How Olay Is Using AI To Make Beauty Recommendations

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Beauty may only be skin deep, but that doesn’t mean you have to be confused when trying to care for that skin. Olay is helping consumers learn which products are best for them with a new AI-powered tool called Olay Skin Advisor. The first deep learning application in the beauty industry, Olay Skin Advisor is a web-based experience that uses selfies and customer concerns to recommend a personalized skin care regimen.

The beauty industry is an early adopter of consumer technology, utilizing augmented and virtual reality to help consumers visualize the latest trends—but Olay has always been ahead of the curve and it revealed the AI tool during Mobile World Congress 2017.

“Olay Skin Advisor was inspired by decades of research into skin measurements and image analysis,” Dr. Frauke Neuser, Olay principal scientist told [a]lisdaily. “Many people don’t realize that it was Olay scientists who developed the technology behind the portable facial imaging systems most commonly found today in department stores and dermatologist offices. These systems are great tools to provide a personalized skin analysis—but the technology behind it is linked to feature-based image analysis and is therefore hardware based. In order to make this type of consultation mobile and available to many more women, we knew we had to come up with a different, ‘smarter’ approach. AI was the perfect fit to provide an extremely accurate, yet educational and engaging user experience.”

Users who visit the Olay Skin Advisor website from any smartphone or tablet are prompted to answer a few questions about their existing skin regimen, age and areas of concern such as wrinkles, dark spots, acne, etc. After snapping a selfie, the tool identifies the user’s “skin age,” the best skin areas and the areas that need the most improvement. The program learns from “hundreds of thousands of selfies” in its database—but don’t worry, the company won’t hold your no makeup selfie for ransom.

“The first selfies originated from research specifically aimed to collect enough selfies to train Olay Skin Advisor’s VizIDTM deep learning algorithm,” explained Dr. Neuser. “Additional selfies are now coming in from the hundreds of thousands of women who have used Olay Skin Advisor to date. The images collected from each upload are used to make the tool ‘smarter with every use’ by strengthening the algorithm to analyze and identify each woman’s skin age even more accurately. These images will also be used in research over the next 10 years, to ultimately improve skin understanding and deep learning model development. No other personally identifiable information is stored with the images.”

Naturally, users will receive recommendations from Olay’s line of skin care products based on the AI’s analysis, along with instructions on how to apply, when and in which order. Consumers are shown pictures of these products along with descriptions, reviews and a link to buy. Club Olay members can save their recommendations and newcomers quickly sign up for free when prompted.

I can say from experience that the beauty isle is downright saturated with skin care products, so having any idea where to start is extremely helpful.

“There are several advantages of using AI over a live consultant,” Dr. Neuser said. “One is accuracy, as Olay Skin Advisor uses AI to more precisely calculate the user’s skin age and pinpoint their best and improvement areas. Like a real-life beauty advisor, the more faces it sees, the more it will understand about skin, and the more it will be able to make the most personalized recommendations for skincare regimens. However, unlike a live consultant, AI is unbiased. In addition, Olay Skin Advisor can be used anywhere, anytime.”

PAX East: Reaching Fans With Creative VR, Gaming And Movie Experiences

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PAX East is a bustling crowd of game developers, fans, online streamers and a whole lot of cosplay in Boston, inspiring creativity across the board. The annual gathering serves as a perfect opportunity for brands to reach the passionate gamer audience on a personal level. This year, the cosplay was on point, the reality was virtual and developers know that fans have a whole lot of fun watching games in addition to playing them.

Now Playing . . .

Immersing fans into the world of a franchise is why video games and movies make such great bedfellows. PAX is a gathering for fans and creators alike, so filmmakers took advantage of the event to keep their respective hype trains chugging along.

Transformers: Forged to Fight: “Autobots . . . roll out!” Hasbro’s iconic robot characters continue their never-ending war in the upcoming film, Transformers: The Last Knight, and the battle continues in a new mobile game this spring. Transformers: Forged to Fight is a free-to-play fighting RPG game for mobile devices by Kabam, a company known for other licensed titles from Marvel and Star Wars. A brand-new trailer was unveiled during PAX highlighting additional gameplay that got the internet talking and ready for the film that debuts this June.

Guardians of the Galaxy—The Telltale Series: A teaser trailer for Telltale Games’ Guardians of the Galaxy was revealed during the Game Awards three months ago, and new details have finally emerged at PAX East. The five-part series will feature a whole-new adventure for Star-Lord, Gamora, Rocket, Drax and Groot, voiced by a cast of celebrated talent actors, including Nolan North (Uncharted) and Emily O’Brien (The Young and the Restless). Telltale hosted a panel on Friday to talk more about the series, creative process and more. The game will certainly help get fans excited for the release of Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 when it hits theaters in May.

Guardians of the Galaxy

Assassin’s Creed: The game-inspired film starring Michael Fassbender leaped its way onto DVD and Blu-ray March 10, so Ubisoft brought some movie love to attendees of PAX East. A panel offered additional creative insight and a deleted scene was shown. Meanwhile, Ubisoft hosted several contests over the course of the event, along with interactive activities like a green screen and tons of movie props and costumes on display at the front of the convention hall. The publisher even hosted a blood drive for the Red Cross and rewarded those that participated, touting the Assassin’s Creed line, “your blood is not your own.”

