Analysis of the Prospects for the Application of Virtual Reality
Technology in Digital Marketing
Meixi Liang
School of Economics & Management, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, 100000, China
Keywords: Virtual Reality, Digital Marketing, Brand Experience, Technology Applications.
Abstract: In modern market competition, the ability to market and promote products and services has become one of
the core elements of enterprise competitiveness. With the rapid development of virtual reality (VR)
technology, its potential in digital marketing is constantly being explored. With the rapid development of
virtual reality (VR) technology, its great potential in the field of digital marketing has gradually emerged. The
purpose of this paper is to explore in depth the application scenarios of VR technology in the current market
and predict the future development trend through literature survey method and case study method. Through
these analyses, the paper explains the important role that VR technology plays in various aspects such as
product demonstration, brand experience, and customer education and training. The paper argues that VR
technology provides an innovative marketing tool that can significantly enhance the effectiveness of digital
marketing. Through virtual reality technology, companies can create an immersive experience for consumers,
enabling them to understand their products and services more intuitively, and at the same time enhance their
brand aware-ness, which in turn increases their willingness to buy.
1 INTRODUCTION
With the rapid development of information
technology, Virtual Reality (hereinafter referred
to as VR) technology has gradually become the
focus of attention in all walks of life. Since its
birth in the 1960s, VR technology has gone
through many iterations and updates, and now it
has shown great application potential in many
fields such as gaming, healthcare and education.
Meanwhile, with the rapid development of
Internet technology and the widespread
popularity of mobile devices, digital marketing
has gradually become an important means for
enterprises to promote their products and services
in today's society. In such a context, it is
undoubtedly of far-reaching significance to
explore the application prospects of VR
technology in digital marketing. On this basis,
this study focuses on two key topics of VR
technology in digital marketing. Firstly, the study
will delve into the application of VR technology
in digital marketing, including its
implementation strategies, technological tools,
and integration paths with marketing strategies.
Second, the study will analyse the future
development prospects of VR technology in
digital marketing practices, assessing its market
potential, technological advancement trends, and
its contribution to the change of corporate
marketing models.
2 DEFINITION AND CURRENT
STATUS OF VR TECHNOLOGY
Virtual Reality (hereinafter referred to as VR) is
a technology that uses computer modelling to
create a three-dimensional virtual world,
providing users with visual, auditory, tactile and
other sensory simulations, and enabling users to
produce immersive interactive scene immersive
simulation(Guo & Hou, 2022). Since its
introduction in the 1960s, VR technology has
experienced an evolutionary process from the
basic concepts to commercial applications. Since
its inception in the 1960s, VR technology has
evolved from a basic concept to a commercial
Liang, M.
Analysis of the Prospects for the Application of Virtual Reality Technology in Digital Marketing.
DOI: 10.5220/0014139000004942
Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
In Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Applied Psychology and Marketing Management (APMM 2025), pages 549-555
ISBN: 978-989-758-791-7
Proceedings Copyright © 2026 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda.
549

application. In the past decade, the popularity of
VR devices has accelerated significantly due to
the reduction of hardware costs and the
improvement of computing power, which has
driven its application in various fields. Currently,
VR technology is more maturely used in
vocational skills training, such as industrial and
driver training. Industries such as gaming,
healthcare and education are also increasingly
adopting VR solutions to improve user
engagement and provide innovative training,
treatment and marketing methods. Relevant
professional analyses report that the VR market
will be $25.11 billion in 2023 and is expected to
reach $435.39 billion by the end of 2030(Verified
market reports, 2024).
3 DIGITAL MARKETING
OVERVIEW
Digital marketing refers to a series of marketing
activities, marketing organisations and marketing
processes that are promoted and implemented
using various digital technology tools. Its core
objective is to create, communicate and deliver
value to customers and other stakeholders
(Sharma et al., 2020). Currently digital marketing
strategies include seven main categories: content
marketing, search engine optimisation, email
marketing, search and social advertising, data-
driven personalisation, use of marketing
technology, and social media advertising(Olson
et al., 2021). With the rapid development and
popularity of Internet technology, digital
marketing has become an integral part of a
company's marketing strategy. With its
advantages of high efficiency, precision, and
interactivity, this type of marketing has gradually
replaced traditional marketing as an important
means for companies to acquire customers,
enhance brand awareness, and increase sales.
Existing studies have shown that explorer-type
companies that prefer to be the first to launch new
products and services pay more attention to the
use of marketing technology than most other
companies, which also side-steps the great
potential value of digital marketing(Olson et al.,
2021). Based on the real business practice, its
development status as a whole presents the
following characteristics.
