ArticlePDF Available

Virtual Reality in Marketing Communication – the Impact on the Message, Technology and Offer Perception – Empirical Study

July 2018
Economics and Business Review 4(18)(3):36-50

DOI:10.18559/ebr.2018.3.4

License
CC BY-NC-ND

Authors:

Filip Grudzewski

Kozminski University

Marcin Awdziej

Kozminski University

Grzegorz Mazurek

Kozminski University

Katarzyna Piotrowska

Kozminski University

VR technology is an emerging IT innovation that greatly affects consumer behaviour and consumer perception of products. The aim of this study is to examine how the virtual reality phenomenon can be used as a marketing communication tool and how its usage affects the reception of individual components of a marketing message. The research conducted examined the possible impact of virtual reality on message perception and attitude towards particular offers. Additionally the authors wanted to find out whether there was a relationship between the use of virtual reality and the acceptance of new technologies in marketing communication. To verify the stated hypotheses empirical research was conducted involving an experiment with 150 observations of respondents taking advantage of three different marketing communication tools including: VR presentation with Oculus Rift hardware, video and printed advertisements. The results obtained reveal that VR technology positively and significantly impacts the reception of the offer, the technology involved and the presentation itself.

Median values of the dependent variables in the groups compared (error bars show the interquartile ranges) Source: own research.

…

Figures - uploaded by Grzegorz Mazurek

Content may be subject to copyright.

Content uploaded by Grzegorz Mazurek

Content may be subject to copyright.

Available via license: CC BY-NC-ND

Content may be subject to copyright.

Virtual reality in marketing communication – the impact

on the message, technology and oer perception –

empirical study1

Filip Grudzewski2, Marcin Awdziej2, Grzegorz Mazurek2,

Katarzyna Piotrowska3

Abstract : VR technology is an emerging IT innovation that greatly aects consumer

behaviour and consumer perception of products. e aim of this study is to examine

how the virtual reality phenomenon can be used as amarketing communication tool

and how its usage aects the reception of individual components of amarketing mes-

sage. e research conducted examined the possible impact of virtual reality on mes-

sage perception and attitude towards particular oers. Additionally the authors wanted

to nd out whether there was arelationship between the use of virtual reality and the

acceptance of new technologies in marketing communication. To verify the stated hy-

potheses empirical research was conducted involving an experiment with 150 obser-

vations of respondents taking advantage of three dierent marketing communication

tools including: VR presentation with Oculus Ri hardware, video and printed adver-

tisements. e results obtained reveal that VR technology positively and signicantly

impacts the reception of the oer, the technology involved and the presentation itself.

Keywords : virtual reality, VR, technology, marketing communication, advertising,

virtualization.

JEL codes : M31, M37.

Introduction

Virtual Reality is acomputer based technology that makes it possible to simu-

late areal environment in which the user can experience the feeling of being

present (Serrano, Botella, Baños and Alcañiz, 2013). Virtual reality is oen

1 Article received 18 December 2017, accepted 24 April 2018.

2 Koźmiński University, Department of Marketing, ul. Jagiellońska 57/59, 03-301 Warsaw,

Poland, gmazurek@kozminski.edu.pl.

3 Koźmiński University, Department of Quantitative Methods & Information Technology,

ul. Jagiellońska 57/59, 03-301 Warsaw, Poland.

Economics and Business Review, Vol. 4 (18), No. 3, 2018: 36-50

DOI: 10.18559/ebr.2018.3.4

37F. Grudzewski, M. Awdziej, G. Mazurek, K. Piotrowska, Virtual reality in marketing

characterized as an environment created by acomputer or other media, an en-

vironment in which the user feels present (Biocca, 1992a, p. 5). Coates (1992)

