CIM Marketing Podcast - Episode 58: Step into marketing's extended reality

Intro 00:04

Welcome to the CIM Marketing Podcast. The contents and views expressed by individuals in the CIM Marketing Podcast are not necessarily those of the companies for which they work. This series is currently being recorded via web conferencing. We apologise for any issues with the audio.

Ben Walker 00:22

Hello, everybody, and welcome to the CIM Marketing Podcast. And today, we're going to be discussing that, I guess, in fact, I know many of you will never have heard of, and that is extended reality and particularly extended reality and its application to marketing. And to do that we have with us today a expert on extended marketing, Mr. Daniel Colaianni, who is joining us today from Sicily. Daniel, how are you, sir?

Daniel Colaianni 00:50

I'm good thanks, I'm good. That's the beauty of remote working is we can, you know, work wherever we want to these days, and we can be in the UK, or we can be in sunny Italy. So either/either...

Ben Walker 01:01

You, you may have thrown some of our audience because you've got a crystal clear English accent there. So I'm sure you share your time between the two countries.

Daniel Colaianni 01:09

Yeah, no, exactly. So I'm half English, half Italian. So it works quite well to be able to make the most of being able to work wherever we want to work from.

Ben Walker 01:20

You know, we, I, said we're gonna be talking about extended reality also made the claim that not many people or lots of people will not have heard of it. And I happen to know that's the case, because we have just run at CIM a recent survey to ask people, whether they were using extended reality in their marketing campaigns. 8% of them were, so 8%, that's not nothing, but it's not a huge amount. 54% of them were not. So the majority were not 4% are considering doing so. So maybe soon using it. But 34% answered, 'what is extended reality?'. So can you enlighten?

Daniel Colaianni 02:06

Yeah, but it's interesting, because this is a systematic problem of any innovative technology, right? Is when you have a rapidly advancing innovative technology, lots of different things crop up. So a lot of people might not know the term extended reality. Whereas you know, we use the term XR, for example. Some people may view this as extended reality, some people may view this as the 'X' being replaced by any form of reality, essentially. But then other people might simply know the terms like virtual reality, augmented reality, or even the new, well, one of the bigger buzzwords at the moment, which is the metaverse.

So for us, this is an all encompassing term that allows us to pretty much interject anywhere when it comes to immersive technology. And also differentiate between this idea of not just visual. So a lot of people think of VR or AR as just a visual aid, for example, but also delve deep into things like audio, and how do we use spatial audio for positioning? How do we look at senses and haptics? So this world of immersive tech and extended reality for us extends very, very deeply into loads of different areas. And of course, touches on many other technologies that people may use day-to-day as well.

Ben Walker 03:28

So immersive technology, extended reality, these are umbrella terms for a whole bunch of sons and daughters, which fit underneath them. You've mentioned AI, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, augmented reality, I think, the virtual reality and the augmented reality are more commonly known as terms now. How do all of those things differ the AI's the VR is the ARs? And then if the other Rs that we can come across?

Daniel Colaianni 03:55

Yeah, sure. So I mean, virtual reality is all about creating a whole new world, right? So it's all about being able to create a computer generated environment that's closed off from the real world. So we can think of your, your holodeck from Star Trek or something like that, being able to create, you know, absolutely anything from, from your imagination.

Whereas on the flip side of that, and these technologies can work in tandem in different ways, but augmented reality, or AR, focuses on how do we superimpose computer graphics or computer generated environments on to the real world. So that's all about manipulating and using the real world environment around around us and enhancing it, adding more information to it, that creates a better experience for the end user.

Ben Walker 04:41

So you're from an organisation called The Academy of International Extended Reality. What's the role of that body? You know, what does it do? What's there for?

Daniel Colaianni 04:51

Yeah, I mean, essentially, we help organisations that are looking to grow in the space leverage VR, AR, MR technology in different ways. So primarily, we're a not-for-profit organisation that exists as a membership base, where we have hundreds of companies all around the world who may be using it in a very small percentage, only 5% of their business may use it, or they might be a complete total VR company.