Firstly, the diversification of digital
marketing channels is obvious. Enterprises can
use a variety of platforms to execute marketing
activities, including but not limited to social
media (e.g. WeChat, Weibo, Facebook,
Instagram, etc.), search engines (e.g. Baidu,
Google), emails, mobile apps and video
platforms (e.g. Jittery, YouTube). Each channel
has its own specific attributes, and companies
should choose the appropriate channel to
implement precision marketing based on their
own needs and target customer groups. Secondly,
data analytics occupies a central position in
digital marketing. Through the use of big data
analytics and artificial intelligence technology,
companies can collect real-time data on user
behaviour, gain insight into user needs and
preferences, and then formulate more accurate
marketing strategies. In addition, content
marketing has become a key component of digital
marketing. High-quality content can attract users'
attention, enhance brand image and increase user
stickiness. By writing blog posts, producing
videos, publishing social media posts and other
methods, companies provide valuable content to
establish an emotional connection with users and
achieve brand communication and sales
conversion. Finally, personalised marketing is
becoming a growing trend. As technology
continues to advance, companies can use big data
and artificial intelligence technology to provide
users with personalised recommendations and
customised services. By analysing data such as
users' browsing history, purchase records,
interests and hobbies, companies can provide
personalised marketing messages to enhance user
experience and satisfaction.
4 ANALYSIS OF THE
APPLICATION OF VR
TECHNOLOGY IN DIGITAL
MARKETING
4.1 VR Technology in Brand
Experience
VR technology helps brands stand out in product
launches and marketing campaigns by designing
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specific contexts. In 2017, Wolf in Motion
created a virtual reality experience for
Glenfiddich that allowed users to feel as if they
were in a Scottish distillery. The experience
enables users to record their wine tasting
experience with a virtual paintbrush and enjoy
personalised interactions. Visually, it
emphasises brand elements to create a unique
aesthetic experience that enhances
personalisation and visual appeal. Auditory,
music that stimulates positive emotions is used
to deepen the sense of pleasure. Tactile, it
combines the tactile sensations of the product
and the environment to provide a total immersive
experience(Peng, 2022). Such campaigns not
only capture consumers' attention, but also make
them feel part of the brand story, thus deepening
their identification with the brand. Research has
shown that digital marketing has a positive and
significant impact on brand emotional
attachment and brand attitudes, and one of the
key points of great marketing is the ability to
increase consumers' social brand engagement
(CBE), which in turn enhances their brand
emotional connection and memory points(Lee,
2023). Since the interaction between customers
and brands greatly depends on the environment
they are in, when combined with VR technology,
brands are able to create immersive experiential
environments that allow consumers to
experience products and services in a virtual
world in a holistic manner, i.e., CBE and its
impact on customer feedback is significantly
enhanced to a large extent in a typical virtual
reality experience with a high degree of
immersion and interactivity (Hudson et al., 2019,
Wedel et al., 2020). It has been established that
branded virtual reality experiences can create
memorable events and stimulate strong
emotions, which have a positive impact on
enhancing consumer perceptions and attitudes
towards the brand. When branded virtual reality
experiences are transformed from mere
storytelling to hands-on storytelling, the level of
customer interaction is significantly increased,
resulting in more positive perceptions and
attitudes towards the brand (Regt et al., 2021).
The intention of ‘participating in storytelling’
coincides with the content marketing strategy in
digital marketing, which shows that the
combination of VR technology and digital
marketing can not only provide brands with an
innovative way of communication, but also
further strengthen the effect of content
marketing strategy through immersive
experience.
4.2 Application of VR Technology in
Product Display
Compared with traditional marketing methods,
immersive marketing based on virtual reality (VR)
technology demonstrates its unique personalised
features. This marketing model not only precisely
meets the individual needs of consumers, but also
creates a rich space for interaction and association
through its multi-sensory interactive function
(Wang et al., 2024). Customers face an
‘imagination gap’ when they have difficulty
conceptualising the benefits of a product or the
outcomes of a service. This is a challenge across
industries and often leads to purchase delays or
abandonment, resulting in significant losses to the
organisation. Using VR technology to map digital
content to physical environments and allow
customers to visually experience products can help
bridge the imagination gap and facilitate informed
purchasing decisions, creating value for both
businesses and consumers (Hilken et al., 2023).
According to the report, nearly half of millennial
consumers have used VR technology to preview
their holiday destinations, and it can be envisioned
that in the future, users may be able to enter a
virtual product display space through VR headsets
or glasses (The Priceline Group, 2016). In this
space, they can freely rotate, zoom in and out of the
product, and even explore the internal structure of
the product. In addition, the application of VR
technology in product display is not only limited to
static display, it can also achieve dynamic
demonstration. Take the automotive industry as an
example, through VR technology, users can sit in
the virtual driver's seat and experience the thrill of
driving, and even simulate the driving experience
in various road conditions. This dynamic
demonstration not only shows the appearance of
the product, but also reveals the functions and
performance of the product, allowing users to have
a deeper understanding of the product. For aircraft,
ships and other large or complex equipment, the
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traditional display methods need to spend a lot of
time and cost of physical display, while VR
technology allows products to be presented to
customers in a virtual environment, enterprises do
not need to actually transport and set up a display
site, thus saving a lot of time and resource costs.
the appropriate use of VR technology in product
display, is conducive to showing customers that the
enterprise embraces innovation and walks in the
forefront of the technical Appropriate use of VR
technology in product demonstrations can help to
show customers that the company embraces
innovation and is at the forefront of technology,
thereby enhancing the company's brand image and
attracting more customer attention through digital
marketing strategies.
