How It Works Last week, Unity in partnership with the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and Lionsgate announced they are developing the first ever virtual reality ad format called a Virtual Room. The virtual room is a branded experience ranging from 30 to 60 seconds that is inserted into a VR game or app. Players need to opt in by “walking” through a sponsored portal within the game. Once a player walks through the virtual doorway, they enter a room where a branded experience awaits. Users can interact with different objects, explore the room, and are rewarded with exclusive in game conten ..read more

Wednesday was a big day for net neutrality, as tech companies like Amazon, Reddit, Facebook, Google, and Twitter rallied in protest of the FCC’s anti-net-neutrality policy change ahead of its impending roll-out. Dubbed “the Day of Action to Save Net Neutrality”, many companies displayed banners, pop-ups, and other forms of special notices on their websites to raise awareness for the issue and encourage people to take action and voice their support. Some sites such as Netflix and Reddit even slowed down their connections to show visitors how irritating the online experience would become if net ..read more

Last month, the Lab attended The Art of VR event presented by the VR Society. The two-day event hosted at Sotheby’s NYC brought together leaders in the VR industry to discuss the future of the space from creative, production, media, and advertising perspectives. The day was split between panel discussions ranging from realistic human avatars to the future of media and many different demos illustrating the wide range of VR applications today. VR’s Growing Pains It is no surprise that the VR space is still in its infancy. While there has been rapid adoption of the Samsung Gear VR – almost 5 mill ..read more

In this first entry of our “Updates on Boundless Retail” series, we take a closer look at Amazon’s and Walmart’s recent acquisitions, how they are becoming more alike than ever in terms of the shopping experience they provide, and why a customer-centric approach is what will define the next stage of Boundless Retail. On June 16, the retail world was shaken up by two major acquisitions. Amazon announced its $13.7 billion acquisition of Whole Foods while Walmart announced it is buying premium menswear brand Bonobos for $141 million. For us, these two announcements offer a rather intriguing juxta ..read more

What Happened Amazon continues with its master plan of conquering every room of the smart home with the launch of yet another Alexa-powered connected device. The Dash Wand, which the ecommerce giant unveiled on Wednesday night, is a cordless barcode scanner with Alexa integration. Designed specifically for kitchen use with its water-resistant, durable design, it focuses on facilitating grocery shopping from AmazonFresh. Prime members can either push a button and tell Alexa what to add to their shopping cart, like they would with an Amazon Tap. or simply use it to scan a barcode of the item the ..read more

What Happened Amazon is launching a program that invites video content owners to create shoppable streaming apps for their content on Fire TV streaming products. The so-called “Watch and Shop apps,” which now has its own section under the Apps tab, allow Fire TV users to view and purchase a curated list of items relevant to the video they are watching. Because Fire TV viewers are already logged in with their Amazon account, they can purchase the item directly from the product description page or add it to the shopping cart for later. What Brands Need To Do Buying products from inside a video ..read more

What Happened The Hallmark Channel is looking to cut the volume of ads in half for its original primetime shows starting next year. According to the network, new episodes of its original shows such as “Chesapeake Shores” and “Good Witch” will only include five to seven minutes of commercials instead of the current 15 minutes of ads. The network says that it is reducing the ad load in the hope of better competing with the ad-free viewing experiences provided by OTT services like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. The Crown Media-owned channel is not the first cable network that responded to viewer ..read more

What Happened Snapchat is going all in on self-serve ad platform and tools to make it easier for brands advertisers to create video ads and launch their campaigns with three new initiatives. To start with, the company announced the Ad Manager platform last month, and the self-serve ad platform officially became available for marketers big or small on Monday. Snapchat also launched Snap Publisher, a browser-based creation and testing tool that makes it easier for advertisers to create vertical video ads and create Snap ads for different objectives. It is integrated with Ad Manager, so once adv ..read more

What Happened Twitter is adding a new feature to Direct Messages (DM) to make it a better customer support tool for brands. Now, when brands manage their Twitter DM through Twitter’s API, they can send call-to-action buttons via direct messages that, when clicked, can direct people to visit a specific site, post a pre-written tweet, follow the brand’s account, or start a chat with another of the brand’s accounts. What Brands Need To Do This new addition should make Twitter DM a more convenient customer support tool to leverage and create a frictionless experience for customers. As Twitter cont ..read more

What Happened Niantic, the company behind Pokémon Go, is celebrating the one-year anniversary of its smash hit game with a digital out-of-home campaign that utilizes real-time data to highlight its global popularity. The outdoor ads will feature real-time data from the game app in Tokyo, London, and New York, such as numbers showing how many Pokémons are being caught nearby. Some billboards are also activated as “PokéStops,” where players go to collect in-game items, as a fun, meta way of adding a real-world layer to its campaign message. What Brands Need To Do While the collective fever for P ..read more