But what's super, super interesting about our space in particular, is we intersect every single sector, every single industry, we get to work with it. Whether it's healthcare, whether it's education, whether it's marketing, and enterprise, whether it's oil, and gas, all of these different sectors we work with, because every single one of these and this is on an increase in projection as well uses this technology in one form or another, and in the next five to 10 years you know we can see that growing exponentially.

Ben Walker 05:47

That's interesting, isn't it, but it's still got a bit of a an image. All of this stuff as being a little bit niche, you know, directed in a narrow bunch of industries to a fairly narrow demographic. It's the stereotype of it is a Gen Z, digital native, demographic in some of the more hotfooting and progressive industries. But what you're saying is that actually, it's not niche in terms of the industries it touches, it's touching pretty much every sector of the economy, some sectors that the exposure to it is quite minimal, but it's growing rapidly in all sectors. And it does strike me that it will no longer be niche, even if it still is at the moment.

Daniel Colaianni 06:31

Exactly. I mean, every innovative technology needs a place to start, right. It needs those early adopters, those early innovators, right. But then what we we tend to see in terms of trends and graphs is the more people that are exposed to the technology and the more genuine uses not just gimmicks, for example, which is one thing that has plagued the marketing industry quite rapidly from its early days of this technology.

Once we move past that stage, we then see rapid mass adoption. And then of course, we get to see more return on investment of this stuff, which means more people are interested in putting more money into this stuff, which means it's a recurring cycle that sees us grow out of niche areas, such as video games, for example, which many people associate it with, into all of these facets in different areas of day-to-day business.

Ben Walker 07:22

Does it happen naturally that that growth, if you've hit the sort of 20 somethings and teen video gamers who are very, very tech savvy, they've known nothing other than tech and the internet since they were born. Do they naturally pass on these ideas and this interest to their fathers, mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers? Or do you have to do something special to widen its demographic appeal?

Daniel Colaianni 07:46

No. See, that's what's the beauty of this technology, right? So I've got a really funny story, which is from one of my my team members, Chris actually is on our team. So as part of our organisation, we have a fund, which allows our staff to actually buy their own VR headsets. We believe really, really importantly, in the idea that we're going to talk about this, this technology, and we're going to share information, all of our team needs to be able to use it and embrace it.

So Chris got a VR headset, he got a Meta Quest two, which is probably one of the most popular consumer headsets on the market, I think it's £299. In terms of cost standalone, you don't need to buy anything else. So first of all entry point super easier, name me one smartphone that you can get for £299 that does all of the features that a VR headset can do. Next step, you can move along, I think, you know Chris, Chris was using it. And then he invited his family around. And then he showed it to his, his parents. He showed it to his mum, who absolutely grasped it so quickly. She fell in love with it. And then he said, the next day he woke up. And he went downstairs because he heard a noise. And he found his mum had put the headset on it was play a very well known popular VR game called Beat Saber at the time. You know, so you know, it's for all generations. Of course, it requires a mindset of people who are open to change and open to adaptation. But you know, if if you'd asked someone, you know, 10-15 years ago, would every single person have a smartphone that can do what they can do today in their pockets? They probably think you're crazy.

Ben Walker 09:25

There's a couple of things there isn't. The first is the cost is that they are remarkably cheap. I noticed as a Christmas when we bought one for my son compared to other tech as you say they're a fraction of the cost as a standard iPhone and for the benefit of the audience. I'm waving around a slightly dated iPhone, which is still cost more to buy than a VR headset. But it's an interesting point that you make about that story, which is something I've experienced also, since we've had a headset here.

Is it actually then much easier to adopt this technology than something like a PlayStation or a traditional gaming console, they require much less effort, they're much more intuitive. And they require much less learning to be able to get in and get actually get playing and get used to the system straightaway. So much of it is, it does what you naturally think it ought to do, which is the beauty of this, these sorts of platforms, isn't it.

