THE BRIEF
Ford were looking to refresh the Kuga SUV and as part of the media press event develop a state of the art interactive virtual reality experience enabling users to explore the key features in a range of different seasons and environments.
SOLUTION
INITION worked with Mansfield Design to develop a VR game for the HTC Vive providing a fun and engaging way for users to interact with the car and get all the information they needed.
The team at INITION used experience and understanding in developing interactive virtual reality experiences to create an exciting game that met the brief and sent the message Ford and Mansfield were looking to send. One of the important aspects of creating the game was to ensure the functionality was implemented properly for users to get to grips on the technology and easily navigate around the environments.
The approach itself was simple: users navigated around an environment to find tokens to place on the car. The challenge for users was to locate the tokens hidden around the environment and place them on the car within the set time limit. Each token corresponded to a different feature on the car and after the game finished, users were given additional time to explore the features of the car further.
Two different environments were developed for the game: a winter scene and a summer scene. This was important in order to explain the seasonal-specific features of the Ford SUV. Showing the beautiful transitions from summer to winter made for a visually exciting experience and enhanced gameplay for full immersiveness.
As part of the press launch, the experiential Ford ‘KUGAdventure’ event activated in countries across Europe over 30 days in October and debuted to 30 members of the press each day. Press members were given the opportunity to test drive the Ford SUV before being invited to try the virtual reality experience and learn more about the car’s exciting new features.
FEEDBACK FROM CLIENT
“Our ongoing challenge in our work with Ford of Europe is to find engaging ways to create content and experiences that enhance the company’s new product launches. For the Ford ‘KUGAdventure’ event, we wanted to offer something new and unique to their guests attending the events across Europe, so a portable, fully-immersive virtual reality experience was the perfect solution. Our vision was both to challenge our audiences by transporting them into another world and at the same time to educate them by giving them the opportunity to explore key vehicle features available in Ford’s newest SUV.
INITION’s understanding of gamification was crucial in transforming the overall experience into something that was fun, extremely engaging and, most of all, relevant to Ford’s key product messages. Their team came up with innovative solutions to problems we could not have anticipated using this new technology.
At Mansfields Design, we see a big future for VR following our ‘KUGAdventure’ experience, as we creatively develop future events and presentations both for Ford of Europe and for many of our other clients.” – Paul Harrison, Communications Director at Mansfields Design