explains that Virtual Reality involves electronic simulations of environments

experienced through head mounted eye goggles and wired clothing enabling

the end user to interact in realistic three-dimensional situations. e number

of VR users may increase rapidly with possibly up to 171 million active users

in 2018, including 28 million users willing to pay for the content oered (e

Farm 51, 2015, p.11). is is all possible because of amassive growth in the

popularity of VR products, which let people escape from the physical reality

and dive deep into avirtual one, along with the high applicability of VR sys-

tems in such industries as: video entertainment, live events, education, retail,

real estate, military, healthcare and engineering (Beneeld, Rutherford, &Allen,

2012; Hassouneh & Brengman, 2015). It is expected that this trend will spread

faster than was the case with the Internet and smartphones, especially since in

order to consume basic VR content consumers do not need to invest in very

expensive hardware they just have to add accessories that will change their

smartphones into VR devices (Barnes, 2016).

e consumer drive towards new technologies “(...) allows them to see the

surrounding world in another dimension and to experience things that are not

accessible in real life or even not yet created” (Mazuryk & Gervautz, 1996).

Technology has become apackage that makes it possible to deliver information

to the end user (Kaplan & Mazurek, 2018). e amount of existing soware is

expanding rapidly as are the opportunities for companies to enter this lucra-

tive market and to use new solutions as great marketing tools to communicate

their advertising to users (Scatena, Russo, & Riva, 2016, p. 212).

Virtual reality provides agateway for marketeers to reach consumers in new

ways (Van Kerrebroeck, Brengman, & Willems, 2017a). A company that takes

advantage of VR technology can benet from major improvements in their

marketing communication as well as in the level of their customers’ knowl-

edge of the products on oer (Huang, Backman, K.F., Backman, S.J., & Chang,

2015; Van Kerrebroeck et al., 2017a). Moreover consumers gain value from VR

technology, which enhances their lives, and so businesses and advertisers need

to reach them by these means in order to identify new opportunities of pro-

viding consumers with even more value (Jung, Dieck, Lee, & Chung, 2016).

e research aim was to investigate whether the type of promotion material

inuenced the perception of agiven oer among the target audience. Secondly

the authors also wished to nd out whether the type of the promotion ma-

terial involved inuenced the reception of the technology and the message

communicated itself. e paper is divided into four sections. e rst sec-

tion explains the theoretical background. e second outlines the methodol-

ogy applied. e third section presents the results and discussion. e paper

ends with conclusions.

38 Economics and Business Review, Vol. 4 (18), No. 3, 2018

1. Virtual reality – the concept

e concept of virtual reality is abit of aconundrum (Steuer, 1992), oering

many equivalent denitions (e.g. virtual environments, synthetic experience,

virtual worlds, articial worlds, articial reality). Virtual reality is amedium

composed of interactive computer simulations that sense the participant’s po-

sition and actions and replace or augment the feedback to one or more senses,

oering the participant afeeling of being mentally immersed or present in the

simulation (avirtual world) (Sherman, 2003, p. 13). Virtual reality induces tar-

geted behaviour by using articial sensory stimulation, while the organism has

little or no awareness of the interference (La Valle, 2017, p. 1). Mazuryk and

Gervautz (1996) describe VR as “an interactive and immersive (…) experience

in asimulated (…) world”. e highlight the fact that given the greater interest

in computer graphics the boundary between 3D computer graphics and vir-

tual reality is blending and thus it is very important to determine appropriate

denitions of VR technology components. Two terms that are very important

in the VR dictionary are also mentioned. e rst of them is telepresence, de-

ned as the experience of presence in an environment by means of acommu-

nication medium (Steuer, 1992, p. 79). It happens when an operator manipu-

lates the user remotely from adistance (operator’s room) and at the same time

receives asensory feedback that lets them feel just as if they are in the place

where the action occurs. Telepresence is considered an important construct

in virtual reality research where two main perspectives dominate: apsycho-

logical and atechnological (Yin, Cicchirillo, & Drumwright, 2012). Various

studies have found that presence inuences the perceived product knowledge,

brand attributes (Grigorovici & Constantin, 2004; Hopkins, Raymond, & Mitra,

2004), recall and recognition (Keng & Lin, 2006), attitudes towards advertise-

ments (Hopkins et al., 2004) and purchase intentions. Generating asense of

presence depends on the media involved, user characteristics (perceptions of

interactivity and vividness) and individual attention to media stimuli (Lessiter,

Freeman, Keogh, & Davido, 2001).

