A 360° Experience for Billboards in Munich

Imagine you could not only see every billboard in Munich on a map, but stand right in the middle of the city and experience firsthand how it looks. All from your office. Sounds cool? That is exactly what our project with Hoffmann City Media makes possible. Together, we developed a virtual reality app (VR app) that makes work easier for the billboard sales team and their clients.

The challenge: experiencing billboards, not just looking at them

Hoffmann City Media markets advertising space in and around Munich, from large posters to small spots. Advertisers want to reach their target audience as precisely as possible without their ads getting lost in the crowd. Of course, the locations can already be viewed online on maps and in photos. But that often fails to convey the full impact of a billboard in its real surroundings. So a common step was to get in the car, drive across Munich, and look at everything in person. Sounds stressful, right? Especially at rush hour.

The solution: experiencing Munich in 360° and VR

This is where we at VRtual X came in. Together with Hoffmann City Media, we asked ourselves: Why not show the impact of the billboards in a 360° VR environment? And that is exactly what we did.

One of our camera operators filmed various locations in Munich with a 360° camera at different times of day. This allowed us to create realistic scenes that show how traffic and lighting affect how people perceive the ads.

The VR app: exploring billboards interactively

The heart of the project is our VR app. An interactive map of Munich shows every billboard location along with all the key information: location, prices, foot traffic data, and much more. That alone takes the online map to a new level.

The real highlight, though, is the 360° travel feature: you click on a location and experience it in a realistic 360° panorama view. You see the billboard at life size, can look around, and take in the surroundings. Morning or afternoon, you experience how the environment affects the impact of the ad. Whether heavy traffic is rushing by or things are fairly quiet, you see it all right in front of you.

VR in practice: taking client meetings to a new level

Stefan Gentschew, managing director of Hoffmann City Media, regularly uses the app in client meetings. With several VR headsets in his bag, he can present the various billboard locations right in the meeting, to everyone at the same time. He could put on a VR headset himself and join them in the VR application. Most of the time, however, Stefan stays outside and watches on a monitor what his clients are seeing. That way, he can guide them through the application without entering the virtual world himself.

The VR headsets are easy to use: switch on, put on, and go. Clients can experience the billboard locations quickly and intuitively, which speeds up the decision-making process enormously.

One of Hoffmann City Media’s clients wrote on LinkedIn about why this effort pays off. In the post, It Works Group from Düsseldorf describes how it experienced the VR tour of Munich with Stefan Gentschew. We couldn’t have put it better ourselves:

Read It Works Group’s post on LinkedIn

Conclusion: fewer trips, more experience

The project with Hoffmann City Media shows how virtual reality can solve real problems. Clients no longer have to drive across the city to look at billboards. Instead, they experience everything comfortably through a VR headset. This saves time and stress and makes the whole process more pleasant and efficient.

Curious? Then see for yourself what billboard marketing looks like today!