Playing To The Audience

If Twitch and YouTube have taught us anything, it’s that video games can be a fascinating spectator pastime. Developers and forward-thinking brands are embracing this phenomenon and creating games that are as fun to watch as they are to play. PAX East saw some great examples of this concept, in which titles were developed from the ground up to include spectators in the experience. Of course, Twitch had an impressive presence at the show—livestreaming throughout the weekend, hosting competitions, partner meet-ups and offering a spacious lounge in which to take a load off.

The Darwin Project: Yo Dawg, we heard you liked games so we made a game out of watching people play a game about a game. Scavenger Studios unveiled The Darwin Project, a new title that has been described as “The Hunger Games meets Twitch.” Set in the Canadian Rockies in a world on the verge of another ice age, a group of inmates are thrust into a scientific experiment and TV show to see who can survive. In addition to the “players” who must gather resources, manage their stats and kill their opponents, the game’s “show director” acts as a sort of dungeon master who controls the action along with those watching the livestream. The result is a spectator-driven event with many parts to play.

“We wanted to create a game that heightened the tension and engaged players—and the spectators, in a new way,” Simon Darveau, co-founder of Scavengers Studios told IGN. “Our unique gameplay dynamic and addition of a Show Director mode results in a battle royale game closer to the Hunger Games fantasy than ever before. With the show director and audience influencing the outcome, it goes well beyond what’s possible with AI alone.”

The Darwin Project will launch on Steam Greenlight sometime this fall.

Darwin Project

Bobby Throne Saves The World: From the minds who brought us Soda Drinker Pro comes a new challenge that seems more of an improv party game than a traditional one, but Snowrunner isn’t exactly known for its conformity. Bobby Throne Saves The World casts users in the role of a cult leader who must deliver a moving sermon—about coins, apparently—to whomever is watching. Although Twitch integration has been confirmed, no other details have yet emerged. Users will be scored based on things like body language and cadence. No release date has been announced yet.

“Virtual” Is Our Reality Now

The virtual reality gaming push is in full swing, and what better place to let fans try it out than at PAX? PlayStation was on hand with its latest PSVR offerings, including Ancient Amuletor, Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin and Farpoint. Additionally, Owlchemy Labs brought its Adult Swim Rick and Morty VR game, Virtual Rick-ality to the attending mass of fans.

Hoping for a successful Kickstarter campaign to assure its completion, Starfighter, Inc. is described as a “hardcore space combat simulator set in the solar system 200 years in the future.” Developer Impeller Studios featured its creation inside the Kickstarter Castle, where a vision of VR multiplayer was described to would-be backers.

This is not even close to a full recap of the VR titles on display—a good sign that developers are confident about the platform.

PAX: A Place For Creators

Creativity can be seen anywhere you look at PAX East, not limited whatsoever to the world’s largest game publishers. The expo is also a welcome home to many indie developers, who received their own “mega-booths” to show off their wares. The aforementioned Kickstarter Castle allowed developers the rare opportunity to inspire backers in person, and Twitch nurtured its community of partners with a private lounge and meet-up. Cosplay contests were aplenty and publishers big and small could mingle, network and share ideas.

Less Trust, More IoT And Other Must-Read Marketing Stats

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This week, it’s all about technology—what matters to marketers, consumers and retailers from smart watches to programmatic ad spending.

Getting Social

Programmatic advertising is at an all-time high, with more than half of marketers dedicating a majority of budgets to it, according to a new report by AdRoll. Seventy-seven percent of marketers surveyed ran programmatic ads on social media in 2016, while 53 percent did so on mobile and 37 percent ran programmatic ads in video. More than half—54 percent—reported paid social media to be the most successful channel for marketers to attract new customers, followed by organic social media (35 percent), and programmatic display advertising (32 percent).

Wearables Look To The Future

Are consumers worn out with wearable technology? Apple Watch shipments dropped a staggering 71 percent in the third quarter of 2016, while Microsoft killed the Band 2 and Jawbone reportedly halted production last year. While the current state of wearable tech looks bleak, AYTM Market Research suggests that these products will regain their popularity in about five years.

A poll of 1,000 US internet users ages 18 and older in February 2017 asked if they had ever purchased smart clothing or wearable devices. While nearly three-quarters had never purchased such an item, nearly half indicated that they indicated that they planned to in the next five years.

Twenty-six percent of those surveyed weren’t sure if they planned to do buy a wearable device or article of smart clothing, and another 27.6 percent said they were at least somewhat unlikely to within the next five years.

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Trust No One

These days, the internet is an endless sea of conspiracy theorists, haters from all sides and blissfully unaware folks hitting the “share” button before actually reading, much less fact-checking an article. All this strife is making us all a bit jaded, but it’s especially troubling to women, according to a study by SheSpeaks. More than 80 percent of women surveyed claim to distrust the news media, citing “inadequate fact-checking” and “political bias” as the primary causes. Advertising didn’t fare any better, with 80 percent claiming they don’t trust ads, either, and 61 percent don’t trust brands to live up to their promises. Women were four times more likely to trust information from friends and family over advertising.