Mazuryk and Gervautz (1996) have also pointed out how VR experience

is actually delivered to the user. In theory acomputer should generate multi-

ple-sensory impressions that aect all of the user’s senses on various levels so

that they can experience afull immersion in arealistically responsive virtual

reality. Based on the level of immersion the authors name three types of VR

systems. e rst is Desktop VR, also referred to as aWindow on the World,

which lets users only watch the content oered using regularly displayed im-

ages. Fish Tank VR is an evolution of Desktop VR. It takes advantage of the

motion parallax eect to enhance the VR impressions because it supports

head tracking; however there is no sensory feedback for the user and the im-

age is still displayed on the screen. e third level is based on immersive sys-

tems. is technology is implemented in the most advanced VR devices and

39F. Grudzewski, M. Awdziej, G. Mazurek, K. Piotrowska, Virtual reality in marketing

includes head-mounted display (HMD) to provide the best possible view to

the user – arst-person perspective and reacts to changes in his position or

orientation. e whole simulation can be also enhanced further by sound or

haptic and sensory stimuli.

e specicity of the VR technology is that in combining hardware and

soware together it can create areality where people can nd various types of

possibilities. From creating awhole new entertainment segment (such as mov-

ies, games, free time apps), improving whole navigation processes (virtual 360°

maps of routes and places – such as public spaces, buildings, subway stations,

guides), through medical application (virtual surgery training or a3D image

of the inner body shown to explain medical cases), cultural and science ap-

plication (museum exhibitions, virtual learning) ending with the segment for

children (bedtime stories, discovering the world apps), etc.

2. Virtual Reality in marketing communication

Digitalization of communications is an increasing phenomenon, reected in the

way of planning and executing marketing communication (Mazurek, 2011a).

Ecient utilization of marketing communications requires not only a very

good knowledge of social phenomena and market processes but also famili-

arity with the instruments and technologies of information communication.

Both marketing theoreticians and practitioners agree that the key condition

for marketing communications to be eective is integration of all the means

thereof. All the undertaken communication activities need to be consistent in

terms of their content and coordinated in time and space. Companies utilis-

ing the methods and tools of modern marketing communications are able to

interact quickly with consumers (Hajduk, 2016).

Virtual reality is arelatively new medium that oers new opportunities for

content communication. e qualities of virtual reality make it able to manip-

ulate the sense of time and space, to be interactive, and make the user ‘con-

trol’ their experience. According to Biocca (1992b), there are many research

implications of VR on communications, including studies on: the diusion

of virtual reality technology, communication design and cognition or inter-

personal communication and cooperative work. All this oers an incredible

opportunity to establish adynamic relationship between the audience and the

medium where interactivity and responsivity play acrucial part (Mazurek,

2011b). An ideal situation is one that involves the creation of ahigh-quality

interface – based on platforms connecting devices, or rather whole realities

– so that the user does not see the dierence between their own and the vir-

tual world (Barnes, 2016).

Before the era of the growth of the introduction of new technologies and vir-

tualization processes (Mazurek, 2012) it was quite easy to predict the tools and

40 Economics and Business Review, Vol. 4 (18), No. 3, 2018

media needed to communicate with several groups of stakeholders eectively

(i.e. to increase brand awareness, communicate sales promotion and proceed

with personal selling for business-to-business markets). With time technol-

ogy (progression in the advancement and spread of the Internet) has made it

possible to reach certain customers directly faster and more straightforwardly

than ever which has brought about substantial changes in the style and nature

of marketing communication.

