The Campaign

Studies show that with constant practice, people can overcome their fears permanently. So we collaborated with doctors and VR programmers to create a free home training VR app to help people overcome two of the most common fears using Samsung Gear VR and Samsung Galaxy mobile. The Fear of Public Speaking VR app was designed with computer graphics from scratch with moving avatars. Meanwhile the locations for the Fear of Heights VR app were filmed with 360 cameras and stitched together. Each app contains various scenarios and levels that were carefully selected by the medical staff. People are exposed to fears in stages to gradually overcome their fears. It’s the world’s first VR app that holistically utilizes your heart rate, eye contact and voce recognition to give a personalized feedback.

Creative Execution

The VR app was designed with one common goal, to accurately measure scientific progress using Samsung Gear VR and Gear S2, while keeping the app in the simplest form to help participants who had a genuine fear. The layout, iconography and design were developed to be clear, consistent and unified to not add additional stress to the participants. Because the nature of 360 VR causes viewers to feel motion sickness, all color palette and navigation stayed minimal to stay focused on the app content. Nonetheless, the programs shows the highest quality Galaxy s6 specification allows, using at least 60 FPS. The voices that lead you through each level feels informative, calm yet encouraging. This app uses heart rate and eye-contact levels to scientifically diagnose the participant’s progress in an immersive and interactive way.

Indication of how successful the outcome was in the market

Doctors from Yonsei University Gangnam Severance Hospital approved the credibility of the BeFearless VR app through their own clinical testing. After only two weeks of VR training, 87.8% of 82 people saw benefits. People with fear of public speaking were able to reduce their anxiety score by 18.7% and those with fear of heights by 23.6%. Following its succes, the campaign was covered in more than 350 media including public TV and major newspapers worldwide which values more than 1 million dollars. The journeys of our participants had over 100 million views and over 400 million media impression worldwide. Samsung #BeFearless VR apps had more than 50, 000 downloads on Oculus Store with a high rating of 4. #BeFearless program is now also being used in the hospital’s VR clinic. After the campaign, Samsung’s brand attachment improved as high as 18.9%.

Doctors in VR clinics and VR professionals were gathered together to create VR training apps for fear of public speaking and fear of heights. Theses were created to have the highest quality that matches the maximum specification of Samsung Galaxy mobile and was completed in 10 months. Because the target audience is 18-29 millennials, scenarios in the Fear of Public Speaking VR app include school life, business life and daily life. The locations for the Fear of Heights include heli ski and sky walk, places the young generation answered to be interested in. Because the apps were made for global use, it was crucial that it contained no certain cultural context either visually or verbally. In addition, for the VR apps to be translated into 4 different languages, words within the app had to be simple yet precise.