According to BBH London, one third of parents can’t be with their children at bedtime to read them a story. So the agency’s latest campaign for Samsung is a virtual reality app called Bedtime VR Stories, that allows a parent and child to read together inside a VR world when they have to be physically apart. It’s probably not going to obliterate the parent-guilt that would make anyone want to buy and use the app, but it’s a feel good gift from Samsung to parents – a target market that Apple doesn’t single out in its marketing.
The app is still a prototype, but Samsung is currently testing it with selected families in the UK. The prototype only works with the the Galaxy S7 Edge and Gear VR headset.
The parent wears a Gear VR and the child wears a Google Cardboard headset that’s decorated with one of three character masks. Both enter the same virtual world and the parent narrates the story called Most Wonderful Place to Be (there’s just one story available at this point) while both of them travel between three “magical places” while sitting on their beds. The app uses a combination of VR and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology to do this.
“First stop is the Arctic, in the company of Jen the Penguin. Next, Dan the Dinosaur takes them to meet the rest of his family in a pre-historic world. Finally, they fly into outer space with Robot Jo, for a musical finale,” Samsung narrates in its press release. The whole story is also available to watch as a 360-degree YouTube video:
The app is part of a larger global Samsung initiative called Launching People, which Samsung says is “designed to help consumers unleash their potential and create meaningful change through the use of Samsung technology.”
“At Samsung, we’re committed to driving innovation to create technology that will make a difference to the way people live their lives,” stated Conor Pierce, vice presdient of IT and mobile at Samsung UK & Ireland.
“With Bedtime VR Stories, we’re hoping that this prototype will show an important new exciting genre of virtual experience—and something that will define the use of virtual reality over the coming years. We’ve harnessed the power of VR to reunite parents and children for a unique storytelling experience, giving us a glimpse of what the traditional story time may look like in the very near future.”
Credits:
Agency: BBH London
Creatives: Martin-Jon Adolfsson & Oksana Valentelis
Creative director: Joakim Borgstrom
Copywriter: Nick Kidney
Strategy director: Damien Le Castrec
Strategist: Tom Patterson
Chief strategy officer: Jason Gonsalves
Chief production officer: Davud Karbassioun
Business leads: Julian Broadhead & Polly McMorrow
Global Business Development Director: Tim Harvey
VR production company: Unit 9
VR creative director: Henry Cowling
Executive producer: Richard Rowe
Film production & editing: Black Sheep Studios
