Call it “The Year of Living Virtually.”

In 2015, virtual reality slowly began its emergence from Gartner’s “trough of disillusionment” after early hype—embodied by names like Second Life, There and Vivacity—proved to be too much, too soon for many users and brand marketers alike.

Today, other names, like Oculus Rift and Google Cardboard, have driven a whole new wave of 360-degree experiences that do more justice to both “virtual” and “reality”—with immersive, photo-realistic or full-motion video environments that are famous for throwing off equilibrium. Indeed, so far tending to be less like a first-person videogame, and more like a wrap-around-movie, VR can be an out-of-body experience as users' brains try to make sense of the virtual verisimilitude.

But once they do: WOW—to the point that investment bank Piper Jaffray predicts the market for VR content could top $5.4 billion by 2025. And brands have taken notice of all the buzz in a very big way.

While VR’s cousin AR (augmented reality) has seemed to momentarily lose a little altitude in recent campaigns, virtual reality marketing is ascendant—and accelerating.

Not that it has all been pure magic. But it’s been “magic enough” to point to promising things in the year ahead.

For now, some outstanding initiatives from what has been a very big year for VR.

GEN WOW AWARDS: TOP 10 VIRTUAL REALITY CAMPAIGNS 2015

10. OCEAN SPRAY: 'THE MOST BEAUTIFUL HARVEST'

Ever wanted to experience a cranberry harvest up close? Me neither. But the bright red spectacle of flooded cranberry bogs is a breathtaking, if rarely seen, event. Enter: Ocean Spray’s “Most Beautiful Harvest.” It’s online for now, and apparently optimized for Oculus headsets. But still worth checking out.

9. DIOR: DIOR EYES

The House of Dior goes high tech with a virtual reality experience—provided through, one must note, a Dior-branded VR headset—that drops you into the backstage world of a runway show. Of course, the thought of fashionistas wearing geeky headsets is fun in and of itself.

8. MINI USA: 'BACKWATER' & 'REAL MEMORIES'

MINI USA is big on short online films featuring its cars, so it made since that the brand would be among the first to take 360-degree video for a test drive. Two such films, “Backwater” and “Real Memories” are definitely worth a gander. For whatever reason, I and a few other people I know found the video slightly out of focus, requiring that I pull the viewer away from my eyes. More importantly, while the 360-degree view was more immersive than standard video, IMHO it doesn't add much to the proceedings. On balance, however, this is a noteworthy effort that could mean great things ahead—as does a new 360-degree trailer (released today, but specifically made for the new Samsung Gear VR headset that launched today) for the upcoming VR companion to 20^th Century Fox’s hit film, “The Martian.”

 7. NEW YORK TIMES: VR CAMPAIGN

MINI USA released “Backwater” as part of an ambitious VR promotion from the New York Times. The campaign was part of an effort to launch a new series of virtual reality news videos that have included an 11-minute documentary called “The Displaced,” about the global refugee crisis, and a VR film released earlier today on vigils in Paris in the wake of last week’s terrorist attacks. My favorite: A behind-the-scenes look at the making of a New York Times Magazine cover. In a way, this campaign has done more than any other to push VR into the mainstream. How? By sending more than 1 million Cardboard VR viewers to subscribers. Respect—and a heartfelt "thank you"—to The New York Times.

6. PATRON: 'ART OF PATRON'

Hell, Patron is more likely to have many of us seeing double, let alone bothering to futz around with VR goggles at the same time. Throw in a bee’s eye, 360-degree camera view, and this is an immersive experience that is perhaps better enjoyed before the imbibing begins. But worth it, all the same.

5. TARGET: 'THE HOUSE ON HALLOW HILL'

The idea behind this VR experience (along with Target’s “Ghoulish Graveyard and “Candy Carnival”) had me thinking a lot about “Hotel 626,” that super-creepy online game from Doritos' Snack Strong Productions several years back. In my second book, THE ON-DEMAND BRAND, I talk about how this photo-realistic haunted house came complete with hair-raising moments like finding your photo on a wall of victims (due to a photo slyly snapped at a surprising moment using your computer’s own camera) and mid-game calls to your mobile phone to truly freak you out. Target’s family-friendly, purely 360-degree video-based VR is nothing like that. But it still made me think about how gobsmackingly terrifying “Hotel 626” and its sequel “Asylum 626” could be in the VR age. Not that anyone’s hinting, Doritos.

