Immerse yourselves. https://www.8thwall.com/blog/post/52535533666/ally-bank-transforms-cities-into-a-live-monopoly-game

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10. The Stanford ocean acidification experience

Why I like it. Stanford needed a way to promote its latest research findings and make people care about preserving the planet. Realizing that children are our future, they built a VR game that helped to engage younger audiences and educate them on the plight of our planet. 

The experience is built using headset enabled VR and a gaming framework that uses game mechanics to incite users to go on a journey under the sea. Instead of a snooze-worthy, education video, Stanford opted to create a game that would use various types of tactile, strategic, and sensory immersion to help keep users engaged along with improving content recall. They understood you learn better when your brain is activated by playing instead of reading. This fan-created video demonstrates what it’s like to “play” this educational game and proves they are engaging a younger audience. 

Technology used. Game mechanics, VR

Immerse yourselves. https://stanfordvr.com/soae/


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Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.


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About The Author

10 things to consider when using XR for your event

Lisa Peyton is an immersive media strategist and media psychologist focusing on the user engagement and marketing applications of new technologies.

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How To Combine PR and Content Marketing Superpowers To Achieve Business Goals

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A figure pulls open a dress shirt to reveal the term PR on a Superman-like costume, reflecting the superpower resulting from combining content and PR.

A transformative shift is happening, and it’s not AI.

The aisle between public relations and content marketing is rapidly narrowing. If you’re smart about the convergence, you can forever enhance your brand’s storytelling.

The goals and roles of content marketing and PR overlap more and more. The job descriptions look awfully similar. Shrinking budgets and a shrewd eye for efficiency mean you and your PR pals could face the chopping block if you don’t streamline operations and deliver on the company’s goals (because marketing communications is always first to be axed, right?).

Yikes. Let’s take a big, deep breath. This is not a threat. It’s an opportunity.

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Reach across the aisle to PR and streamline content creation, improve distribution strategies, and get back to the heart of what you both are meant to do: Build strong relationships and tell impactful stories.

So, before you panic-post that open-to-work banner on LinkedIn, consider these tips from content marketing, PR, and journalism pros who’ve figured out how to thrive in an increasingly narrowing content ecosystem.

1. See journalists as your audience

Savvy pros know the ability to tell an impactful story — and support it with publish-ready collateral — grounds successful media relationships. And as a content marketer, your skills in storytelling and connecting with audiences, including journalists, naturally support your PR pals’ media outreach.

Strategic storytelling creates content focused on what the audience needs and wants. Sharing content on your blog or social media builds relationships with journalists who source those channels for story ideas, event updates, and subject matter experts.

“Embedding PR strategies in your content marketing pieces informs your audience and can easily be picked up by media,” says Alex Sanchez, chief experience officer at BeWell, New Mexico’s Health Insurance Marketplace. “We have seen reporters do this many times, pulling stories from our blogs and putting them in the nightly news — most of the time without even reaching out to us.”

Acacia James, weekend producer/morning associate producer at WTOP radio in Washington, D.C., says blogs and social media posts are helpful to her work. “If I see a story idea, and I see that they’re willing to share information, it’s easier to contact them — and we can also backlink their content. It’s huge for us to be able to use every avenue.” 

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Kirby Winn, manager of PR at ImpactLife, says reporters and assignment editors are key consumers of their content. “And I don’t mean a news release that just hit their inbox. They’re going to our blog and consuming our stories, just like any other audience member,” he says. “Our organization has put more focus into content marketing in the past few years — it supports a media pitch so well and highlights the stories we have to tell.”

Storytelling attracts earned media that might not pick up the generic news topic. “It’s one thing to pitch a general story about how we help consumers sign up for low-cost health insurance,” Alex says. “Now, imagine a single mom who just got a plan after years of thinking it was too expensive. She had a terrible car accident, and the $60,000 ER bill that would have ruined her financially was covered. Now that’s a story journalists will want to cover, and that will be relatable to their audience and ours.” 

2. Learn the media outlet’s audience

Seventy-three percent of reporters say one-fourth or less of the stories pitched are relevant to their audiences, according to Cision’s 2023 State of the Media Report (registration required).

PR pros are known for building relationships with journalists, while content marketers thrive in building communities around content. Merge these best practices to build desirable content that works for your target audience and the media’s audiences simultaneously.

WTOP’s Acacia James says sources who show they’re ready to share helpful, relevant content often win pitches for coverage. “In radio, we do a lot of research on who is listening to us, and we’re focused on a prototype called ‘Mike and Jen’ — normal, everyday people in Generation X … So when we get press releases and pitches, we ask, ‘How interested will Mike and Jen be in this story?’” 

3. Deliver the full content package (and make journalists’ jobs easier)

Cranking out content to their media outlet’s standards has never been tougher for journalists. Newsrooms are significantly understaffed, and anything you can do to make their lives easier will be appreciated and potentially rewarded with coverage. Content marketers are built to think about all the elements to tell the story through multiple mediums and channels.

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“Today’s content marketing pretty much provides a package to the media outlet,” says So Young Pak, director of media relations at MedStar Washington Hospital Center. “PR is doing a lot of storytelling work in advance of media publication. We (and content marketing) work together to provide the elements to go with each story — photos, subject matter experts, patients, videos, and data points, if needed.”   

At WTOP, the successful content package includes audio. “As a radio station, we are focused on high-quality sound,” Acacia James says. “Savvy sources know to record and send us voice memos, and then we pull cuts from the audio … You will naturally want to do someone a favor if they did you one — like providing helpful soundbites, audio, and newsworthy stories.”  