Internet Of Buying Things

The retail industry is preparing for the Internet of Things (IoT) in a big way, according to a study by Research Now and Qualtrics for Zebra Technologies. A global survey of 1,700 executives across multiple retail segments found that 67 percent have already implemented IoT capabilities in some form, while 96 percent said they are ready to make changes needed to adopt the technology. In-store tracking is an obvious and popular use for the technology, with 35 percent saying that they currently have the ability to know when specific customers are in their stores. Seventy-five said they plan to have that capability by 2021.

Seventy-eight percent of retail executives said integrating eCommerce and in-store experiences are important or critical to business, while 76 percent said the same about connecting the online activities of a customer with their in-store actions. More than a quarter (26 percent) said they plan to roll out an IoT initiative within the year.

Why ‘Robo Recall’ Is The Best Reason To Own An Oculus VR Setup

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Oculus fans had some good reasons to rejoice last week. Firstly, the Facebook-owned company announced a $200 price reduction, bringing the Oculus Rift headset and Oculus Touch controller bundle cost down to $598. Now, picking up a high-quality VR headset is more affordable than ever. Secondly, Robo Recall (developed by Epic Games) released, giving VR enthusiasts a frenetic, off-the-wall action game to dig into.

The free-to-play first-person VR game puts players in the role of an agent tasked with “recalling” rogue robots. That means destroying these malfunctioning droids by whatever means possible while discovering and upgrading weapons along the way. The game, which is a spirtual successor to the Bullet Train tech demo (which is also available for free on the Oculus Store), is a near-perfect VR shooter. Game sessions are usually about 10-15 minutes, and players return to a hub to upgrade their weapons, check their stats and prepare for their next mission.

Nick Donaldson, the lead designer for Robo Recall, told [a]listdaily that one of the aims in designing the game was to make one of the best reasons to own an Oculus Touch. He was joined by the game’s art director, Jerome Platteaux, who said that they were inspired by arcade games, where players could play for as long as they like while taking intermittent breaks. The two then discuss how mass robot destruction could help the VR industry grow and further popularize the Unreal Engine as the go-to game development tool.

In your words, what is Robo Recall about?

[Donaldson]: Robo Recall is a fun action shooter game that was built from the ground up for the Oculus Touch controller. We took advantage of as many of those features as possible. You can grab robots, throw them in the air, tear off their limbs and beat them to death. It’s ridiculous, over-the-top, and a lot of fun.

[Platteaux]: We want to make you feel as badass as possible—like a very well trained agent with a lot of skill and combos based on those skills.

This is a spiritual successor to the Bullet Train VR demo. Why create a whole new game instead of sticking to the established Bullet Train name?

[Donaldson]: With Bullet Train, we had a grand total of 10 weeks [to develop the game] from start to finish. We use the whole bunch of assets that we already had floating around in the [Unreal] engine. It was thrown together as quickly as possible, and we were just throwing stuff at the wall to see what would stick. But we wanted to take what we learned from that and make something that was uniquely ours. We took the same idea and the same things learned from Bullet Train and built them into something that we actually wanted to make rather than something that was sewn together.

[Platteaux]: Even the name came from us saying, “okay, we’re at a train station and we’re shooting bullets. Let’s call it Bullet Train.” There wasn’t a lot of thought that went into it, and we didn’t think about creating an IP. Now [with Robo Recall] we have a little bit more time and we can own it (the game) a little more and not have any licensing issues—there’s already a Bullet Train in Japan.

Would you consider Robo Recall as a starting point to having a full first-person shooter like Unreal Tournament in VR?

[Donaldson]: Robo Recall was built from the ground up for the Oculus. I kind of compare it to the early days of mobile, where if you asked gamers what they wanted, they said they wanted Skyrim on their phones. They would tell you that they wanted to play 40 hours in eight-hour sessions on their phones, when that’s not really what the mobile market wants or what works well on a mobile phone. Making a direct comparison between what a VR game should be to a PC game and genre that’s been around for decades is not something that needs to be done.

[Platteaux]: With VR, we still don’t know how long people like to play. We assume an hour or two will be fine, but I don’t know if people will play more than that. We don’t have a lot of numbers out there, but that’s one of the things that we’ll discover with the release of the game. All experiences will vary, depending on whether it’s a high-energy game that require a lot of movement. We think of it as a sprint—you play for about fifteen minutes, then go back to the hub to relax, then come back.

Why offer Robo Recall for free?

[Donaldson]: The VR market is not a place where a company can release a high-quality AAA product, funded by yourself, and make a whole bunch of money off of it right now. It’s still a very early, maturing market. Oculus gave us an opportunity by funding the development of Robo Recall. Since there isn’t a massive amount of money to be made, we saw more value in spreading those ideas and increasing the value of the VR market in general.

[Platteaux]: The game shows off what we can do with the Unreal Engine and a small team. Everybody can learn how to make their own game, and we’ve been making a lot of improvements, so the licensing of the Unreal Engine can reap those benefits.

How does launching and promoting a VR game compare to a traditional one?

[Donaldson]: It’s not too different. Stuff comes down to the wire, and we have to make the hard calls about what works and what doesn’t. As usual, we’re optimizing performance to get everything running properly right up to the line.

