eBook
VIRTUAL REALITY
BREAKS THROUGH IN
HEALTHCARE MARKETING
It’s not just gamers who love VR: Providers and brands look to VR to
transform communications and care in the healthcare arena
SPONSORED BY
VIRTUAL REALITY BREAKS THROUGH IN HEALTHCARE MARKETING
HEALTHCARE
­PROVIDERS,
­CONSUMERS, AND
INVESTORS ARE ALL
BULLISH ABOUT THE
USE OF VR IN THE
MEDICAL ARENA
BY JA S O N C O M P T O N
V
irtual reality is coming of age, and not
simply because VR headsets were among
the hottest and most heavily promoted
holiday gifts last December. Some of the
world’s top technology brands, including Google,
Microsoft, Facebook, Samsung, and Sony, have made
massive investments in VR development and promotion. ABI Research projects that 110 million VR
devices will ship by 2021.
VR creates a vivid and immersive experience for
the user through a natural and intuitive interface.
Slip on a VR headset and you’re in a distraction-free
virtual environment where it is easy to learn and
absorb new information. By closing off the outside
world for a few precious minutes, VR delivers experiences impossible to replicate with a static video or a
smartphone app. Even a full-size physical mockup
cannot take an audience into a completely controlled
environment anywhere, at any time, the way VR can.
Some VR environments are enhanced theater
experiences, where the headset plays an immersive,
but non-interactive, video that stimulates the senses
more than even the biggest theater screen can.
Others simulate fully realized, intricately patterned
3D environments in which every gesture and movement prompt reactions in the virtual world.
Depending on the technology, some VR experiences track head movement to put viewers in a true
first-person perspective. Others add a handheld
controller or positional tracking, which lets users
walk, stand, sit, or crouch, affecting their experience
of the virtual landscape accordingly.
For pharmaceutical and medical device brands,
VR is a uniquely powerful communications channel.
VR offers more than simply another way to explain
the mechanism of action of a new therapy. It can
transport practitioners directly to the site of action,
where they can see molecular science unfold. It can
radically alter perspectives by providing firsthand
experience of what life with a particular medical
condition is actually like for the patient.
Read on to learn why virtual reality is pharma’s
next compelling digital disrupter for engagement,
education, and promotion.
CONTENTS
3 VR’s Impact
in Healthcare
4 Real-World
Successes in
Virtual Reality
6 Challenges Facing
VR Adoption in
Pharma Marketing
7 Claim Leadership
in the VR Arena
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The State of
Augmented Reality
Augmented reality, which combines
live real-world images with overlaid
graphics, has tremendous potential to
reshape the way we interact with everyday objects and experiences. Wearable
displays like Google Glass provided a
select few a sneak peek at the potential
future of AR. These wearable heads-up
displays provide enhanced data and
VR’S IMPACT IN HEALTHCARE
Healthcare practitioners need no convincing that VR has tremendous power
and potential to transform care. They
are already believers. The University
of Southern California is launching a
virtual care clinic that includes the use of
VR technology — along with wearables,
apps, augmented reality, and predictive
analytics — to enable healthcare providers to create centers of care for patients
regardless of location.
Hospitals are already e­ xperimenting
with immersive VR experiences as painmanagement techniques, distracting
seriously injured patients from real-world
agony by occupying their minds in a
virtual land. Work is also under way to
develop VR as a therapeutic option for
anxiety disorders, for example, providing
a safely simulated but sufficiently realistic
environment for exposure therapy.
In fact, the majority of physicians are
quite eager to learn about VR. According
to a Decision Resources Group study,
60% of U.S. physicians are interested
in using VR for training and CME or at
medical conferences. More than 50%
would like to use the technology to learn
about new treatments and conditions.
Today, 18% of U.S. physicians have
already used VR professionally; that
number will grow as VR becomes more
closely linked with the medical education
process. For example, surgical trainees
can currently experience dozens of complex time-critical scenarios through using
high-end VR equipment.