Virtual Reality (VR) is considered to be one of the most promising techno-

logical innovations in business (Gartner, 2016). As it has become more acces-

sible to consumers at aordable prices it has caught the attention of marketeers

as anew way to advertise products and brands (Adams, 2016). Virtual Reality

is applied in tourism industry (making it possible to visit various destinations),

experience marketing (allowing the experience of lifestyles associated with

particular brands) and various product tests (e.g. test drives of cars) (Scott,

2016; Mandelbaum, 2015). Despite the growing interest in the application of

Virtual Reality in real estate marketing there are not many studies that have

investigated the eectiveness of this medium in this specic context. However

astudy conducted by Beneeld et al. (2012) indicated that increasing the vis-

ibility of aproperty through amix of media, such as open houses and virtual

tours, generated higher selling prices.

Retailers such as Carrefour and Alibaba explore opportunities for VR in

online shopping and product inspections (Zheng, 2016). Over the last years

advertising has evolved along with technology, embracing such innovations as

3D product presentations and 360° rotation. Compared with the traditional

media these allow higher levels of interactivity and vividness resulting in visual

richness (Choi and Taylor, 2014; Van Kerrebroeck et al., 2017b). Vividness, or

imagery richness, is considered to be an important factor in marketing com-

munications translating into more realistic product presentations. Cheng,

M.H.Chieng, and W.H. Chieng (2014) suggest that imagery richness can be

aected by sound or animations. Various studies in marketing literature dem-

onstrate that more vivid imagery results in more positive attitudes among con-

sumers (Van Kerrebroeck et al., 2017b). Existing studies point consistently to

the benets of application of VR technology to informational marketing com-

munications – that is, to presentation of functional, objective product attributes

(Choi and Taylor, 2014). When it comes to emotional, i.e. hedonic benets as-

sociated with products or brands literature is almost non-existent, with anota-

ble exception of astudy by Van Kerrebroeck et al. (2017b). ese authors found

that VR generates higher perceptions of vividness and presence compared to

aregular, two-dimensional video (Van Kerrebroeck et al., 2017b). e vivid-

ness of VR presentation positively aects consumers’ attitudes towards adver-

tisements and brands and stimulates purchase intentions. VR technology im-

proves the communication process and, at the same time, oers abetter per-

ception of the marketing message as well as of the advertised products. us:

41F. Grudzewski, M. Awdziej, G. Mazurek, K. Piotrowska, Virtual reality in marketing

H1: e form of the oer’s presentation inuences its perception.

As the product presentation perception is not aunidimensional experience

it was decided to investigate the relationship between the form of the presen-

tation and the three aspects of the presentation’s perception.

H1a: e form of the presentation inuences the perceived attractiveness of

the oer presented (in this case: an apartment).

H1b: e form of the presentation itself inuences its reception.

H1c: e form of the presentation inuences the attitudes towards the use of

in-house technology.

3. Methodology

Respondents were recruited from agroup of clients of coee houses where the

experiment was conducted. A total number of 150 usable responses was col-

lected from 75 men and 75 women with amean age of 36.41 (SD = 8.86). e

participants were randomly assigned to three groups (picture, video, and vir-

tual reality space – 50 persons each (25 females and 25 males in each group)).

It was decided to control the study for gender, as there are gender dierences

in visual perceptions and attitudes towards technology. (Schroeder, 2010; Sax,

2006). erefore in each of the groups the number of males and females was

equal (i.e. 25).

e experiment was conducted out of peak hours, before noon, to ensure

that the respondents would be least distracted by their surroundings. e re-

spondents were approached by the researchers and asked to participate in the

experiment. Once agreed the subject and the purpose of the study were ex-

plained to them and all the required details provided. en the respondents

drew lots from anon-transparent bag which included 150 cards (50 containing

adescription of an apartment with apicture, 50 with adescription and a video

and 50 with adescription and aVirtual Reality presentation in Oculus).4 e

draw was made without returning the cards into the bag. e respondents

were presented the apartment promotional materials in pictures, in avideo,

or as aVirtual Reality presentation in which they had an opportunity to “walk

4 Photos: 5 photos, resolution 1928 × 1092, printed on A4 size paper sheets, presenting

the apartment from simulation. ey were presented as marketing material (aleaet). Video:

MPEG-4, 1280 × 720, length 1 : 20, ordinary video displayed on a15.4-inch laptop. It was the

material obtained from the company, it was not a360 degree video because it was desired to

maintain an atmosphere of an ordinary advertising video (the simulation was in 360 degree, so,

the overlap was not necessary). Oculus presentation: Simulation was created by TRUSENSE as

one of their projects. It was afully interactive simulation of the apartment, the user could move

around the apartment in two ways – for alonger distance, there was ateleportation, and for

ashort distance, the user could move around on foot (an Oculus camera tracks movement of

the user enabling movement in the simulation).

42 Economics and Business Review, Vol. 4 (18), No. 3, 2018

around the place” using VR goggles on their eyes (Oculus Ri). e length of

exposure to the promotional material in any form was estimated at around 1

minute 20 seconds – as long as the length of the video. It was to ensure the

same time exposure to each kind of material without repeating it. Also, in the

case of the video and the Oculus presentation, the sound was turned o as the

focus of the study was on the visual aspect of presentation.

Aer the presentation of the material each respondent lled in aquestion-

naire which consisted of 18 closed questions related to their perception of the

apartment presented, an evaluation of the presentation itself and the attitude

towards the new technologies featured in the apartment featured5. e re-

spondents answered every question using ascale from 1 to 10, where 1 meant

“Denitely not”, which was the scale’s minimum, and 10 meant “denitely yes”.

To see whether the questions designed to measure the three aspects of the oer

could be grouped into composite indexes, the most commonly used measure

of the scale’s internal reliability was Cronbach’s alpha and mean inter-item cor-

relations were also calculated (Cortina 1993; George & Mallery 2003; Allameh,

Esfahani, & Nikbakht, 2017). e Cronbach’s alpha for each of the scales was

above 0.75 (as for the apartment’s attractiveness, it was 0.871, 0.954 for the pres-

entation assessment scale, and 0.891 for the scale measuring the attitude to-

wards the featured technology)6, and the average inter-item correlation ranged

from 0.529 (for the apartment’s attractiveness scale) to 0.786 (for the presenta-

tion assessment scale). e high values of the scales’ internal reliability made it

possible to calculate the composite indices for every group of questions.7 For

each of the scales, 1 meant the lowest score, and 10 – the highest.

As the participants were randomly assigned to groups (picture, video,

Oculus) an analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to explore the rela-

tionship between the variables with the F-test calculated to test for the signi-

cance of dierences between the groups (Saunders, Lewis, & ornhill, 2009;

Kirk, 2013). However due to the fact that the distribution of the dependent

variable could not be considered close to normal in every group (i.e. the abso-

lute values of skewness and kurtosis in several cases were higher than 1 (Hair,

Black, Babin, & Anderson, 2010), the Kruskal-Wallis rank test (Conover &

Iman, 1981) was applied as well to check whether the ANOVA results were

not caused by data distribution anomalies. To assess the eect size, an eta

squared (η2) estimate for Kruskal-Wallis H-test was calculated (Tomczak, M.

& TomczakE., 2014) and to test for the signicance of the dierences for eve-

ry pair of the groups compared (i.e. picture-video, video-oculus, oculus-pic-

ture), anon-parametric post hoc test (the Dunn’s post hoc test adjusted by the

5 Additional visual materials may be obtainable from the authors upon request.

6 Detailed information regarding the items included in the scales is presented in Appendix1.

7 In order to obtain composite indices, the arithmetical means of the answers included in

each of the scales were calculated.

43F. Grudzewski, M. Awdziej, G. Mazurek, K. Piotrowska, Virtual reality in marketing

Bonferroni correction for multiple tests)8 was used. All the statistical analyses

were carried out using SPSS 24.0 soware.

4. Results and discussion

As shown in Table 1 the F tests as well as the H tests for all three dependent

variables were statistically signicant which means that all the formulated hy-

potheses (H1, H2 and H3) are conrmed.