Daniel Colaianni 10:16

You need to look at it from this perspective, right, is we are visual creatures, as human beings, we, we have an innate ability, and an innate desire to be, to think in 3D, to move in 3D environments, to interact with people physically, right? In fact, being on a phone or being on a computer is a learned behaviour. It's something that we've had to force ourselves to do. But you know, right now, you've probably seen this yourself. Some of these VR headsets, they have controllers, for example.

So we interacted with that. But actually, you know, the moving forward from that is we don't even need controllers. I mean, the Meta Quest two has full fully built in hand tracking, for example, and many other headsets have that technology as well. So you know, you can put on a device, you can immediately be familiar with it, because you're not having to adapt your thinking in 3D, just like you would do in everyday life. And also, now you don't even need to use a keyboard or controllers or type, you've got your fingers, your hands, you can touch things, you can move things, you can push things, you can interact with things the way things are meant to be interacted with.

Ben Walker 11:25

It's interesting. So what sorts of uses do they have in the world of marketing and business and in commerce more generally, you know, how they're being applied to those day to day things that we do, which is, in our industry, of course, is shopping and things like that.

Daniel Colaianni 11:38

Right now, we're seeing brands utilise the technology in different ways. For example, if we're looking at brand recognition, that's kind of one very big area. But also if we're looking at the point of sale process as well, you know, when a user is going on, and looking to buy something can interact with it there. That's also a new area that people are delving into. The thing is, right, is right now, a lot of the use cases we see utilise AR, augmented reality, because it's one of the most accessible devices. Everyone has a phone, right? Most people also have some something like Instagram, or Snapchat, and are able to interact with objects in 3D environments. Now, most people have used a dog face, for example, as a filter, or one of those popular baby faces. Those are probably the areas that people are interacting with now, and seeing quite genuine good returns on investments. But where I'm really, really interested is literally in the near future. So I talk about one to two years out in terms of this technology, because what you're seeing is the early adopters have brought on the technology, they're trying things, right? They're not, they're not gonna get it perfect straight away. But we're maturing with the technology. And we're maturing as we start to experiment with things. And we're understanding what sticks, what doesn't stick, what, what works. And then you got this whole concept now of this, you know, the metaverse or online interactions with people. So now we're thinking about how do we get people to interact with products and brands, in virtual environments as well and not just buy things? But actually, how do we get them to interact with the brand, actually, as if they were a human being or if they are a person, one of the, you know, the whole holy grails of I've been able to personify a brand and not just make it some corporate entity, but actually make it someone that someone wants to work with and someone wants to interact with.

Ben Walker 13:29

Which is interesting - you talk about the near future, which I think is, which is a compelling idea, isn't it the near future? Because it doesn't seem so far away? Can you envisage in the near future, a situation where people can shop in virtual stores and the like, perhaps even try things on? And that will be, it will be commonplace at some of the major retailers to offer this sort of technology as part of their ecommerce environment?

Daniel Colaianni 13:54

Yeah, well, I don't just envision that I think consumers will come to expect that in terms of buying things online, it's not really a natural process. In fact, there's some things that I still refuse to buy online simply because I'm not confident in buying it online, or I want to be able to experience that in person. So I think that as the technology starts to progress, and as people start finding more genuine ways to incorporate it within their their marketing strategy and their brand strategy, this is where we actually start to see consumers expecting it as a standard. So they go on Amazon, and they want to see if they need to buy this product. You know, they're going to actually want to see that physically, in their environment often do that physically in their space. Same thing, you know, I think early adoptions of kind of marketing when it came to trying to buy shoes online, for example, didn't really work very well because people want to try them on people want to see them. People want to know what that feels like.

Daniel Colaianni 14:52

So there's going to be certain products that this lends itself incredibly well to, in fact IKEA saw this straightaway in terms of, you know, one of their AR apps was to be able to actually place objects directly within your home and see how it looks. And that's phenomenal in terms of kind of use cases for this, because you're not just thinking about a gimmick, now you're thinking about utility of this. Utility products, in particular, are gonna see major, major kind of growth in that kind of area. And especially as it becomes easier to capture things in 3D. And it becomes easier to present things in 3D, it's going to be a no brainer for brands to say, 'Okay, let's just incorporate this because it's just so easy to do. And we're also getting an ROI on this'.