That strong interest will quickly fuel
adoption and growth. A report by Global
Industry Analysts projects that the worldwide market for healthcare VR will likely
reach $3.8 billion by 2020.
This clear acceptance makes VR an
­ideal channel for both provider and
­patient communications.
VR-based marketing is already here
in a serious way, and not just for the
­largest or most tech-savvy brands. For
2017, IDC Research expects that 30%
of the ­consumer-oriented Fortune 5000
will conduct marketing trials in either
augmented or virtual reality.
insights about the world around us or let
us control and interact with our personal
devices by using eye and head gestures.
In the coming years, AR will continue
to evolve and be refined into a readyfor-prime-time medium. IDC Research
projects that by year’s end, 25% of enter­
prise IT groups will experiment with
augmented reality.
Because AR is not fully immersive, it
can prove more difficult for marketers
to control the storytelling experience.
Many modern AR environments require
a user to be engaged enough with
­physical marketing collateral to take
out their phone and open a dedicated
app in order to experience more. These
seams in the process make AR engagement more challenging than conventional media without providing the fully
immersive controlled quality that VR
can deliver.
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REAL-WORLD SUCCESSES
IN VIRTUAL REALITY
Pioneers in pharmaceutical VR marketing are
already enjoying strong success and making
lasting connections with key constituents
Because VR takes over an audience’s field
of vision entirely, it is particularly well
suited to powerful ophthalmological mes­
saging. A drugmaker recently wanted to
go beyond the usual collateral and offer
practitioners the chance to connect
with patient experiences in very personal and highly accurate simulation of a
particular type of retinal condition with
significant vision loss.
From simulating playground experience to refining at-home kitchen
techniques, VR offers a newly
immersive learning opportunity
“We knew that some of our doctors
could take a more patient-centric view if
they experienced the symptoms themselves,” said the brand’s global marketing
director. “We realized that VR could
show doctors everything the patient
expe­riences: black spots, wavy and distorted vision, grayness, and blurring.”
Working with digital agency Pixacore,
the drugmaker created a VR ­experience
that showed a simulated environment
through the eyes of a patient with the
degenerative condition.
“Within seconds of slipping on the
VR headset, practitioners could see,
firsthand, how the condition manifests
itself,” explained Sanjiv Mody, Pixacore
CEO. “Within just a few minutes they
understood how the condition impacted
common everyday tasks.”
Added Ben Voss, Pixacore CTO, “It
was a brand-new approach to communicating benefits, not just the same old
slides and brochures. It gave doctors
something new to engage with.”
The simulation was introduced at a
worldwide practitioner congress and
drew significant provider interest. “We
started with the pull marketing approach
at the congress, where we attracted a
lot of signups to participate in the VR
experience,” the brand’s marketing head
noted. “Doctors were excited to engage
with us in a new way, and it was a very
strong and successful starting point for
our use of VR.”
THE IMPORTANCE OF TUMOR SHRINKAGE
A pharma brand with a treatment for
multiple cancer indications wanted to
help practitioners connect firsthand with
the importance of tumor shrinkage for
an aggressive type of lung cancer that
has a poor prognosis. The condition has
a harsher and more significant impact on
basic functions like breathing than most
types of lung cancer.
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CASE STUDY:
Patient Education
After successes with other VR
simulations, one oncology brand is
working with Pixacore to develop
VR educational environments for
patients and caregivers dealing
with pancreatic cancer. Pancreatic
cancer is a particularly challenging
condition to understand at diagnosis. Although many people realize
that pancreatic cancer carries a poor
prognosis, the importance and even
the location of the pancreas are not
well understood.
When viewed through the VR lens,
patients and physicians stand to
gain insight and understanding of
complex physiological conditions
The brand collaborated with Pixa­
core to develop a detailed virtual reality
tour demonstrating the impact of these
tumors and the potential for treatment.
“We wanted a VR experience that would
let a professional go inside the lung and
see how these tumors impinge on central
airways, why they’re aggressive and hard
to treat, and how they impact daily life,”
said the brand’s product manager.
