Event Recap

The Telly Awards at Northside Festival Talk Immersive Video & Branded Content

Once a year, Brooklyn’s best and brightest gather to discuss emerging tech trends, media innovations, and the future of original video content at the Northside Festival. This year, we were fortunate to pick some of the best minds in virtual reality and immersive video on all things branded content, brand storytelling, and audience engagement.

Curated and moderated by our managing director Sabrina Dridje, the panel brought together leaders from Vimeo, Discovery Networks VR, and Eko. Here are the top 3 things we learned.

The Sharing Experience is coming.

The Sharing Experience is coming.

Sara Poorsattar, Director of Product Management at Vimeo, shared that we have a long way to go in growing audiences who are watching Virtual Reality. Key to growing viewers will be the recent increase in devices, technologies and content that will allow for shared VR experiences.

The Last Mile problem is real.

The Last Mile problem is real.

Discovery VR’s Director of Branded Experiences, Kyle Ranson-Walsh, also shared some challenges and solutions to the so called “last mile problem” – getting immersive content actually distributed and watched by a large audience. In Discovery’s case, repurposing 360 content for multiple platforms, including linear, is key to generating nearly 80% of their views.

Interactivity increases engagement.

Interactivity increases engagement.

Jim Spare, COO of Eko and his team, are seeing an increase of 200-300% in audience retention rates with the interactive content they are creating. Key to this success, has been the engagement viewers feel when being able to influence the way in which the story evolves.