Oath Premieres Extended Reality Advertising at Cannes Lions

Cannes is a French city best known for its international film festival, but it also hosts an awards event dedicated to the marketing communication industry. Cannes Lions takes place each year in the middle of June and offers awards and recognition to the most creative advertisers and marketers. This year, Oath, a Verizon subsidiary, is determined to leave a lasting impression with its latest offer: extended reality (XR) advertising.

What is Extended Reality Advertising?

According to Jeff Lucas, the Head of Americas Sales and Global Teams at Oath, extended reality advertising is the way brands will be able to connect with consumers in a meaningful manner in the near future: “Consumers are hungry for engaging, well-executed XR ad experiences that provide utility, enhance reality, and create meaningful connections with brands. At Oath, we’re using brand advertising intelligence to help marketers build emotional connections that motivate consumers throughout their journey toward a brand.”

Extended reality advertising represents a seamless way in which advertisers can extend content assets (display, video, games) to incorporate immersive VR ad experiences. The 3D ads created by Oath in partnership with Admix and BidSwitch are capable of creating an interactive experience for the users, being already successfully implemented by major brands such as LG, Chevrolet, and Peugeot.

New Opportunities for Building Memorable Brands

The programmatic VR advertising experiences developed by Oath and its partners are hailed as the new Holy Grail for brand building. Including extended reality advertising experiences in an immersive and interactive content framework will allow prospects to actively discover brand stories.

Instead of being passive consumers of marketing content, people become seekers of extended reality advertising experiences, capable of controlling how, in what order, and for how long they are exposed to a brand story. Having control over the interaction usually stimulates people to engage more with a brand than when they feel like a captive audience.

Creativity—At the Heart of Oath Brand Values

Oath identifies itself as a trailblazer in the field of creativity through technology. Together with its partners, the company has already set the bar higher in terms of advertising creativity and expression through immersive technologies.

Its annual initiative, Brandblazers, highlights the most innovative examples of ads which help bring consumers closer to brands, across all devices, and create memorable interactive moments.

The new extended reality advertising format presented at Cannes Lions will be the latest innovation developed by Oath for brands who want to engage consumers through meaningful stories and ongoing interactions.