Ben Walker 15:38

One of the things we look at, at CIM a lot, is the idea of sustainability, and how can we reduce the carbon footprint of, of marketing. And it strikes me that actually, if this technology is used properly and embraced properly, it can have a large potential to reduce the amount of travel, the amount of mileage, and so on and so forth? Because people, as you say, can try a lot before they go out and look for these things? Is that something you can see it being successful in?

Daniel Colaianni 16:06

Yeah, certainly the sustainability side of this is a given in terms of reducing that that kind of carbon footprint. I think, you know, it's going to firstly, look at how do we reduce wastage, especially when it comes to things like fast fashion and that particular sector? So how do we try before we buy without actually having to put things in the trash? And then, you know, the the secondary of this is the actual idea, as well as what can we reduce from a brand perspective in terms of physical presence of things, what don't we actually need in the real life or what can be enhanced in virtual environments as well. And that's when you look at things like AR and virtual reality, in particular, because we can create whole new brand interactions with people where they might not necessarily have to buy something physically, but they can interact with that virtually and still get the same brand interaction that they come to expect.

Ben Walker 17:00

Interesting in the 'try before you buy' argument is very powerful one because as we know, with fast fashion is a lot of stuff ends up either from the consumer in the bin or from the retailer in the bin if it gets sent back, which is a sustainability tragedy. And if people could actually try this stuff and see what it looked like, in a virtual space, before they bought it, one would expect much fewer returns. And indeed, you know, a consumer that would perhaps be more cautious about buying something before they're sure that it looks good on her or, or what have you. So, exciting in terms of the technology in terms of what it can do, in terms of reducing the carbon footprint of our industries. Daniel, we got lots of questions sent in before this, this from our audience, the CIM marketing podcast audience who pinged in a load of questions over social media for you. So I'm going to put you on the spot with some of these and see how you answer them. This member said: do you think marketing will be one of the industries that benefits most from immersive technology? And if so, what are the biggest opportunities that you see for it?

Daniel Colaianni 18:05

Well this is this is interesting, because this goes back to this, this idea of the technology intersecting and cutting across every single sector, right? So obviously, marketing is one area, but there's going to be huge potential in so many different areas, but it's probably going to be hard to say okay, marketing we'll see one of the biggest benefits. Because you know, you have training and education, you have manufacturing, you have logistics, you have business operations, you have all these different sectors, and I think there's going to be a room for every single one of these to absolutely explode and utilise the tech, certainly marketing will play a very, very key role in that, especially as our lives become more digitally entwined with ourselves. In terms of the biggest opportunities, this this comes in being prepared, right? So the brands are preparing now the brands are actually they're realising, okay, the hardware, okay? It's not perfect, right? Okay, we're doing stuff on the phone right now, or we're doing stuff in a VR headset, but we want to be able to experiment.

Daniel Colaianni 19:05

The brands that are willing to put themselves out there, experiment with things and just play around with the technology, so they've got a basic understanding and concepts of this, are the brands that are going to be incredibly ready when it comes to this idea of the hardware catching up. So for example, the next iteration of VR hardware, you know, we're seeing a revolution when it comes to biometric data. So you have to see how biometric data starts to interact with marketing strategies, there's going to be a whole new ballgame. I mean, we're not just talking about things like eye tracking, for example. So we can see how long has someone actually looked at that brand's logo or how long have they, you know, stared at those new pair of shoes, things like that. We're also talking about things like adaptive experiences with brands.