4. MARRIOTT HOTELS: 'VIRTUAL POSTCARDS'

Marriott Hotels continued its "Traveling Teleporter” initiative this year, with a VR booth that included "4D" elements—not just visuals, but heat, wind and mist. And it launched a new, cross-selling “VR Postcards” series that enables guest at the chain’s New York Times Square and London Park Lane locations to order up "VRoom Service" for a Marriott-branded headset that helps them “visit” Beijing, the Chilean Andes and more.

3. AT&T: 'IT CAN WAIT' DRIVING SIMULATION

AT&T has been getting a lot of buzz in recent weeks as one of the first advertisers to take advantage of Facebook’s new 360-degree advertising solution. Its entry put viewers behind the wheel of up-and-coming race car driver Ben Albano. But I liked this moderated, public service-oriented VR experience, which showcases the potentially deadly consequences of even glancing at your mobile phone while driving. A nice (or more accurately, chilling) complement to the campaigns’ immensely powerful “Close to Home” TV spot and its longer-form online video. 

2. VOLVO: 'VOLVO HOLOLENS' & 'VOLVO REALITY'

Okay, I'm cheating a bit on this one. Volvo just released this video promoting a cool new AR/VR initiative with Microsoft HoloLens to help sell more cars. But the far simpler Google Cardboard “Volvo Reality” experience (above) works at a more emotional level. Technically this came out late last year, but I first tried it out in early 2015 and it has remained one of our favorites throughout the year). In talking to Framestore, the company behind this experience, I learned that developers have discovered having some kind of set track versus full autonomy, and anchoring the user with a “vehicle” of some kind, helps the brain orient to the environment far more easily. If this app is any indication, they couldn’t be more right. A virtual test drive that’s virtually amazing.

1. QANTAS: 'VIRTUAL DESTINATIONS'

This is either instant justification for the VRevolution, or a sure sign of the Apocalypse. Perhaps a bit more intuitively than Marriott’s cross-selling effort, Qantas whets your appetite for exotic locales by planting you there in 360-degree splendor. My simultaneous wish and fear: Once companies start producing VR content like this that lasts not minutes but for hours on end, the human race may just opt out of the “reality” part of the equation all together—at least when they aren’t physically going to these amazing locales.

BONUS: 'STAR WARS: JAKKU SPY'

 This gamified VR experience promoting "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" launched Dec 2, after, we'd posted our roundup. And it might have forced a revision in our list, pardon the pun, if it gave us just a little bit more in this first installment. But we can't wait to see what unfolds next, nonetheless.

Which VR campaigns made your list? Which should we add to ours? Please share!

NEW: JOIN OUR LINKEDIN GROUP

Like us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Listen in on iTunes

Even Marty McFly knew augmented reality would be big this year.

As 1989’s "Back to the Future II" showed us, 2015 would find Live AR movie promotions for "Jaws 19" and teens and adults using AR-enabled goggles along the lines of Google Glass (if Google Glass looked like Google Cardboard).

Of course, with all the excitement around Oculus Rift and the aforementioned Cardboard, one could be forgiven for wondering if this is the year virtual reality (or VR, immersive experiences within virtual environments) overshadowed AR (which layers virtual elements over the physical world in front of you in what has been called "The Internet on Things).

It doesn’t help that there has indeed seemed to be a dearth of truly cool AR marketing initiatives this year, at least compared to 2014 and 2013.

But that doesn’t mean there weren’t some brands doing their best to capitalize on an emerging technology expected to eclipse VR with $120 billion of the total $150 billion AR/VR market by 2020, according to a recent report from Manatt Digital Media.

Among the more positive trends this year: A move beyond (just) promotional eye candy to showroom and retail sales tools and apps, as well as AR-enhanced commerce.

As AR ramps up for what will hopefully be a more promising year ahead, let's take a look at some of our favorites in AR-enabled marketing and advertising from 2015—at least so far—below.

What made your list? And what AR campaigns would you add to ours? Do share!

2015 TOP 10 BEST: AUGMENTED REALITY

10. AZEK: AR HOME IMPROVEMENT IPAD APP

What Ikea long ago started doing for interiors, exterior building products maker AZEK is doing for dealers and contractors trying to help clients make decisions for their home improvement projects. The AR Home Improvement App offers the ability to show prospects and customers how new pavers, patio finishes, porches, railings, and light fixtures will look when in situ (albeit on a representative home, not their own), save the visual, and even share it via social media. Built by Marxent Labs, the app is in use by 75% of all AZEK resellers, with 1,000 new downloads per month. Now that’s something to write home about.