The VR simulation provides a detailed
realistic simulation of the unique features of squamous tumors in patients. By
demonstrating the mechanism of action,
practitioners can see the systemic impact,
and the relief, from tumor shrinkage.
When the VR experience was launched
at a practitioner congress, the brand
hoped to draw at best 150 users. “By the
time the congress closed, more than 350
professionals had tried the simulation,
98% of whom stayed in the experience
to the end,” said Mody. On average each
practitioner engaged with the simulation
for longer than four and a half minutes.
“It’s difficult to earn foot traffic and
engagement at congresses. Even a small
crowd is considered positive,” the product manager noted. “We were pleased
with the number of people drawn to the
experience who wanted to sit down with
us and go through the VR experience.”
After that strong success, the brand
equipped 100 field sales representatives
with VR headsets for practitioner visits.
“We’ve been successful in the field
with the VR headsets and have heard
from several reps asking us to expand our
VR experiences for other indications,”
the product manager said.
“I could line up 100 people and
ask them to point at their pancreas,
and likely no one would know,” said
the brand’s product manager.
Information imparted by the
physician at the time of ­pancreaticcancer diagnosis can be difficult
to process and retain. “Nine times
out of 10, patients are just nodding
along, because they’re too busy
trying to process the news,” he said.
“There are treatment decisions to
be made that will affect the rest of
their life, but a physician sketching a
few outcomes on a pad and walking
off doesn’t help patients put their
condition into context.”
By explaining the many functions
of the pancreas, and how tumors affect it as well as surrounding tissue
and organs, the VR simulation will
help patients better understand how
and why the disease will progress
and what effect treatments can
have. “It’s important that we keep
the educational materials relatable
enough that everyone can understand them,” he said. “The visual
medium of VR helps everyone
under­stand important messages.”
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VIRTUAL REALITY BREAKS THROUGH IN HEALTHCARE MARKETING
CHALLENGES FACING
VR ADOPTION IN
PHARMA MARKETING
Innovation has always been both a challenge and an asset in healthcare communications. Significant regulatory controls
and limited availability of healthcare professionals make innovation difficult –– but
necessary ––– to break through clutter.
• Shaking up the status quo: While VR
is such a dramatic departure that some
will be reluctant to embrace it, there is
strong evidence that healthcare providers
are eager to interact with VR experiences.
• Mastering VR storytelling: The technological barriers to shooting 360-degree
video or even creating a 3D landscape are
relatively trivial. However, VR requires
a new style of storytelling in order to
be effective. Head-mounted video with
traditional voice-over does not define the
VR experience. The skills to create such
experiences in VR are different from those
for traditional print, broadcast, or digital
media. Dedicated VR creative talent is
essential to lasting success, particularly for
interactive scenarios that need different
outcomes based on user actions. User
experience experts need to work side by
side with storytellers to be sure that the
experience not only looks good, but also
makes intuitive sense to the audience.
• Understanding the needs of the
audience: Putting someone in a VR
­environment creates an extremely per­
sonal connection. By putting on a VR
headset, an individual makes a much
bigger commitment to your message
than would be achieved by glancing at
a brochure, scrolling through email, or
watching a video on a screen.
• Wide range of prices and capabilities: There is no single dominant VR
hardware, and the price–performance
ratio varies. Marketers can control the
experience, but that can prove costly.
• Defining new metrics: The science
of measuring VR engagement and intent
is still in its early days. Traditional media
metrics are not fully applicable, so both
brands and media partners need to be
nimble and prepared to challenge their
own expectations and assumptions when
assessing the success of VR campaigns.