While production value matters to some media, you shouldn’t stress about it. “In the past decade, how we work with reporters has changed. Back in the day, if they couldn’t be there in person, they weren’t going to interview your expert,” says Jason Carlton, an accredited PR professional and manager of marketing and communications at Intermountain Health. “During COVID, we had to switch to virtual interviewing. Now, many journalists are OK with running a Teams or Zoom interview they’ve done with an expert on the news.”

BeWell’s Alex Sanchez agrees. “I’ve heard old school PR folks cringe at the idea of putting up a Zoom video instead of getting traditional video interviews. It doesn’t really matter to consumers. Focus on the story, on the timeliness, and the relevance. Consumers want authenticity, not super stylized, stiff content.”

4. Unite great minds to maximize efficiency

Everyone needs to set aside the debate about which team — PR or content marketing — gets credit for the resulting media coverage.

At MedStar Washington Hospital Center, So Young and colleagues adopt a collaborative mindset on multichannel stories. “We can get the interview and gather information for all the different pieces — blog, audio, video, press release, internal newsletter, or magazine. That way, we’re not trying to figure things out individually, and the subject matter experts only have to have that conversation once,” she says.

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Regular, cross-team meetings are essential to understand the best channels for reaching key audiences, including the media. A story that began life as a press release might reap SEO and earned media gold if it’s strategized as a blog, video, and media pitch.

“At Intermountain Health, we have individual teams for media relations, marketing, social media, and hospital communications. That setup works well because it allows us to bring in the people who are the given experts in those areas,” says Intermountain’s Jason Carlton. “Together, we decide if a story is best for the blog, a media pitch, or a mix of channels — that way, we avoid duplicating work and the risk of diluting the story’s impact.”

5. Measure what matters

Cutting through the noise to earn media mentions requires keen attention to metrics. Since content marketing and PR metrics overlap, synthesizing the data in your team meetings can save time while streamlining your storytelling efforts.

“For content marketers, using analytical tools such as GA4 can help measure the effectiveness of their content campaigns and landing pages to determine meaningful KPIs such as organic traffic, keyword rankings, lead generation, and conversion rates,” says John Martino, director of digital marketing for Visiting Angels. “PR teams can use media coverage and social interactions to assess user engagement and brand awareness. A unified and omnichannel approach can help both teams demonstrate their value in enhancing brand visibility, engagement, and overall business success.”

To track your shared goals, launch a shared dashboard that helps tell the combined “story of your stories” to internal and executive teams. Among the metrics to monitor:

  • Page views: Obviously, this queen of metrics continues to be important across PR and content marketing. Take your analysis to the next level by evaluating which niche audiences are contributing to these views to further hone your storytelling targets, including media outlets.
  • Earned media mentions: Through a media tracker service or good old Google Alerts, you can tally the echo of your content marketing and PR. Look at your site’s referral traffic report to identify media outlets that send traffic to your blog or other web pages.
  • Organic search queries: Dive into your analytics platform to surface organic search queries that lead to visitors. Build from those questions to develop stories that further resonate with your audience and your targeted media.
  • On-page actions: When visitors show up on your content, what are they doing? What do they click? Where do they go next? Building next-step pathways is your bread and butter in content marketing — and PR can use them as a natural pipeline for media to pick up more stories, angles, and quotes.

But perhaps the biggest metric to track is team satisfaction. Who on the collaborative team had the most fun writing blogs, producing videos, or calling the news stations? Lean into the natural skills and passions of your team members to distribute work properly, maximize the team output, and improve relationships with the media, your audience, and internal teams.

“It’s really trying to understand the problem to solve — the needle to move — and determining a plan that will help them achieve their goal,” Jason says. “If you don’t have those measurable objectives, you’re not going to know whether you made a difference.”

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Don’t fear the merger

Whether you deliberately work together or not, content marketing and public relations are tied together. ImpactLife’s Kirby Winn explains, “As soon as we begin to talk about (ourselves) to a reporter who doesn’t know us, they are certainly going to check out our stories.”

But consciously uniting PR and content marketing will ease the challenges you both face. Working together allows you to save time, eliminate duplicate work, and gain free time to tell more stories and drive them into impactful media placements.

Register to attend Content Marketing World in San Diego. Use the code BLOG100 to save $100. Can’t attend in person this year? Check out the Digital Pass for access to on-demand session recordings from the live event through the end of the year.

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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

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Trends in Content Localization – Moz

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Trends in Content Localization - Moz

Multinational fast food chains are one of the best-known examples of recognizing that product menus may sometimes have to change significantly to serve distinct audiences. The above video is just a short run-through of the same business selling smokehouse burgers, kofta, paneer, and rice bowls in an effort to appeal to people in a variety of places. I can’t personally judge the validity of these representations, but what I can see is that, in such cases, you don’t merely localize your content but the products on which your content is founded.

Sometimes, even the branding of businesses is different around the world; what we call Burger King in America is Hungry Jack’s in Australia, Lays potato chips here are Sabritas in Mexico, and DiGiorno frozen pizza is familiar in the US, but Canada knows it as Delissio.

Tales of product tailoring failures often become famous, likely because some of them may seem humorous from a distance, but cultural sensitivity should always be taken seriously. If a brand you are marketing is on its way to becoming a large global seller, the best insurance against reputation damage and revenue loss as a result of cultural insensitivity is to employ regional and cultural experts whose first-hand and lived experiences can steward the organization in acting with awareness and respect.

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

AI and startups? It just makes sense.

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