Royal Caribbean Cruises and iris Singapore launch the HoliDeck VR Experience giving consumers the taste of a cruise journey on land

Royal Caribbean Cruises has partnered with iris LABS Singapore to give consumers an innovative virtual reality experience showcasing a breadth of activities available onboard

How do you prove that a cruise holiday is fun and the activities onboard of Royal Caribbean Cruises are exhilarating without even cruising in the first place?

iris, was tasked by Royal Caribbean to tackle the challenge with a creative platform, the approach was straightforward; to address what hindered their decision. The team took the opportunity to ‘move’ a selection of 11 activities available onboard to the ground by showcasing the offerings of Royal Caribbean’s cruise holidays that one would never imagine.

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With the launch of the HoliDeck VR, the experience transports consumers on an unprecedented immersive virtual reality voyage that combines live action video and slick CGI visuals. Fancy a surf on a FlowRider or to play bumper cars? How about taking on a rock climbing challenge? Thanks to the innovation and technologies, ‘holidaymakers’ have the chance to participate and experience various activities available on the Royal Caribbean cruises, without cruising, literally.

A Royal Caribbean cruise holiday is always an adventure that boasts a sea of vacation possibilities for every guest. For each voyage, holidaymakers can look forward to embarking on a journey and immerse themselves in the wonderful, colourful and playful world. However, there are still some potential consumers who are interested but not convinced if cruise holiday is their type of getaway with an impression that cruise holidays are boring and there is nothing to do onboard the cruise. They need ‘proof points’ to decide.

A brainchild of iris’ in house ‘Fuse” Production team, the HoliDeck VR is a fresh promotional strategy that involved the hosting of onboard entertainment, demonstrating that there’s never a moment of boredom onboard with Royal Caribbean cruises.

“In this highly competitive industry, we feel a need to cut through the clutter and demonstrate the valuable content to the consumers. At Royal Caribbean, we are always ready to embrace innovative technology to connect with digital savvy consumers. We are very pleased that the HoliDeck VR experience allows the consumers to have fun experiencing the on board entertainment first hand instead of just reading the product catalogue. We hope through utilising the VR technology and game design, consumers will change their mindset and to give cruise holiday a try,” said Nicole Lai, Marketing Manager, Royal Caribbean.

“From conceptualization to execution, the entire project was brought to life by iris’ ‘Fuse’ production team to ensure tight control over all creative elements of the creation, output and maintain a highly cost effective output. We wanted to give the consumers a whole new way to experience the onboard activities. To bring the project to life, we have created real-time interactive GCI scenes that are brought to life inside Unreal Engine 4. A HTC Vive headset and controllers accurately track a user’s movements within the scene to allow for interaction with scene elements. Live action scenes were captured using a range of high-end 360 cameras equipped with binaural audio microphones to further enhance the overall presentation and presence of The HoliDeck. This makes the branded content more immersive and interactive, and provide an exciting experience that continues to resonate with users long after they have returned to reality,” said Dean Reinhard, Creative Technology Director (APAC), iris Worldwide.

Royal Caribbean’s HoliDeck VR is part of the brand’s new marketing campaign ‘Where Everyone Gets What They Need’ in commemoration of the 10th anniversary celebrations in Singapore. HoliDeck VR will be showcased at various upcoming roadshows as well as the NATAS Fair in August.

Credits –

Marketing Executive: Jolene Khoo