Considering all the composite indices the means and medians are the lowest

for the PICTURE exposition, higher in the case of the VIDEO and the high-

est in the case of the OCULUS VR system usage and the dierences between

groups are the largest for the presentation perception (Table 1 and Figure 1).

e Eta squared estimates show that the variance of the apartment percep-

tion is explained by the type of means in 36%, presentation perception in 72%,

and technology perception in 49%. is means that the eect was large in every

case (Cohen 1988)9 and that the dependency between the type of the presen-

tation material and the respondents’ evaluation was the strongest in terms of

the perception of the presentation itself.

e perception of the relationship between the applied technology and the

means of presentation is also quite high (between apartment and presentation).

It is similar to the occurrence of the halo eect that inuenced the positive

8 is is the only non-parametric post hoc test available in SPSS soware.

9 According to Cohen (1988), large eects start from eta squared = 0.14 for the analysis of

variance.

Figure 1. Median values of the dependent variables in the groups compared

(error bars show the interquartile ranges)

Source: own research.

Apartment perception Presentation perception Technology perception

Picture Video Oculus

44 Economics and Business Review, Vol. 4 (18), No. 3, 2018

Table 1. Results of the ANOVA, Kruskal-Wallis tests, eect size estimates, and the descriptive statistics for the three dependent

variables in three compared groups

Picture Video Oculus VR F F Sig. Kruskal

Wallis H H Sig.

η2 estimate

for the

H-statistic

Apartment

perception

Mean 6.02 7.04 7.55 38.53 < 0.001 55.11 < 0.001 0.36

SD 0.88 0.67 1.07

Median 6.08 7.17 7.67

Skewness –0.28 –1.45 –0.66

Kurtosis –0.16 2.10 0.75

Presentation

perception

Mean 5.28 7.33 8.58 153.45 < 0.001 108.499 < 0.001 0.72

SD 1.23 0.64 0.89

Median 5.50 7.50 8.83

Skewness –0.57 –1.36 –1.48

Kurtosis –0.26 2.59 3.29

Technology

perception

Mean 6.30 7.20 8.13 67.55 < 0.001 74.75 < 0.001 0.49

SD 0.63 0.79 0.91

Median 6.33 7.33 8.17

Skewness 0.04 –0.96 –0.68

Kurtosis –0.96 0.69 0.23

Source: own research.

45F. Grudzewski, M. Awdziej, G. Mazurek, K. Piotrowska, Virtual reality in marketing

perception of the technology because of the usage of another new technology

(Oculus VR system used to present the oer).

Table 2. Results of multiple pairwise comparisons (Mann-Whitney U adjusted by

the Bonferroni correction for multiple tests)

Apartment perception Presentation

perception

Technology

perception

Test

Statistic

Adjusted

Signicance

Test

Statistic

Adjusted

Signicance

Test

Statistic

Adjusted

Signicance

Picture-Video –42.22 < 0.001 –48.97 < 0.001 –39.58 < 0.001

Picture-Oculus –63.20 < 0.001 –90.32 < 0.001 –74.96 < 0.001

Video-Oculus –20.98 0.047 –41.35 < 0.001 –35.38 < 0.001

Source: own research.

e pairwise comparisons (Table 2) showed that in each of the three pairs

(Picture-Video, Video-Oculus, Oculus-Picture) the dierences in the evaluation

were statistically signicant for each of the dependent variables. In all cases,

apart from the Video-Oculus comparison for apartment perception (p<0.05),

the test was signicant at α = 0.001 level.

e results of the research show that new technologies enhance marketing

communication to asignicant extent, translating into a better reception of

marketing messages among potential customers. VR technology improves the

communication process and, at the same time, oers abetter perception of the

marketing message as well as of the advertised products. e study has proven

that VR technology is ahead of the current means of marketing communication.

H1: e form of the oer’s presentation inuences its perception.

e research has conrmed that there is asignicant relationship between

the means of presentation and the presentation’s perception among the re-

spondents. As shown by the comparison between the most traditional means

(pictures) and the most modern solution (Oculus VR system).

