October 16, 2017

Accenture and Specular Theory Create Interactive Vcommerce Experience “Behind The Style”

LOS ANGELES; Oct. 16, 2017 -- Accenture and Specular Theory have teamed together to create their vision for the future of virtual reality commerce. Behind The Style – an interactive VR story of a fashion shoot – seamlessly blends fashion, tech and vcommerce in a way that’s highly engaging, fun and natural.

By combining storytelling and tech with interactive branching choices, and the ability to actually shop and make purchases, Accenture Extended Reality and Specular Theory are creating a whole new category of immersive experiences. Through this type of narrative, brands and retailers can connect with consumers in more entertaining, relevant and memorable ways. This will be a big win for both brands and retailers who need fresh and creative approaches to engage consumers who are increasingly disinterested in traditional customer marketing tactics.

As a strategic initiative of Accenture, the Accenture Extended Reality group helps companies envision, create and deliver impactful new immersive experiences that fuel new business growth by improving connections with customers, optimizing productivity and performance of employees and creating and monetizing new digital products and services.

“In order to be authentic, VR should not copy the medium before it. This has always been the focus of our company. It’s a new medium that requires a new creative approach and an entirely new set of technology tools. With Behind The Style, we get to experience it the way we want to. It’s very organic and natural and makes it really come together by combining entertainment, technology and commerce in a whole new way. The technology of our live-action video and branching choices solves a major problem with traditional VR video that brings new levels of immersion and interactivity,” said Morris May, CEO of Specular Theory.

Imagine being behind the scenes of a fashion photo shoot without actually being physically present. That’s the unique VR experience the companies will showcase at Innov8. They have created an ‘immersive fashion story lookbook’ that gives consumers the ability to not only be on set with top artists and industry pros, but also interact with products and participate by making choices that affect the outcome of the shoot. What music videos are to music, and advertorials are to brands, this is the next evolution and format for how brands will connect to consumers.

“With Behind the Style it was important for us to create an experience that could make users easily relate to the characters, relate to what was being shown, and naturally interact with the storyline and the products,” said Raffaella Camera, Head of Extended Reality Go to Market for Accenture in North America. “For the brands, we wanted to create an experience that could be produced more easily and efficiently, by extending or piggy-backing on more traditional marketing and advertising activities that are already in the works like a photo shoot or a commercial shoot. That is why we chose to create an interactive and entertainment-filled film, where the characters naturally speak directly to users, bringing them into the storyline and inspiring purchases within the experience.”

About Accenture
Accenture is a leading global professional services company, providing a broad range of services and solutions in strategy, consulting, digital, technology and operations. Combining unmatched experience and specialized skills across more than 40 industries and all business functions – underpinned by the world’s largest delivery network – Accenture works at the intersection of business and technology to help clients improve their performance and create sustainable value for their stakeholders. With approximately 425,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries, Accenture drives innovation to improve the way the world works and lives. Visit us at www.accenture.com.\
About Specular Theory
Specular Theory is an award-winning immersive content and innovation company based in Venice Beach, CA that creates and distributes cutting-edge, premium, and authentic experiences for VR/AR/MR, V-Commerce and Location-based Entertainment (LBVRE). As a fast-growing and acclaimed studio, Specular Theory has been recognized for their innovative work in v-commerce and their thought provoking cinematic works, including their Perspective VR series which was one of the most talked about pieces at the 2015 and 2016 Sundance and Tribeca Film Festival’s. They also won the first-ever Streamy Award for Best VR for their work on the Game Lab in 360 series and have received more than a dozen nominations across categories and genres.

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Contacts:

Ryan Pulliam
Specular Theory
+1 415 816 4983
ryan@speculartheory.com
@speculartheory

Peter Y. Soh
Accenture
+1 703 947 2571
peter.y.soh@accenture.com
@accenture