NEW ORLEANS: Virtual reality (VR) has the potential to "democratise" the process of content creation and consumption, according to a leading executive from Samsung, the electronics group.
Marc Mathieu, CMO of Samsung Electronics America, discussed this subject during a session at the 2016 Collision Conference in New Orleans.
Samsung has been an early mover in the VR space, with its Gear headset and Milk app, and is planning to release a 360-degree camera, costing a few hundred dollars and which can be connected to smartphones, next year.
"It's the invention of a new medium," said Mathieu, "but also a democratisation of the way both content creation and content consumption are going to happen." (For more, including further tips for marketers, read Warc's exclusive report: Samsung preps for the marketing realities of VR.)
Drilling down into this topic, Mathieu highlighted how its camera, when launched, could help transform VR into a channel that is open to a broad range of content creators and viewers.
"It's basically an eyeball – a little bit bigger than a golf ball – with two lenses on each side," he told the Collision delegates.
"The beauty is that you just control it from your phone: You push a button and it films. Without turning, it films everything and stitches it together instantaneously."
When it comes to viewing this material, several major digital-content platforms have already begun to host virtual-reality content, too.
"The program gives you the ability to post it on Facebook or on YouTube, or to put it on a VR platform and view it in a VR headset," said Mathieu.
In order to maximise the potential of virtual reality, brands will also have to open up to new narrative forms and structures. "There are lots of forms of storytelling that the medium has not yet defined," said Mathieu.
"The more we can put both the consumption and the creation in the hands of people, the more we will help accelerate the medium."
Marc Mathieu, CMO of Samsung Electronics America, discussed this subject during a session at the 2016 Collision Conference in New Orleans.
Samsung has been an early mover in the VR space, with its Gear headset and Milk app, and is planning to release a 360-degree camera, costing a few hundred dollars and which can be connected to smartphones, next year.
"It's the invention of a new medium," said Mathieu, "but also a democratisation of the way both content creation and content consumption are going to happen." (For more, including further tips for marketers, read Warc's exclusive report: Samsung preps for the marketing realities of VR.)
Drilling down into this topic, Mathieu highlighted how its camera, when launched, could help transform VR into a channel that is open to a broad range of content creators and viewers.
"It's basically an eyeball – a little bit bigger than a golf ball – with two lenses on each side," he told the Collision delegates.
"The beauty is that you just control it from your phone: You push a button and it films. Without turning, it films everything and stitches it together instantaneously."
When it comes to viewing this material, several major digital-content platforms have already begun to host virtual-reality content, too.
"The program gives you the ability to post it on Facebook or on YouTube, or to put it on a VR platform and view it in a VR headset," said Mathieu.
In order to maximise the potential of virtual reality, brands will also have to open up to new narrative forms and structures. "There are lots of forms of storytelling that the medium has not yet defined," said Mathieu.
"The more we can put both the consumption and the creation in the hands of people, the more we will help accelerate the medium."
Data sourced from Warc
