PwC recently released the latest in a series of reports anticipating huge growth in the Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality sector citing that VR and AR could add £1.4 trillion ($1.8 trillion) to the global economy by 2030. These mediums are only going in one direction with accelerated growth and according to the study, 2025 will prove to be a watershed moment for the technologies, mostly due to the rapid development, popularity and adoption of AR by brands that we are seeing now.
“LADBible are investing heavily into the Immersive tech space. We are seeing a huge rise in the commercialisation of AR filters on Snapchat, Instagram & Facebook. VR is becoming increasingly popular with the rise of low-priced headsets and with platforms making 360 video more accessible. We see the huge opportunity that Blend has and think they are amongst a small bunch of people who will navigate successfully through this emerging market”. Alex Solomou, Founder & CEO, LADBible Group
Since being founded, for the last three years Blend Media has been ‘immersed’ in the 360/VR space, building an archive of licensable 360 stock footage through a network of over 700 professional creators around the world as well as connecting creators with briefs for new productions.
Our mission has always been to build a single solution for anyone who needs Immersive content and to save customers time, money and effort in creating immersive content for all use cases – whether marketing, entertainment, recruitment, learning and training, medical and health & wellbeing and others.
We’ve worked with many of the world’s largest businesses, including Facebook and Google to Disney, Intel, L’Oreal, The Macallan, Deloitte and many more and on our journey we’ve learnt some things…
Customers are more likely to use immersive media if it helps them solve a problem.
Customers are more likely to go ahead with a project that uses immersive media if they can find the right (and trusted) creators to help them realise their projects.
The VR/AR Industry is fragmented; it’s hard for customers wanting to explore the creation of immersive projects find trusted talent to bring their projects to life and it’s difficult for creators to find customers.
As a result and after extensive market research, we have been building a new online marketplace to solve that problem, connecting customers with creators for the production of bespoke immersive content – 360° & 180° video, 360° photos, VR, AR, MR, as well as 3D, Motion Graphics and CGI when used within VR/AR/MR.
Why hunt around when everyone needed is in one place?
“45% of respondents found that difficulty in recruiting talented individuals with the right skills was a blocker to success” Immerse UK, The Immersive Economy in the UK and Beyond 19th November 2019
On Blend Market, customers will be able to post briefs for creators with the relevant skill-sets and experience to submit themselves.
Creators can register and create portfolios, case studies and links to work, in order to give themselves the best opportunity to secure bids for each new production.
The platform will handle everything from initial sourcing and engaging creators, to signing NDAs/MSAs and other paperwork, sharing Work-in-Progress and exchanging feedback, all the way through to invoicing and payment protection.
Blend Market has been built to make AR, VR and MR accessible to everyone and to make it easy for customers to find the right creators, artists and producers to bring their ideas and projects to life.
Blend Market is now live at https://market.blend.media/how-it-works
If you’d like to find out more or need some help with your first brief, contact simon@blend.media
