Partnering with RYOT Studio’s innovative storytelling platform, American Family Insurance used 360 video and virtual reality to bring to life stories of everyday dreamers who are pursuing their passions on The Huffington Post and RYOT. Our Fearless Dreamers program championed the stories of dreamers to spread a real, relatable message of inspiration – one that we hope empowers people to overcome their own obstacles and dream fearlessly. We used engaged storytelling at the core of the program and demonstrated how immersive content can put consumers in control of their viewing experience, tapping into new technology with 360 video and virtual reality.

The 360 videos were accessible across all platforms and viewers could experience the action on RYOT, The Huffington Post, feature on the RYOT app, on Facebook or through a virtual reality headset. The results speak for themselves with over 4M video views, 18M social impressions and users spending on average 85% more time with the Fearless Dreamers videos than the average time spent across the RYOT site. The campaign also garnered lots of industry press & showcases with over 15+ articles published and a press reach of 82.7M UVs.

To prove the effectiveness of utilizing new immersive formats like 360/VR to engage our audience, used innovative ways of measurement. We believed that 360 and virtual reality experiences would deliver a more emotional response to our content and tested that theory with an innovative study with Nielsen Labs, testing both the format and the content stories against various other videos that will help us prove the brand and consumer impact of storytelling with 360/VR. “Fearless Dreamers” drove significant lifts in 4 out of the 5 brand metrics measured. 20% lift in brand affinity, 14% lift in intent to seek additional information about the brand, 8% lift in purchase intent, 15% lift in intent to recommend the brand to friends and family. 80% respondents rated the Fearless Dreamers content either excellent or very good. Compared to flat video,360 videos drove a higher increase in intent of similar content.