H1a: e form of the presentation inuences the perceived attractiveness of

the presented oer (in this case: an apartment).

e apartments presented were highest evaluated by the respondents who

were shown the oer through the Oculus VR tool. e video presentation did

alittle worse and the worst result was obtained in the case of communication

through pictures. It means that Oculus oers abetter user experience and in-

creases the attractiveness of the oer presented.

H1b: e form of the presentation itself inuences its reception.

Here Oculus did best as well, pictures ended last with the video presenta-

tion in between. It shows how the presentation of some products can be im-

proved by specic technology.

46 Economics and Business Review, Vol. 4 (18), No. 3, 2018

H1c: e form of the presentation inuences the attitudes towards the use of

in-house technology.

e results obtained prove that VR technology facilitates the adoption of

another technology.

Conclusions

VR technology is an emerging innovation that aects consumer behaviour

and their perception of the products to which they are exposed to agreat ex-

tent. Virtual Reality has been examined previously and found to have aposi-

tive impact on brand perceptions and purchase intentions thanks to an im-

mersive brand experience (Van Kerrebroeck et al., 2017a). Virtual represen-

tations can give consumers an opportunity to better examine product items

such as clothing through the applied technology (Verhagen, Vonkeman, & van

Dolen, 2016). e research, focused on the perception of marketing commu-

nication materials, brings some insights into how to conduct such activities in

the era of modern technologies. It has also conrmed that VR technology can

signicantly facilitate presentation of certain market oers in the real estate

business. e method applied in the research may become acommon practice

in this type of business industry in the future. It is possible imagine that one

day, every oer on Gumtree or OLX – apart from the pictures of the apart-

ment – will contain aVR presentation where the potential buyers / tenants

are able to walk around the place in virtual reality just as they do now in the

real world. e positive role of disruptive innovations in the context of mar-

keting communication may result in an increase in companies’ willingness to

invest more in popularizing their oers through various forms of cooperation

with VR soware creators. Technological innovations have laid the grounds

for acompletely new eld of communication and content delivery and an in-

novative approach to them can make the ow of information between dier-

ent market entities much easier.

Marketing specialists can benet from this research as well because it clearly

shows that traditional paper advertising is the weakest channel of communi-

cating an oer in comparison to more advanced methods (such as video or VR

presentations), which proves the great importance of marketing virtualization.

Marketing managers should pay more attention to the process of selection of

technologies that are to be used in communicating marketing messages. As in-

dicated in the research the use of modern technologies such as video and VR

has avery positive impact on the perception of marketing message and trans-

lates into amuch better reception of the message among potential custom-

ers, which means that these technologies can signicantly support marketing

strategies and sales – especially of equipment and solutions based precisely

on such modern technologies. Further research should focus on conducting

47F. Grudzewski, M. Awdziej, G. Mazurek, K. Piotrowska, Virtual reality in marketing

similar experiments for various types of product categories, the relationships

between the reception of technology, the message, and the oer, and the pur-

chase decisions along with the managerial implications of virtual reality usage

in marketing communication strategies and tactics.

Appendix 1. Questionnaire10

References

Adams, R. L. (2016, October 17). Five ways virtual reality will change the world. Forbes.

Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertadams/2016/10/17/5-ways-vir-

tual-reality-will-change-the-world/#311e2cc2b018

Allameh, S. M., Esfahani, S. L., & Nikbakht, M. (2017). Evaluating the eect of mar-

keting innovation on green marketing strategies. International Journal of Scientic

Management & Development, 5(10), 464-473.

Barnes, S. (2016, November 3). Understanding virtual reality in marketing: nature, im-

plications and potential. doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2909100

10 Items 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 16 (A) relate to perception of the presented apartment; items 2, 5, 8,

11, 14, 17 (B) relate to appraisal of the form of presentation; items 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18 (C) relate to

attitude towards innovative technology in the presented apartment.

1) Is the presented apartment spacious? A