When it comes to advertising Clas Dyrholm, CEO of Danish company Realfiction, knows that it’s all about the stories you tell. Realfiction specializes in telling your brand story with stunning visual effects transfixing audiences everywhere and making them ooh and aah at both product and technology.
The beginning of it all
The story of Realfiction begins when a major fashion brand approaches video production company Vizoo with an assignment of making something special at a show in Milan. Clas Dyrholm and Peter Simonsen take up the challenge and end up making a spectacular impact on the runway with a three-dimensional show visually augmenting the brand’s designs and amplifying the story of the show. Dyrholm and Simonsen decide to leave Vizoo and start their own business focusing on the possibilities in three-dimensional storytelling.
This focus has resulted in the Dreamoc – a clever display with a glass pyramid built for telling a 3D story. Currently the product line counts five different displays granting various options for boosting the impression of a product with a three-dimensional holographic story about said product or the overall brand. Inside the display you can place anything from say a shoe, a bowl of cereal or even a diamond, and then you combine it with an animation creating a mixed reality experience turning heads and making your audience stare while tying product and story together relating to your product.
The good stories
When asked for examples Dyrholm is quick to mention two of his favourites; that of Martell’s centennial celebration and the ‘anything proof’ speaker from Altec Lansing.
A few years back the Cordon Bleu of famous cognac brand Martell turned 100 and produced a limited amount of celebratory bottles of Cordon Bleu cognac. The brand wanted to describe to their customers the story of Martell and thus entice them into buying the special cognac, and Realfiction made that happen. Placing the display in Singapore airport and showcasing the physical product along with an animation depicting the long and proud history of Martell cognac, having been served to royalty and on the long gone transatlantic Concorde, passers-by were lured in by the colourful movement within the glass pyramid and shown a tale they could relate to. The story making customers connect with the brand and the product which sold out in a mere three weeks - much ahead of anyone’s expectations.
The speaker company Altec Lansing wanted a different story altogether seeing as they were launching a brand new product, a Bluetooth speaker able to withstand both intense heat as well as water, dust and harsh treatment in general. What they ended up with was a speaker placed in the Dreamoc and a vivid 3D animation of flames surrounding it, followed by water pouring down on it extinguishing the flames. All the while having the speaker in the centre standing up to both the hot and the wet and making quite an impact on the spectators. Clas Dyrholm gets excited telling about the campaign and explains: “You have this fantastic product that can take fire and water. The story is right there in front of you!” And as you might have gathered by now the campaign was a smashing hit branding both the speaker and the brand as well.
What's next
Having created great results for a number of global brands Realfiction is looking to the future and new opportunities. Technology is ever evolving in giant leaps and in the beginning of 2017 Realfiction will be launching something completely new to their portfolio. The company is working on a solution freeing the holographic content from the display and creating impressive mixed reality experiences on a much larger scale. “This means a group of people or even a lot of people can experience the same thing at the same time without putting on any gear of any kind,” states Dyrholm, and moves on to talk about the not so distant future where mixed reality could be a part of everyone’s home.
Knowing that the way into people’s homes begins with entertainment, Clas Dyrholm points to the many possibilities of combining their technology with gaming, creating a new way of playing in your home. And once through the front door there’s almost no end to the many ways you could use mixed reality in say buying furniture or maybe a new kitchen, a pool in the yard or any other large item that you would want to visualize prior to making a decision. “We will never stop challenging the technology and the way it’s used,” says Dyrholm and talks of the chance of walking into a car dealership, choosing a model, colour, rims, and interior and getting to see and walk around a 3D animation of this specifically designed car so as to get the feel of actually seeing the vehicle before a purchase, making it easier to choose between the red metallic and the racing green when spending money on a new car.
Mixed reality storytelling
Realfiction knows that cutting edge tech takes a bit of time to grow on people. It is a matter of early adopters and first movers gathering experience and letting the technology get some traction, making other brands and companies aware of the good results with both sales and branding values. Luckily holographic content is such a spectacle that audiences all over the world share their awe on social media, creating a buzz and making everyone from customers to C-suite talk about the creative and subsequently economic opportunities and benefits of using mixed reality in marketing.
Clas Dyrholm emphasizes the importance of telling a story when using the Dreamoc for a product launch or marketing campaign, sparking an interest in the audience with the vivid graphics and making them relate to whatever you are advertising. The holographic content and product should support and enhance one another and it is the goal of Realfiction to always excel at this. “Our drive is to tell those stories in a complete and surprisingly new format,” states the CEO and adds that the combination of a physical product and the holographic animation makes the spectators feel like they are in fact watching something magical, and Realfiction is all about creating that magic, getting you a return on attention which is always the main objective in working with a brand. And it doesn’t even end with products, brands and marketing. When asked about the future, Clas Dyrholm smiles and says, that virtually anything could come into play. Everything from entertainment to infotainment to actual education can benefit from the magic of Realfiction.
This text is rewritten from the original interview at Insider Trends where you can read the full story.