How have you been getting the word out about Robo Recall?

[Platteaux]: We put the Bullet Train demo on the Oculus Store for free with a small spot at the end that said, “look out for Robo Recall.” We also demoed it at Oculus Connect. It was a good demo and we got a lot of feedback.

[Donaldson]: We made a big splash there. We also put out some digital video documentaries, developer diaries, about the development of the game, and we showed the game at GDC.

Robo Recall-screen1Besides being featured on the Oculus Store, what do you think is the best way to promote a VR game right now?

[Donaldson]: Having one of the big hitters like Oculus behind you and promoting the game is the absolute best way. It’s a pretty big trump card that we’re playing and we think that people who are into VR right now are pretty savvy about what’s out there and they’re hungry for content. So, putting this on the front page of the Oculus Store is going to get it in the hands of every single Oculus Rift owner out there.

Word-of-mouth is very valuable to VR at the moment. All of my neighbors know that I’m working on VR things, and they get super excited every time I want to show them something. These are not people who aren’t necessarily gamers in their college years, but they’ve heard about virtual reality, heard that it’s awesome, and they want to check it out. So, word-of-mouth is very powerful in that regard.

[Platteaux]: We’re probably also going to do a lot of livestreaming on our channels to talk about how we did the game. So, if people don’t know about it, they’ll see how we did it and maybe they’ll play after.

Oculus has separate PC game mobile VR divisions. Do you think a game like Robo Recall could be played on mobile platforms one day?

[Donaldson]: That’s the dream, isn’t it? The best thing about mobile VR is that you put it on your head and you’re in it. You don’t have cords to wrapped up in and you don’t have to worry about which way you’re facing. But the trickiest thing about mobile is that it doesn’t do positional tracking yet, and you don’t have the motion controllers in the same way. When the benefits of both of these converge, and Oculus announces its (wireless) standalone device—that’s the ultimate dream of VR. We’ll get to build whatever games we want.

[Platteaux]: That all depends on the mobile devices and how powerful they get. Of course, someday we’re going to have the same quality of graphics. The question is, what will the input be? What will be the controller? We’ll adapt the gameplay based on that.

What are your thoughts on how VR has grown so far and how do you see things progressing in the coming year?

[Donaldson]: It’s been an interesting year. We’ve seen a handful of developers do some really interesting things and we’ve been pretty shameless in checking out every game that comes out, taking all the ideas that we think are great and making them work in our game. The industry is still in a phase of learning what makes a great VR game. We’re all trying to solve the same problems at the same time. The development community is still very young and is ripe for fresh and new ideas.

[Platteaux]: The same thing goes for the content side. We’re starting to see what works and what doesn’t work in VR. What is the proportion that feels good? What is the most important thing to have?

Top 5 Video Games Of 2017 With ESports Potential

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This year is already shaping up to be a significant one for eSports through brand partnerships, VR integration, new livestreaming possibilities and lucky for us, some exciting new games to watch and play.

Halo Wars 2

Halo Wars 2 is a real-time strategy (RTS) game that allows players to control the battlefield from above. Blitz mode, in particular, holds great potential as an eSport, combining the card power of Hearthstone with the large-scale action of Starcraft.

“You’ve probably noticed our commitment to eSports through all the things we do with Halo 5,” Dan Ayoub, studio head of strategy games development at 343 Industries told Redbull Esports. “That absolutely extends to Halo Wars 2. You always develop with [eSports] a little bit in mind. The way we’re approaching it is demand will come from the community, and if it’s there, we’re going to have all of the tools to be able to support it.”

Paragon

Epic Games is best known for its shooter titles such as Unreal Tournament and Gears of War. When the company decided to take a different direction, it created a massive online battle arena (MOBA)—a popular eSport genre made popular by League of Legends and Smite. Paragon brings something new to the table, in that it’s viewed in third-person, and is therefore more accessible to viewers. Despite this, Epic doesn’t believe that Paragon will become the next big eSports title unless the fans make that call.

“We’re making a very competitive game,” Steve Superville, creative director on Paragon at Epic Games told [a]listdaily. “We’ve seen a lot of companies come out and say, ‘Hey guys, here’s the next great eSport.’ And the community is like, ‘Hang on a second. We’ll tell you when it’s a good enough game.’ So our focus from the beginning has been making a highly competitive game, engaging with our community because they’re going to tell us what works and what doesn’t, and eventually—if they ever bring us to eSports status—we’ll be thrilled to support them.”

Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite

Fighting games have been natural contenders for competition from its early days in the arcade, but adding heroes and villains from the ever-popular Marvel franchises to Capcom’s stable of characters takes things to whole new level. Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite also brings something new to the table: Infinity Stones—powerful gems featured in the Marvel comics and films. Between these stones and the tagging system, the possible outcomes for a battle could be endless. There is already significant support behind promoting Street Fighter V as an eSport, and this could become a natural extension of that.

“[Infinity Stones] expands on the possibilities and offer final effects,” Peter “ComboFiend” Rosas told Yahoo Esports. “When activated, they break a rule within the engine. If the rule is a character can’t cancel their attacks, the appropriate stone breaks that rule. If a character isn’t hitting hard enough, the appropriate stone magnifies each hit.”