9. MANOR PLUS: AR CATALOG

Also making a nod to Ikea's catalog playbook: Zurich’s Manor Plus Summer 2015 catalog, which featured AR elements that helped its merchandising come to life.

8. TOYS 'R US: 'TRUE MAGIC IN-STORE AR

How do you get shoppers into store locations during the Easter season? Launch an AR Egg Hunt for the chance to win store gift cards. Here’s a brick & mortar retailer that refused to shy away from mobile and instead embraced it to enhance the retail experience.

7. MICROSOFT HALOLENS: 'TRANSFORM YOUR WORLD'

Okay, this is cheating, since HoloLens isn’t even out yet. But it perfectly captures the value proposition for augmented reality. And it happens to top ADWEEK’s branded video charts just now. When I wrote about the future of augmented reality in my second book, THE ON-DEMAND BRAND, this is definitely the kind of thing I envisioned. Be sure to check out this gaming demo as well.

6. MINI USA: 'AR VISION'

We’re cheating again here, too, as this is conceptual marketing from MINI. Called Augmented Vision, this wearable AR concept will hypothetically be tied to the MINI Connected Infotainment platform, to “enhance the driving experience by seamlessly interconnecting applications inside and outside the vehicle while providing the driver with greater vision and increased safety.” Unlike the HoloLens demo, which is for an actual product, this concept is, as far as we know, still very much in development at BMW’s lab in Mountain View, California.

5. LEXUS & FERRARI SHOWROOM AR

Lexus has done some very cool work with augmented reality in years past. And Ferrari is, well, Ferrari. But a trend to note here is that, like Azek in its own category, these celebrated upscale to uber-luxury brands are now moving beyond AR promotions to include useful support tools sales people can use to give clientele a closer look at upcoming cars and to showcase automobile innovation. On another end of the automobile spectrum, look also at Hyundai’s new Virtual Owner’s Guide, which is designed for customers as part of the actual brand experience.

4. JOHN LEWIS: 'MAN ON THE MOON' AR APP

This Christmas TV spot from UK retailer John Lewis is going to instantly get you in the spirit of the season. It’s already the early favorite of the Holiday ad season internationally, inspiring a perhaps inevitable ‘Star Wars’ parody. And it also has its own mobile app, which includes, among other things, an AR feature that lets you hold your phone to the moon to view interesting factoids, or at John Lewis in-store posters and shopping bags to unlock free downloads at the retailer’s site.

3. UNIVERSAL STUDIOS: 'FURIOUS 7' LIVE AR DISPLAY

In the vein of great mobile AR apps like the special effects app from JJ Abrams’ production company Bad Robot, this live AR display enables you to watch yourself get killed by a falling car in front of friends and perfect strangers at the mall. Morbid as it may seem, it’d be hard for the target audience for the latest installment of the mega hit ‘Fast & Furious’ franchise to ignore. Kind of makes you wonder what a similar AR promotion for ‘San Andreas’ might have been like.

2. MICROSOFT: 'SUNSET OVERDRIVE' BUS SHELTERS

The whole AR-enabled bus shelter has been done before, but it still can’t help but draw you in—especially when it involves mutant monsters coming your way on the street in front of you. Still, as cool as this promo for the new Xbox game ‘Sunset Overdrive’ looks, the Overcharge Delirium XT energy drink it features sounds like it may be even more tempting than the game itself.

1.  SNICKERS: 'HUNGER BAR'

You’re not quite you when you’re hungry, are you? Which is why Snickers rolled out this new installment of its long-running "You're Not You" campaign, which includes a mobile app that enables consumers to create images related to their particular hunger symptoms and share them socially. The key isn’t to show off what kind of hungry you are, of course, but in calling out family and friends for acting “snippy,” “loopy,” “cranky,” “confused,” “spacey," or ... insert your own adjective here.

BONUS CAMPAIGN: SEAGATE 'HOLIDAY SMOOCH BOOTH'

In the same vein as the Snickers ‘Hunger Bar’ campaign, this Holiday 2015 promotion from storage solutions provider Seagate enables you to snap a selfie or upload an image from your photo library, and then proceed to augment your reality (or somebody else’s) with holiday visuals (Santa hat, reindeer antlers, etc.) and send personalized seasons greetings. I’m biased, since I had input on this web app from Havas SF. But having developed promotions like this for other brands, I know it's an approach that can make for powerful experiential marketing.

