Beauty care sample box company Birchbox has recently announced a new VR app and content strategy targeting it’s male customers. In August, the company will be distributing free branded Google Cardboard VR viewers to it’s male subscribers, along with a free app featuring a series of short, immersive 360 videos of surfing, traveling, biking, and racing.
CEO Katia Beauchamp recently appeared in an interview on Forbes where she states that:
“Virtual Reality is something that we have to understand in a very intimate way. We want Birchbox to always stand for discovery – so to let someone see a product virtually is a major coup. VR content and immersion we think could really change the game. Every consumer company that’s thinking about video has to think about this. This is showing your customer that you’re committed.”
Birchbox partnered with VR production studio River Studios to design the app, which features a selection of fairly high quality 360 video content and some nice UI elements.
What is interesting about Birchbox’s strategy is that it aligns well with the “snackable” content approach that seems to be one of the core use cases for mobile VR content. Since their primary business model is about distributing samples in boxes, having rich immersive “snackable” content to promote it seems to be a great fit.
The one aspect of the app that seemed to be missing was a connection with the Birchbox merchandise. There is an image in the app’s background that shows some items, but nothing appears yet in the videos. As far as building excitement, the videos are great, so I am going to assume that VR awareness is the first stage of the strategy and that perhaps the product connection will be coming next?
Regardless, I am definitely looking forward to seeing how this progresses.
Sean Earley is the Executive Editor of AR/VR Magazine & co-founder of RobotSpaceship Podcast Network. He is the Director of New Biz Development and Publishing at KEMWEB, a musician, producer & consultant. He loves guitars, VR and coffee.