Quake Champions

Quake has been at the heart of eSports since the very beginning, so it’s no wonder that id Software will continue that legacy through Quake Champions.

“Id has a long tradition of supporting competitive tournaments and that continues with Quake Champions,” id Software studio director, Tim Willits said during the Bethesda E3 press conference. “The game is designed for world-class eSports play at every level, from the world’s greatest Quake players to anyone willing to test their skills in the arena. So as part of the launch plan for Quake Champions, Bethesda will be supporting and expanding competitive tournaments and leagues beyond QuakeCon.”

The highly-anticipated title is now entering its closed beta stage on PC, but those brave enough to try should know it won’t be easy.

“To be an eSports game, to be competitive, you have to run fast,” Willits said. “And pro players expect 120Hz, they expect lightning-fast response. And we want to make a game with unlocked frame rates that will run as fast as you can throw hardware at it.”

Injustice 2

Similar to Marvel vs. Capcom, Injustice 2 features comic book characters, but inspired by the DC Comics Universe. Iconic heroes and villains such as Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman will battle it out in this high anticipated sequel. The game will further shake things up with the ability to collect and equip gear that modifies gameplay, thus giving the game infinite possible outcomes depending on strategy and luck. The latest fighter game by Netherrealm (makers of the Mortal Kombat franchise) releases in May, and we’ll soon learn if the popularity of the first game, combined with the characters and gameplay variety, helps to draw and eSports audience.

Injustice 2 will be a featured game during The Evolution Championship Series (Evo) in Las Vegas this July. Evo is a long-standing tournament series that focuses exclusively on fighting games like Tekken, Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter.

‘Earning’ Trust: Do Rewarded Ads Really Work For Brands?

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Monetizing games and mobile apps can be a challenge, especially when it comes to balancing the need for revenue and user enjoyment. According to a recent survey, 51 percent of game publishers consider in-game advertisements to be a “necessary evil,” but only 17 percent see them as “worth it.”

Can advertising be not only “worth it,” but an opportunity for developers? Believe it or not, ads don’t have to be intrusive, and can even be fun.

Chances are, you’ve seen them before, whether you play mobile games or not. “Watch this video for an hour of uninterrupted listening,” they say, or “watch an ad for five extra moves!” Rewarded ads offer an interactive way for users to “pay” for use of an app without being intrusive like a pop-up ad or flashing banner . . . and it turns out that users love it. In fact, a recent study by NPD revealed that a majority of mobile game users prefer to earn in-game currency.

When Rovio removed rewarded ads from its game Angry Birds Transformers, the players were not happy. “There was backlash from that community saying ‘give us back our reward videos,’” Rovio executive vice president Wilhelm Taht told Gamasutra. A similar situation occurred when developer Hyper Hippo implemented rewarded ads into Adventure Capitalist, in that users were quick to report when the ads didn’t work.

Fortafy Games revealed that monetizing with rewarded video drove a 40 percent lift in ARPDAU, and according to a survey by Unity, 62 percent of developers witnessed higher retention.

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Rewarded ads aren’t just for games, however—they are found on popular music streaming apps like Pandora and most recently, the highly-popular Line messenger app. Line offers free one-to-one and group messaging, voice and video calls. Line users are now able to earn “Line Points” for free by engaging with advertisements, serviced by Tapjoy. These points can be traded for premium in-app stickers, themes and other types of content on the Line messenger app to enhance the messaging experience.

“This partnership signifies the continuing shift away from traditional, interruptive advertising and towards rewarded advertising as the preferred method for the entire ecosystem,” Shannon Jessup, chief revenue officer of Tapjoy, told [a]listdaily. “It provides yet further evidence that rewarded ads aren’t just for gaming apps, and that publishers in any category can benefit from an ad model that delivers value for users and advertisers alike.”

Why Google Is Making Big Bets On VR And AR As The Future Of Computing

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Delivering compelling content in virtual and augmented reality continues to be a burgeoning motive for brands looking to build robust marketing missions.

Ever since Google allowed for mobile-driven, 360-degree videos to work its magic on YouTube, a laundry list of marketers have experimented with the immersive technology to help total hundreds of thousands of 360 videos available on a platform that boasts over one billion hours of daily video consumption around the globe—a figure that is on pace to bypass traditional TV consumption.

“YouTube has an incredibly wide reach and makes 2D, 360-degree and VR video accessible on desktop, mobile and in a headset (like Cardboard or Daydream). With the launch of YouTube VR on Daydream, we’ve seen great interest in immersive video growth from Daydream users,” Aaron Luber, head of content partnerships for Google and YouTube, told [a]listdaily. “We have been very happy with the performance of VR video content and YouTube in the first few months of Daydream following the YouTube VR launch.

During the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco last week, Google leveraged the mobile gaming side of VR by announcing titles from top developers will be joining their Daydream lineup. Daydream users are spending approximately 40 minutes per week using the devices, with video-watching being the top category of entertainment.

At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last week, Google announced that it had shipped more than 10 million Cardboard VR viewers, and that Cardboard app downloads had exceeded over 160 million downloads—30 of those apps have over one million downloads.