Daniel Colaianni 19:55

I mean, let's take it you're interacting - I'm leaving this quite vague because as I want your listeners to be able to, to imagine how this might adapt to their brand, but let's say they're interacting - virtually with an experience of your brand. In addition to that headsets are able to read other biometric markers like sweat, they're able to read biometric data such as heart rates, and all of these things. So let's say they are (I'm going to take a game because the easiest example), but if you're interacting with a puzzle, right, and you're trying to solve this puzzle, but actually, it's taking you a very long time. But the game can actually understand that, hey, your heart rates elevated in this situation, you seem to be a little bit stressed and a little bit annoyed. So then it can just follow up really quickly. Okay, here's a tip for you, here's something that can adapt this for you. And then you're able to solve that puzzle quicker. Right now, you know, we're able to take that within marketing.

Daniel Colaianni 20:47

And obviously, there's going to be people out there talking about concerns when it comes to privacy and things like that. So a lot of the data is going to be looked at how do we anonymize the data? How do we make this compliant with kind of medical resources and things like that? And how does that fit into marketing? A lot of ethical questions there. But overall, the goal when it comes to, for example, advertising as an example, it's all about how do we make things more relevant to the user? How do we show them things and display things that they actually want to see? And they would like to interact with? And then also, how do we make them more fun? How do we make interaction with with adverts or marketing or brands more interesting, so people don't actually just want to click on something, now, they actually want to get stuck into something can actually interact with that? You know, so that's, that's kind of my two cents on that, that area.

Ben Walker 21:37

Huge amount of opportunities, and the idea that you can be monitored so well, and your thing that you're interacting with is responding in real time to how your body's behaving is, is mind blowing. Although exciting at the same time, I would say, fair few questions on cost, we did touch on it a bit earlier, away from the actual cost of the headset, which we know is relatively trivial. There has been a lot of questions from marketers come to us about cost, this one really encapsulates it: 'this technology can be very expensive. Does this mean that smaller brands and startups won't be able to enter this space?'

Daniel Colaianni 22:14

Well, I honestly I think this is a misconception. This is a myth that's been floating around. Everyone, instantly hears 'virtual reality or augmented reality. And I think that's going to be expensive'. But again, if we look back to smartphones, right, the very early days of, of real, genuine smartphones, the costs of those phones were actually incredibly low for what they could do. So much so that the way that the actual trends work and if you're able to study the macroeconomics of of a product's lifecycle, is they went in really low in terms of the actual hardware cost. And now, you know, you see phones for £1000, £1500, very expensive devices. And they're actually just recuperating, the losses that they made when they first released, those, those devices.

Ben Walker 23:02

Because nobody would have bought them in the first place if they weren't exactly the price, because people didn't believe or couldn't conceive of what these things could actually do at the time.

Daniel Colaianni 23:12

So although I'm not able to go out and just say this with 100% confidence, it's pretty obvious to us that for example, the Meta Quest two that we're talking about is being sold at cost, or at loss, for Meta as an example, if they're not making any money on it. That's a, that's a given. And if they're making a loss on it, that's that's also a very high probability. Thing about it is the consumer end devices are actually really easy to get your hands on now. And you're able to jump in and try these things. Some of them are enterprise-led devices, yet, they're going to be a bit more expensive. But depending on your brand, or what you're trying to do here, it might make economic sense. For example, you might be focused towards a B2C audience. So you might be looking more at the consumer devices, which are accessible. If you're looking at the enterprise market, a £6000 headset, which does exist, might actually make sense because you need that visual fidelity. So someone like Audi, for example, or a car manufacturer, actually looks at the visual fidelity of something and is like, yeah, this makes complete sense for us. And we're going to invest in this because this is going to help us incredibly when it comes to the internal scaling of this and also the external scaling as well.

Ben Walker 24:24

Point that immediately pops up from there, which is the classic thing about early adoption in any technology is a chicken and egg question. Apologies for the cliche, but it's as good as any other cliche, which is that what comes first question, does it is it the populace all ends up with Quest headsets? (other brands are available). Or does the E-commerce put the technology in place and that drives sales of the headsets? We had a question from a member that said, 'How will early adopters of this technology benefit people generally', of course, they're scared to be early adopters, but will there be some benefits going to those people, and to those organisations and companies that do plough forward with this stuff?