NEW: JOIN OUR LINKEDIN GROUP

Like us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Listen in on iTunes

Let's just say I was into the "Internet of Things" before it was much of "a thing" at all.

Never mind that a survey this year finds 87% of consumers say they've never heard the term. In my 2005 book BRANDING UNBOUND, I wrote extensively about the Internet of Things (or, IoT), and such coming innovations as "smart clothes" that would one day routinely monitor heart patients and alert doctors of impending heart attacks.

And intelligent homes, buildings and stores that will react to, and even predict, your every command—setting temperatures and lighting to your liking, and offering up goods and services based on your personal preferences.

Then there was the personalized content streamed direct to your car. Designer clothes that tell the washing machine, "don't wash me, I'm dry clean only." Medicines that warn users of dangerous interactions. Cars that get "upgrades" remotely via mobile software. And frozen dinners that tell the microwave oven how to cook them to perfection.

Nest, Tesla, Pandora, Proteus Digital Health's "smart pill," the Apple Watch and the Polo Tech Shirt notwithstanding, this world of pervasively interconnected services and solutions remains in its earliest stages. And yet, as far as the brand experience goes for these companies and others, it is beginning to create meaningful differentiation that is shaping consumer expectations with each new day.

SMART START

When Tesla recently faced a recall nearly 30,000 Model S cars because of overheating issues with their wall chargers, the company was able to fix the issue by simply update the software in each care remotely, eliminating the problem without owners needing to go to their dealerships. What have other car brands have to compete with that?

While not quite proactively ordering new supplies, Amazon's Dash devices, WalMart's Hiku roll out this week, and Red Tomato Pizza's refrigerator magnets mean all you have to do is push a button or swipe an empty container to have laundry detergent, groceries (or piping hot Pepperoni Pizza) heading your way, without ever having to take out your mobile phone, activate an app and enter an order.

Netflix even recently released DIY instructions for building a push button that dims your lights, orders food, silences the phone and fires up Netflix queue.

Factor in product innovations—such as the Nike+ Running System (which runners found so compelling that the brand's already enviable share of the running shoe category skyrocketed from 48% to 61% in its first 36 months); Prada's continuing refinement of retail technologies (which identify what garments you pick up and instantly showcase runway video and accessories on the nearest store display); or new Johnnie Walker bottles that let you create personalized gifting experiences, and interact with brand promotions, using your mobile phone—and it's easy to see that brands that leverage IoT technologies stand to benefit mightily while those that don't may fall evermore behind.

At stake—a slice of a market expected to top $1.7 trillion dollars in value by 2020, according to IDC.

Yet even big winners will need to tread carefully.

LIFE AS A POP-UP AD?

Even back in 2005, I warned that interconnected everything means you can run, but never truly hide.

Or, as techno-anthropologist Howard Rheingold tells me in the book, "A world in which you are connected infinitely is a world in which you are surveilled infinitely."

Yes, online ads and street side billboards that call out to you on a first name basis, offering exactly what you're looking for—even before you realize you're looking for it—will have their place. Much of this will seem quite magical—at rightly so. But brands and media partners must be careful to resist the temptation to personalize pitches to the point of creeping consumers out.

Or putting them in danger.

One need not look beyond recent news reports on automobile software systems being hacked from afar to understand personal information is not the only thing put at potential risk in this interconnected world.

As I write in the book, as marketers (and as consumers), you and I will face decisions our predecessors could never imagine about what is acceptable—perhaps even moral—when anything and everything is possible.

As brands we exist to serve our customers and their needs, not the other way around.

Ultimately, that may mean recognizing that consumers should be able to control how "smart" they want their "smart products"—and advertising aimed at selling them those products—to be.

Perhaps they even need control over deciding which "Things" (and the associated data) that they want to be part of this "Internet of" —to better serve them, in the ways they want to be served—even if that sometimes means less, instead of more, of what we hope to sell to them. Even while making what we do sell them more profitable.

The brands that get this balance just right will not only attract consumers. They'll gain their loyalty and their trust.

Perhaps that's where the true power of the IoT is waiting to be found.

READ MORE FROM THE '2015 MOBILE MARKETING PREDICTIONS—FROM 2005' SERIES:

PART 1: A BOOM WITH A VIEW: WEARABLES

PART 2: REACH OUT & SELL SOMEONE: MOBILE ADVERTISING

PART 3: SHOPPING FOR INSIGHTS ON THE MOBILE FRONTIER: MOBILE AT RETAIL

NEW: JOIN OUR LINKEDIN GROUP

Like us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Listen in on iTunes