In a new campaign for Infiniti’s Q60 luxury car, agency CP+B created a pair of VR experiences that put viewers in the seat of the car as it speeds along a mountain road, or right inside the design of the car as it goes from drawing to model to an actual driveable car. The videos are available to those with Oculus Rift or a DIY Google Cardboard viewer, but are also available on YouTube as interactive pre-roll ads.

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Is there some cool innovation behind these videos? Probably. Is it exciting that interactive experiences like these can be hosted right on YouTube, instead of having to build a totally new platform from the ground up? Absolutely. But wow, are these videos ever boring. Maybe it’s cooler when you have an actual VR headset on, and we should have expected one of the first VR pre-roll ads to be less than gripping, but it seems like there was so much that could have been done with this concept (and with relative ease). It’s great to see the car’s concept evolve from the inside, but the viewer is pulled out the moment it changes from model to an actual car. Riding along with the car as it drives is no different than if it had been a POV video shot with a GoPro, as moving the camera and looking around doesn’t reveal anything different, or even give you an idea of what the car’s interior is like. Without adding those small details into something you are already taking the time to build, the experience ends up being very much the same as watching a regular video. It doesn’t matter if you’re using the latest in video technology unless you have entertaining content driving it.

Credits:

Brand: Infiniti
Agency: CP+B
Senior Copywriter: Kelly McCormick
Integrated Producer: Becca Manning
Group Account Director: Kate Frazier
Executive Producer: Jesse Jones, Deb Drumm
Executive Creative Director: Michael Raso
Creative Director: Pat Feehery
Content Producer: Lauren Wheaten
Chief Creative Officer: Ralph Watson
Account Director: Liza DeAngelis
Media Agency: OMD
Music Production: Q Department, New York
Online Editor: Bill Marmor (Luma)
Editor: James Bedford
Editing Company: Plus Productions
Visual Effects (Digital): Justin Johnson
Post-production House: Luma Pictures
Creative Director: Matt Lydecker
CG (Supervisor): Dave White
Producer: Jamey Kitchens, Michael Perdew
Executive Producer: Oliver Fuselier, Chris Neff, Dustin Callif, Erich Joiner
Directors (Design): Matt Gase, (Tech) Patrick Gunderson
Director: Steve Mapp
Production Company: Tool of North America
Producers: Nadine Brown, Chris Kaliszewski, Francesca Lentini