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Overall, however, sales of VR headsets have seemingly been sluggish, something Google is actively working on fixing to leverage their six Daydream-ready phones.

“We are making significant bets on VR and AR as the future of computing,” Luber said. “We are focusing on making this technology as accessible to as many people as possible thru mobile devices (that work with Cardboard and Daydream). We need to keep a realistic viewpoint on what the industry needs to grow—there is still a lot of work to be done across hardware, software, development and monetization, but we are dedicated to investing time and resources here for the future.”

Daydream was built based off of the lessons learned from Cardboard, and last month, Google brought virtual worlds to browsers by allowing users to begin experiencing VR on the web with Chrome.

YouTube is continuing to position the company as a viable alternative for TV advertisers looking to reach young people and cord-cutters as the lines between TV and online video continue to blur, further evidenced by the recent announcement of YouTube TV, a new $35 online cable bundle with 40 networks. They are also initiating auditing metrics with third party data collection partnerships to ease advertiser concerns, and cutting the unskippable 30-second unit.

Luber said brands have been doing an incredible job embracing their VR technology as they continue to learn and iterate.

“Brands and advertisers need to go through this learning phase as content creators to determine what works for them, their content and their audience,” Luber said. “We’ve been very impressed with the likes of The New York Times, BMW and Lowes—just to name a few. For brands looking to get started, I’d suggest experimenting with 360-degree video. The cost of production is getting less expensive, and the amount of amazing creators in the ecosystem is growing rapidly. It’s easier than ever to get started—upload video to YouTube and have huge reach and distribution.

Luber said he’s seen incredible growth in 360 and VR video over the past two years since introducing 360 formats to YouTube.

“360 and VR video is unique for brands and advertisers because it offers their audience a really immersive experience that can tie them closely to their brand and messages,” Luber said. “The cameras, tools and best practices are getting easier and more accessible. We are excited to see the continued growth in this category and we definitely think now is the time for all creators to be getting into 360/VR video as a way to reach a very engaged audience.”

Follow Manouk Akopyan on Twitter @Manouk_Akopyan

 

‘Minecraft,’ Mobile And Other Must-Read Marketing Stats

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This week, Minecraft celebrates a major milestone, Nokia makes a comeback and we explore why each generation cares about what you post on social.

Mobile First . . . Or Not

best_decribes_organizations_mobile_strategy325pxMobile devices have become so much more than phones. With increased adoption worldwide, digital advertising spend for mobile devices has surpassed that of desktop. According to the 2017 Mobile-First Ecommerce Report from ROI Revolution, over $42 billion in digital advertising spend came from mobile in 2016—compared to just $25 billion on desktop—a 2,800 percent increase in mobile ad spend within just five years.

About one-third of that mobile-marketing spend is focused on driving acquisition, according to the Adobe Mobile Maturity Study. Marketers spend between $4 and $5 billion per year, placing an emphasis on mobile app and website development.

Despite an industry that is largely becoming “mobile first,” Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said the company doesn’t design for mobile. Speaking at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona he explained that the company is trying to make sure that all of its shows and movies look as good as possible on mobile devices, where bandwidth—and mobile device memory—are often limited.

Speaking of mobile, Nokia’s re-imagined 3310 model helped up the brand’s value by 62 percent, according to a list of the most valuable telecoms brands compiled by Brand Finance.

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Love, Squared

Minecraft has officially surpassed 121 million copies sold and 55 million monthly players. Microsoft’s block-stacking, diamond-hunting, monster-fighting game has become a worldwide phenomenon for playing, streaming, modding, education and even competition. The brand is celebrating with a series of amusing infographics across its social channels.

Despite launching halfway through the year, Pokémon GO drove about 86 percent more revenue than any other game in 2016, according to data from Slice Intelligence. The top three games for in-game spending among Slice’s panel of 4.4 million online shoppers were Pokémon GO, Candy Crush Saga and Clash Royale

The company also found that the average paying mobile customer spent $77.60 in 2016, with Game of War players shelling out an average $336, compared to an average $32 paid by Pokémon GO users. Slice found that mobile game buyers in 2016 were mostly male and 70 percent were under the age of 50.

Social Influence

A whole lot of people are on Facebook, which makes it an obvious choice for brands but creates challenges for those who want to stand out to consumers. Around half of millennials, GenX and baby boomers follow a brand on social media before purchasing a product, according to Sprout Social, at 58.9, 50.4 and 55 percent, respectively. While these numbers are similar, it is the reason for following a brand within each generation that is worth noting.

The report states that 38 percent of millennials follow brands for entertainment value and 42 percent seek information. Forty-one percent of Gen X consumers who follow brands on social media do so for contests, while 58 percent are looking for deals and promotions. Baby boomers, meanwhile, seem to appreciate a healthy mix of deals and promotions (60 percent) and information (53 percent).

FTC—What Now?

Influence marketing is on the rise as consumers value peer or online celebrity views to official ones. As the lines blur between a paid endorsement and personal opinion, however, the FTC is cracking down on labeling promotions accordingly. According to to a survey conducted by Lightspeed GMI and Research Now.

