By Adam Wakefield

Jackson began her presentation by telling those present that Contiki’s sole purpose is to connect young travellers between 18 and 35 to the best time of their lives, ensuring that when they get home they do so with unforgettable experiences, as well as no regrets.

She then moved on to the purpose of her presentation: how Contiki have embraced the world of virtual reality.
With there being “so many disrupters in the market”, Contiki always seek to innovate as a company, in order to always be ahead of other players in their space and remain relevant to customers. That innovation occurred in three ways.

“We are constantly looking to innovate on our product, and make sure it is the best in the market. The next thing is we make sure we innovate on distribution,” Jackson said.

“We as a brand have always traditionally sold through the travel agent, who we absolutely love, but we also need to engage with consumers at every given level. We need to make sure that our brand is out there and seen so when they purchase a holiday they actually ask for Contiki by name.”

Third, Contiki innovate on communications. Jackson said while the Contiki product has evolved slowly since inception in 1962, the way they actually deal with consumers is rapidly changing, with disrupters such as Air BnB and TripAdvisor also making the market a tougher place to sell.

That is why Contiki embraced the world of virtual reality. The company has been using it since June 2015 in their Australian market and it was rolled out in South Africa in August of the same year.

“We have enjoyed working with virtual reality, we’ve had a lot of fun with it but the truth is we actually use if for real business. When we go out, you must understand that travel is not a tangible product so when we are at an expo or a school of university, how do you engage with someone?” Jackson asked.

“We don’t have the luxury of giving them a cold drink or a sweet and saying, ‘Hey, taste it’, knowing they will walk into the nearest supermarket thereafter and actually buy it.”
How do you tell someone who has never travelled what they’re missing out on? How do you entice someone who has travelled why they should travel with your brand?

“Using virtual reality, it’s actually allowed us to tell our story, to bring our brand to life. Also, we have a lot of fun at our expos now. It’s a talking point at our different stations. People come in wanting to experience a bit of a taste of travel and what Contiki has to offer,” Jackson said.

“Being one of the first movers in the market, the key players are looking to see who is doing what and we were quite fortunate that when GoPro decided to launch their virtual platform, they approached Contiki and asked to feature our content.”
This allowed Contiki access to new audiences, people who may never have heard about their brand before, with the Contiki and GoPro’s brands having “perfect synergies”.

“We are not just a travel company, we are an innovator. People are starting to see that we are leading the pack, we are developing over time and constantly changing, looking for new ways to engage with our consumers,” Jackson said.

When they started looking at VR, they sought quotes from overseas advertising agencies, coming back at thousands of pounds for a single VR video clip. This is when they decided to take control of VR for themselves.

The travel company employed their own virtual reality production team, affording them the luxury of creating lots of different content, ranging from their local road crews to content that Jackson said has an element of National Geographic about it, with accompanying narration.

“It’s allowed us different ways of playing in this market, it’s allowed us different ways of engaging with the consumer,” Jackson said.

“My only advice to you if you’re a brand or creating content is don’t get caught up too much in the novelty of virtual reality. It can become quite a gimmick and the one thing that I’ve heard over and over today is allow it to tell your story and that is exactly what we have done as a brand.”

For more information visit thefutureofmedia.co.za. Alternatively, connect with them on Twitter.