Daniel Colaianni 25:06

Yeah, I mean, the simple answer is it all has to happen at the same time. Right? Everyone has to work together collectively, because you need to have both software and hardware and the entire ecosystem work in tandem for this to be successful. And the good news is, that's what's happening right now. Like I said, early adopters benefit in particular, because they're looking at this with the lens of experimenting, and trying things out and actually seeing what fits, and that, what doesn't fit. And the brands that are happy to experiment and try and get their hands stuck in and realise it's not going to be a perfect experience, other brands that are going to be ahead, when it comes to the real hardware, in terms of what we're really looking towards and working towards, kind of being progressed. I mean, I like to put this as an example, when we talk about Apple users, for example, chances are they own an iPhone, they also own an Apple Watch, they also own Airpod pros, they also own an iPad or MacBook unit, chances are they're in that ecosystem, and they're within that ecosystem.

Daniel Colaianni 26:10

So when you start seeing these brands start teasing that, okay, we're really looking towards the future now. And augmented reality is gonna play a key part within our role there. From our perspective, we're like, okay, so once Apple starts releasing a AR headset, which I can promise you is on the horizon and is on the table, that's when we start seeing mass, mass, user adoption. And then you're going to be in this gold rush, where you quickly in trying to catch up and play catch up with everyone, and you're going to be thinking, 'Damn, why did I not at least try some of these things earlier', right. And that's a really important element and mindset, when it comes to anything that's a new tech is to be ready to explore and ready to try.

Ben Walker 26:49

So the early adoption benefit really is that you're getting ahead of the game, as an organisation. If you're, if you're, if you're starting now you're getting out there, you're starting to engage with consumers who are themselves early adopters. By the time Apple come in, or Microsoft, and other brands, of course, are available, but the big boys come in, you'll already have all that experience and expertise, and you'll be, you'll be some yards if not miles ahead of everybody else.

Daniel Colaianni 27:15

Yeah and what I have to stress, more than anything, because because there's gonna be people listening to this right now and be like, 'oh, yeah, but this is, this is a bet that I have to put on here. This is like, you know, it could work, it could not work'. This is with 100% certainty. This is the way the world is going, right? It's not a case of 'Oh, okay. I'll just wait until later and see how the market's developing because it might flop'. No, no, no, we're in this stage now of this lifecycle of things where we've already gone through the flop. And we're on this upwards journey now in the progression of things. If you look at this, there's a very real reason why these brands look at things like watches, for example, because first of all, the actual move from phone to almost eliminating phone has already started. For a lot of people, you know.

Daniel Colaianni 28:01

There's going to be a future we live in within the next two decades, where we won't have a phone, because we're going to be utilising immersive technology to do that for us. So watches is the first step to move us over to this new world. Because with a watch, for example, we can actually use that to better track hand movements, we can use that to track finger movements, we can use that to be able to track actual biometric markers as an example, and allow us, say, an interaction point to stream data into headsets as I just just thrown these concepts out there. And then you also have, for example, every new iPhone, every new iPad had LIDAR sensor in that. Now your average user is not really going to use a LIDAR sensor in their in their device.

Ben Walker 28:45

What is a LIDAR sensor?

Daniel Colaianni 28:46

Yeah! So LIDAR sensor essentially just shoots out a lot of invisible dots, essentially, I just call it this foot to simplify, it shoots out a tonne of invisible dots at an object or the wall or something else. And then it measures the time for that light to come back to the sensor.

Ben Walker 29:04

Right

Daniel Colaianni 29:05

Doing that we can actually paint an accurate 3d environment around us because by measuring the distance and time between an object and the sensor, we can very easily paint an entire 3D environment very, very quickly. Yeah. Now most people aren't using that technology.