“Within seconds
of slipping on
the VR headset,
practitioners could
see, firsthand, how
the degenerative
condition manifests
itself. Within just a
few minutes they
understood how
the condition
impacted common
everyday tasks”
Sanjiv Mody,
Pixacore
VR bends learning curves to fresh
angles, providing students of every
age group the chance to plumb new
depths of analytical comprehension
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VIRTUAL REALITY BREAKS THROUGH IN HEALTHCARE MARKETING
CLAIM LEADERSHIP
IN THE VR ARENA
In a nutshell: No interruptions, no out­
side concerns, no distractions. Virtual
reality has the power to build empathy, to
illustrate complex concepts in an intuitive
setting, and to radically change the way
people think about healthcare through
first-person experiences.
Now is the time to consider VR as part
of the pharmaceutical marketing mix. The
already-strong uptake of VR technology by
medical professionals, combined with
a groundswell of enthusiasm for VR
among consumers, makes 2017 the year
to claim a leadership position.
Virtual reality connects doctors and
patients with treatment options in ways
no other media can touch. Turning your
brand into a VR leader takes an ­agency
like Pixacore, which has an in-depth
understanding of the demands of the
healthcare market and the intricacies of
creating compelling VR experiences.
“A new approach
to communicating
benefits, not just the
same old slides and
brochures. VR gives
doctors something
new to engage with”
Ben Voss, Pixacore
Terms to Know
Augmented reality: A digital experience, typically experienced
through handheld or head-mounted screens or translucent displays,
which supplements the real world with graphics, animation, or data.
AR devices create the illusion that the computer-generated images
are actually part of the real world.
Goggles, head-mounted display (HMD), headset, visor: Roughly
interchangeable terms for the apparatus you look into for a VR experience. Typically made snug with a headband, or held up to the face.
Some goggles have their own video screens and either rely on built-in
computing power or interface with a nearby computer. Other goggle
designs are purely mechanical and cradle a smartphone with the
result that the smartphone screen becomes the VR display.
Haptics: Tactile feedback associated with a virtual experience, familiar
to anyone whose smartphone has ever rumbled when tapped in order
to simulate a mechanical keyboard. Haptics are not specific to VR, but
haptic equipment can provide a more immersive VR experience by
creating physical feedback to tie in with visuals.
Head tracking: The ability to sense the direction and angle a user
is facing and update the image to follow. Almost every modern VR
headset offers at least a basic version of this feature.
Mobile VR headset: Refers specifically to a VR headset designed to
cradle a mobile phone, which then provides video to the wearer.
­Mobile headsets are typically less expensive than stand-alone head-
sets, making them easier to distribute far and wide. Not all mobile
phones are powerful enough to power a VR experience, however.
Some mobile VR headsets are simple and inexpensive, including
basic clip-on lenses and Google Cardboard, a visor — literally made
of cardboard — that holds a mobile phone. On the high end there
are elaborate feature-rich wearable cradles like the Samsung Gear
VR. Cardboard-type VR cradles are often not tracked or forecast by
market analysts and observers because they generate little revenue
and many designs are inherently disposable.
Positional tracking: A capability most commonly found in higherend VR headsets that senses when a wearer walks and adjusts the
experience accordingly. In healthcare, positional tracking is useful
for day-in-the-life simulations. Today, positional tracking requires
an outside camera or a special laser system.
360-degree video: A video recorded by special panoramic cameras.
As the video plays, the user can turn to see a different view. As
such, 360-degree videos are typically more immersive when viewed
through a VR headset, but can also be experienced on a typical
phone screen, computer monitor, or television set.
Virtual reality (VR): A digital experience, typically experienced
through a headset, that creates a completely immersive experience
for the user. In this scenario, the VR experience completely uproots
and replaces the “real” world.
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There’s nothing
virtual about
the impact
Partner with Virtual Reality
experts at PIXACORE to make
measurable innovation a reality.
At PIXACORE, Virtual Reality is just one of the many innovative ways we
bring your brand’s story to life. With more than 15 years of multichannel
expertise and dedicated R&D staff, we’re redefining what it means to
engage your customers. Partner with PIXACORE to make measurable
innovation a reality.
Get inspired at
bit.ly/pixvrar
Email us at
[email protected]
P. 646.688.2782
www.pixacore.com