From Tour to Virtual Showroom: New Tools for Visual Communication
For the vast majority of companies, 2020 will be remembered—not only for COVID-19—but also as the year when relationships between brands and customers (or potential customers) changed extensively and profoundly. In a scenario where visits to retail locations, industry events, and in-person meetings are severely limited, the use of virtual communication tools becomes almost essential. Consequently, virtual tours, stores, and showrooms have become increasingly discussed topics. In this article, we provide an overview of the new visual communication tools that companies can choose from.
Virtual Tour
Among the various online virtual tools, virtual tours have the longest "tradition." A virtual tour takes the basic concept of a video game and allows users to explore an environment with varying degrees of freedom and interactivity. A great example is Google Maps' Street View, which allows users to navigate streets while viewing the reconstructed environment through 360° photographs. Other examples include museum and exhibition apps. Virtual tours were first applied in corporate communication in all sectors where attracting public attention was essential. Over time, the quality of these environments has improved; today, a virtual tour can work in synergy with augmented reality systems and include photorealistic 3D environments and products.
Virtual Store
Virtual stores are an evolution of the tour concept. They are used to present product lines or collections and allow for customization before purchase. Due to their characteristics, virtual stores can take various forms and be used in a wide range of business models: they can support multi-channel communication strategies, serving as a link between online and offline experiences, as well as within e-commerce strategies. It remains essential to create a virtual store that represents the style and tone of the brand's communication.
Virtual Trade Show
One of the biggest challenges companies faced during the quarantine was the cancellation of trade shows and industry events. The virtual trade show was created to fill this gap: it connects multiple companies that present their products and services to a virtual audience. Following the logic of live events, users can navigate through the booths of various companies to discover different offerings, interact with sales representatives, and place orders online.
Although it cannot fully replace every detail of live trade shows, the virtual trade show offers interesting advantages: it eliminates travel and setup time and costs, facilitates participation from companies worldwide, and allows every user to effortlessly explore each section of the virtual event.
Interactive Virtual Showroom
The interactive virtual showroom is the most advanced of the virtual technologies for visual communication and one of the most requested services from our team. Our approach to the virtual showroom involves creating a structured and fully customizable platform designed to establish points of contact between the customer and the brand. In this case, the virtual environment is specifically designed to elicit an emotional reaction from the audience through a series of extremely realistic visual stimuli. Users of the interactive virtual showroom can move freely, interact with various elements, and gather information in the form of documents, images, and videos. Beyond a new level of user engagement, the virtual showroom is a very versatile tool: it offers the same opportunities as virtual tours, stores, and trade shows, can be used for conference calls, webinars, and e-learning, and can integrate with e-commerce sites, social networks, and any online communication tool.
How to Choose the Right Tool
It’s true: even the most advanced virtual tool cannot replace the value of human contact during a live event. However, it can provide effective solutions to some of the current challenges faced by companies and opens up a potentially infinite range of opportunities and future applications.
The question is: how do you choose the right virtual tool?
At Bluemotion, we work under the belief that there is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. The most suitable virtual tool for a company is the one we create by applying our working method: it is designed based on an in-depth analysis of the company's objectives, the market in which it operates, and the audience it targets.