Ben Walker 29:23

No

Daniel Colaianni 29:23

But actually, Apple wants that technology because they need this tonnes and tonnes of data to be able to start processing for a world that thinks in 3d, which is where we're moving towards, right. So all the framework and all these moving pieces that people don't look at unless they peek behind the curtain. They're being done for reasons that consumers think, oh, yeah, this is a great new feature. But actually, you know, there's a tonne of data that's coming in now that allows us this hardware to accelerate other amazing paces. In terms of this this tech, you might be an early adopter, but actually, you're you're on the path that everyone else is for and whether they're doing it now or they're doing it in a few years time.

Ben Walker 30:03

So it's not a bad it's happening guys get used to it get ahead of it is that is the message from Daniel Colaianni. Nevertheless, there are some challenges to making that journey as quick and as smooth as possible. And as fast as possible. What are the challenges that lay immediately ahead of us? Do you think, Daniel, you know, as you look forward to the next, you know, one to five years or so,

Daniel Colaianni 30:23

Yeah, there's several challenges that you will face without a doubt. Okay, so technology is advancing, which means that you've got to keep pace with that, right, in terms of being able to understand how is the market going and things. the great news is, is that there's lots of sources out there that allow you to just see what is happening in the space and how that is progressing. So you can keep up to date. But also, you'll find this, that the hardware also moves incredibly quickly. So you need to keep up with hardware. So you might be today developing for a phone, but actually, what you're working towards is developing for full-on, smart glasses as an example. So you've got to be thinking in your mind. 'Okay, Where could the industry potentially be in the next few years?' And you need to be developing or working out strategies, not for now, but in three years time, which is a very hard concept, sometimes for people to grasp. But the reality is, is for anything that moves as fast as this, you've got to be ahead of it.

Ben Walker 31:22

How long do you think it will be? Before this sort of immersive technology, this extended reality technology, as we call it, has been used by the majority of major brands, say here in the UK?

Daniel Colaianni 31:37

Yeah, it's it's incredibly hard to say. I'll caveat this just to put my disclaimer out there that nothing is a given. Because, you know, as we've seen in just the last two years, global pandemic can come in and completely accelerate or decelerate certain industries. So nothing's ever a given here. But the great thing is, is that there was a study done, I can't remember when it was done, but it was a while ago now, which it likened it to the idea of the colour TV, right? So for the colour TV to actually take hold, it actually took around 10 to 15 years for it to become widely and 100% adopted in terms of the rate, the similarities between VR and the colour TV is that seeing is believing, right? And not everyone's going to have one. So the funny thing is immediately whenever I show someone a VR headset, rather than tell them about a VR headset, they get it straight away. And guess what, within a month's time, they tend to go out and buy one themselves. Right? Same thing happened with the colour TVs, no one really grasped the concept of that. But when you went around your friend's house, and you saw the How to colour TV, and you realise how amazing this was, it was okay. Yeah. I need one. So the, like, the adoption curve of virtuality follows that quite closely in terms of that. And if we look at it, you know, we're looking at VR in terms of when that first really started making modern waves, I guess would be probably 2017. So you know, 2017 onwards, we have a 15 year curve in terms of that. It's something that a lot of people in our industry look towards right now,

Ben Walker 33:12

Coming, it's coming. We know, we know that once we get past that sort of curve, a hockey stick, it strikes me as it's going to come like a big explosion, pretty much all at once, in the same way that perhaps the smartphone revolution was was toyed and talked about for a while and then suddenly happened. And then almost within a blink of an eye, everybody had one of these things in their back pocket. Daniel Colaianni, thank you very much indeed, for your time and insights today. It's been absolutely enlightening for me, and I hope I know it will be too for our audience. I hope to have you back on the show very soon. We can see where we've got to in this space.

Daniel Colaianni 33:48

Amazing. Yep. I think you know, we'll see see what I get right. See what I get wrong. But I think you know, we're on a journey together here. We're on an exploration together here are figuring out where does it fit within our industry? Where does it fit within our space? And like I said, the good news is, it's already here. It's already come in. There's marketing agencies and brands that have been able to see amazing return on investment here. And you know, the future is very, very bright for this integration of technology.

Ben Walker 34:15

Thanks very much.

Outro 34:18

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Outro 34:34

CIM Marketing Podcast