Only 11 percent of marketers reported being aware of or having an understanding FTC’s policies, while 56 percent said they were either not aware of, or not familiar with them. Influencers, perhaps because it is a major source of income, have educated themselves on the subject a bit more. The study found that 60 percent of US influencers said they’re aware of or understand the guidelines, and another 23 percent said they’re aware of or at least somewhat familiar with them.

The Ladies Love Band-Aid

In celebration of Women’s History Month, YouGov Brand Index released the top-ranked brands as perceived by US women. Points were given based on the question, “Do you have a general positive feeling about the brand?” This year’s results found that Band-Aid was at the top of a list dominated by shopping, home care and food brands beloved by women.

The top 10 are:

  1. Band-Aid
  2. Amazon.com
  3. Dawn
  4. Google
  5. M&M’S
  6. Clorox
  7. Cheerios
  8. Craftsman
  9. YouTube
  10. Dove

Of all the brands women were questioned about in the annual survey, Snapchat improved the most in perception—reaching an impression score of 6.9 versus 5.1 in 2015.

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney Discusses Unreal Opportunities Beyond Games

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Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney received the GDC Lifetime Achievement Award at the 17th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards in San Francisco this week. Sweeney has built his company into a powerhouse in the video game industry with franchises like Unreal Tournament (which has a new free-to-play game in development), Gears of War (which was sold to Microsoft in 2014) and Infinity Blade (from Chair Entertainment). GDC marks the debut of the company’s newest game, Battle Breakers.

But thanks to Unreal Engine 4, Epic has expanded its reach across many verticals, including Hollywood, the automobile industry and architecture through its internal Unreal Engine Enterprise division.

At GDC Epic is showcasing a new project with ad agency The Mill and Chevrolet that uses UE4 technology to augment reality for shooting car commercials. Unreal is also giving Chevy a new platform for customers to customize their vehicles in showrooms of the future.

Sweeney talks about the evolving business opportunities for UE4, as well as the growing virtual reality and augmented reality industries in this exclusive interview.

What opportunities does augmented reality open up for your game engine technology?

Augmented reality includes any combination of computer imagery with real-world objects in any form. Pokémon GO is augmented reality. There are different classes like HoloLens and Magic Leap. But there’s also a lot in between. It’s a huge factor in Hollywood cinematography to mix CG objects in with the real environment and the engine has to solve all these problems. Every aspect of the real-world scene has to be matched by the computer objects you see on top of them. The lighting, the motion blur, the overall appearance of the environment. There’s a lot to get right.

And one of the things we believe pretty strongly about and will be a big part of everybody’s future is how do you actually make things look real? How do you integrate with real light and real photography?

We’re going to be ahead of the game of solving these problems as the devices get more and more sophisticated. With augmented reality, at some point people will absolutely demand realism, so we just want to make sure that the engine’s ready to scale to that level. So it’s nice to do these very high-end AR projects with real cameras, as opposed to simple cell phone cameras.

It’s probably a $100,000 Arraiy camera that’s shooting that photography, and if we can scale all that way with high-end range photography with all the bells and whistles that the movie business demands, we know that we’re going to scale it down to much simpler use cases.

What does UE4 open up for the auto industry?

For more traditional businesses like GM, they have car configurators. Almost everybody nowadays, if you’re going to custom order a car, and not just get it off the dealer lot, you’re going to spend some time in a car configurator, choose your options and get some sort of simple visualization of it. This allows you to actually not only see an incredibly real version car that you want to have built for you, but it also allows you to see the car in a fantasy environment. You can go deeper with the car that you configured by seeing it race, or maybe driving it in a video game environment.

Did you have any idea when you first launched this game company that video game technology would be used across so many verticals?

No, it’s amazing we’ve gotten to this point. We’ve had a pretty good track record at Epic of seeing where things were heading, but there were a few things that caught me completely by surprise. I did not even envision that 3D graphics would be a practical reality until id Software shipped Wolfenstein 3D, for example. It seemed like some absurd, high-end feature that required quarter million dollar workstations, but now we’re right in the center of it. It is becoming increasingly straightforward now to see 10 years ahead what this is going to be like. With every smartphone, television, computer and tablet being replaced by augmented reality glasses which let you see a seamless combination of all of this. All of these computer images with real-world environment will be integrated with really advanced user interfaces on top, so you’re constantly immersed.

And engines are going to have to be at the center of the online reality revolution because everything is going to be 3D. It’s not like any previous platform, which was largely a 2D user interface with a few 3D apps on it.

Generations of kids have grown up customizing games and avatars and everything in their lives. What does this Chevy project foreshadow about the future?

Just think of the impact of this on commerce. Now you can configure thousands of options on a product like a car, but also because you have that configuration capability, the way that companies design customizable products can change. Now, if you can go on to Amazon and customize all the attributes of all these different objects you’re buying, then suddenly it’s going to open up a world of possibilities. It’s all going to be powered by real-time 3D graphics.

Chevy Unreal Engine

There have been billions poured into virtual reality and Epic Games has its Oculus Touch game, Robo Recall at GDC. How do you see the VR market growing moving forward?

VR is where the rubber is meeting the road in all of these applications. You have a highly dedicated audience of gamers buying VR hardware, playing VR games and spending money on VR products, which enables everybody to reinvest in building more.

It started very small. Unlike all of these previous revelations of smartphones and new console platforms, all VR apps have to be designed from the ground up for VR. So we’re really starting from zero. We will continue to see exponential growth on top of the base of hardcore VR hardware that’s out there today, so maybe next year there will be three or four or five million VR units out, and then the year after that maybe 10 million. The year after that maybe 20 million. At some point you’re talking about a VR install base across all these different platforms that is comparable to the console audience.

At each step, you’re going to see the economics for development teams improve, which will enable them to build bigger and better games. Right now it’s small. It’s experimental. We’re seeing teams of 25 people working on Robo Recall. That’s the state of it now. It’s going to be every bit as big as console gaming was in previous decades.

It seems like some investors in VR are getting antsy and they were expecting smartphone or tablet sales figures.

Judging by smartphone standards there aren’t a billion VR units out there, so it’s completely failed, right?

Remember the first generation of iPhone games when everybody portered their shooters to mobile and found the controls weren’t very good? There’s been some of that in VR, too. But now we’re seeing the emergence of integrity in these types of games that don’t even belong to existing genres. That’s where the innovation will really occur. Nobody’s first app in VR is going to be a killer app. It’s going to be the second and third tries for all these developers. So we need to give the market time to develop and be patient.

What Marketers Need To Know From Mobile World Congress 2017

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Mobile World Congress is obviously about phones and tablets, but also encompasses the latest consumer technology on the move. Held from February 27 to March 2 in Barcelona, this year’s theme is “the next element”—a phrase that perfectly describes the quest to find what’s next for today’s consumers. While brands showed off the latest phones and tablets this week, a number of other technologies took center stage such as augmented and virtual reality, the Internet of Things (IoT), wearables and connected vehicles. Through all the flashy presentations and special announcements, here’s what marketers need to know from MWC 2017.

Mobile VR Is Growing Up

While those with HTC Vive or Oculus Rift may see mobile VR as “virtual reality light” in terms of interactivity, that won’t be the case for long. Samsung has unveiled a touchpad controller for its Gear headset that lets users point, drag and drop objects, tilt, shoot and more. The functionality is similar to that of the Google Daydream in that it’s designed for one-handed use, and smaller than controllers for HTC Vive.

“This much we can promise. Virtual reality is about to become more multi-sensory, more intuitive and even more enjoyable,” said David Lowes, CMO of Samsung Electronics Europe, during the company’s press conference.

Google announced that it has shipped over 10 million Google Cardboard units since its initial launch in 2014. In addition, there have been over 160 million downloads of Cardboard apps—with more than 30 being download over one million times. Augmented reality is another big focus for Google with apps coming soon to Google Cardboard—The Sims app, the Chelsea FC app “Chelsea Kicker,” and The Wall Street Journal app, “WSJ AR,” although availability has not yet been revealed.

As mobile VR becomes more accessible, marketing on these platforms will naturally follow suit. Adobe is already experimenting with VR advertising and presented a few prototypes at the conference. The ads appear in a simulated movie theater experience, with content playing on a virtual, 2D screen (similar to content made available by Netflix, HBO and Hulu).

These are by no means all examples of mobile VR represented at MWC—but announcements like these are a good sign that the medium is not just gaining popularity, but being taken seriously.

This Coke ad by Adobe isr a 2D VR viewing experience with interactive elements.
This Coke ad by Adobe is a 2D VR viewing experience with interactive elements. (Source: Adobe)

Connection Is Key

Remember when phones were just for making calls? There’s a reason why the platform is called “mobile devices” rather than “phones” these days—they have simply evolved into so much more. Now that our phones are entertainment centers, telecommunication devices, personal assistants and creative suites all in one, the next step is making sure these tasks can be performed quickly.

During its press conference, Samsung stressed the importance of investing in 5G, announcing its upcoming range of devices including a 5G home router. The company has been working closely with Verizon and testing its devices overseas in preparation for widespread availability over the next few years.

It’s not just phones that are being connected, however—5G’s low latency means faster connections for industrial services, autonomous cars and the IoT. Vodafone and Huawei performed a live demonstration at the world famous Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya race track, using cellular technology connecting cars to each other, to people and to roadside infrastructure. Passengers in an Audi vehicle fitted with C-V2X technology were able to experience connected features like warning mechanisms and a “see-through” video feed that offered views normally unseen.

Whether it’s 5G or whatever comes next, consumers are getting accustomed to instant or at least, very fast results. In the case of self-driving cars, lives could literally hinge on how fast a network is, but even a slow-loading website is enough to send consumers packing.

Never Stop Innovating

MWC has become a platform for all things technology and if there’s anything we’ve learned over the years, it’s that successful brands never stop innovating. Even small changes to a product or service based on consumer feedback or lessons learned can make a world of difference in the competitive marketplace.

Tech conventions like MWC can sometimes feel like the World’s Fair, filled with with gadgets that we once only read about in science-fiction novels.

Innovation can be a new way of approaching customer service or a complete overhaul of a product idea, but at the core of every great idea is the goal of improving the brand experience.