4.3 VR Technology in Customer
Education and Training
Using VR technology, enterprises are able to
design customised training content that meets
individual needs based on user feedback and
behavioural tendencies, thereby improving
educational effectiveness and making marketing
campaigns more precise and efficient. In addition,
the application of VR technology eliminates
geographical restrictions and helps enterprises
expand their market reach globally. For example,
in marketing courses, VR technology can simulate
real marketing situations, build realistic scenarios,
provide diverse activities for experimental
learning, help lecturers and students closely
integrate theoretical knowledge with practical
experience, and develop and design branding and
advertising projects for groups in need [13].
Although customer education and training is not
explicitly mentioned in the core strategy of digital
marketing, the integration of virtual reality (VR)
technology into customer education and training in
business practice not only significantly improves
the quality of service, but also deepens and
enriches the digital marketing strategy. This
application essentially constitutes a highly
personalised content marketing strategy. In this
way, companies are able to collect valuable data on
user behaviour to support the optimisation of their
marketing strategies, while at the same time
demonstrating their professionalism and industry
leadership through the provision of high-quality
educational resources. Ultimately, these apps
become an important tool for building and
maintaining long-term customer relationships,
creating value for customers and deepening the
connection between them through ongoing
interaction and building a strong customer base.
4.4 Technological Advantages and
Challenges
Research results show that VR marketing tools
have demonstrated great effectiveness in the
current market, an advantage that stems mainly
from their ability to greatly enrich the consumer
experience (Alca˜niz et al., 2019). With the help of
immersive virtual reality technology, commercials
improve the richness and vividness of images and
show better immediate results, resulting in more
positive consumer responses [15,16]. Researchers
have further found that head-mounted display
(HMD) VR technology can significantly increase
the overall perceived value of a brand to consumers
through virtual product evaluation in a gamified
environment and with the help of brand-enhanced
emotional response transfer (Zeph et al., 2021).
The value of assets in the virtual world can be
multiplied according to their size and these assets
can be placed in areas where users' attention is
more focused as revealed by target group analyses.
On a theoretical level, these assets can be
transferred and reused in other similar worlds, so
the need for new marketing materials is relatively
low in the digital world (Silvestru et al., 2021). In
addition, VR technology has the advantage of
significantly reducing environmental costs. Since
these marketing elements exist primarily in the
digital world, these digital products are neither
processed nor accompanied by recycling
procedures or strategies. The only quantifiable
impact on the environment is the amount of
electricity used by the team designing these
elements and the end user (Silvestru et al., 2021).
However, the application of VR technology
in digital marketing also faces many challenges
and difficulties. First, the cost of hardware is an
important issue that requires urgent attention.
Specifically, a high-quality virtual reality
experience usually requires high-performance
computers, head-mounted displays, and other
auxiliary equipment, the acquisition cost of which
is relatively high, as well as the subsequent
maintenance costs. Especially in customer
education and training scenarios, in order to
achieve better human-computer interaction, it is
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necessary to pursue interaction algorithms with
maintainability, efficiency, and flexibility, and the
research in this field is difficult and requires high
investment costs (Yu et al., 2019). At the same
time, the high cost of virtual reality devices may,
to some extent, limit their popularity among the
general consumer population. It is worth noting
that despite the significant advances in current VR
technology, research has shown that most virtual
reality studies are still confined to the use of
simpler immersive virtual reality interfaces with
relatively limited virtual capabilities (e.g., 360°
video and screen-based virtual reality) (Alca˜niz et
al., 2019). In addition, the use of VR technology in
digital marketing faces a number of other pressing
challenges. For example, the development and
production of virtual reality content usually
requires a significant investment of time and
resources, which may further increase the overall
cost of the project. Meanwhile, the popularisation
and promotion of VR technology also needs to
address the issue of user acceptance. Some users
may feel uncomfortable with VR technology and
may be concerned about the risk of privacy
leakage, which may affect their experience and
confidence, and thus hinder the application of VR
technology in digital marketing. Therefore, the
application of VR technology in digital marketing
still requires further research to address and solve
these challenges and difficulties, so as to promote
its wide application and development in this field.
5 THE FUTURE OF VR
TECHNOLOGY IN DIGITAL
MARKETING
5.1 Future Development Trends
In the future, virtual reality (VR) technology is
expected to become more popular and accessible.
With the gradual reduction in the cost of hardware
devices and continued improvement in
performance, more and more enterprises and
individual users will be able to easily access and
use VR technology. This will open up a wider
space for brands to utilise VR technology for
marketing and promotion, thereby further
enhancing their market influence. Secondly, VR
technology will be closely integrated with social
media platforms. By embedding virtual reality
content, brands will be able to interact and
communicate with users more conveniently. Users
will experience products and services in person
through VR technology and share experiences and
evaluations, forming a new social marketing
model. In addition, the application of VR
technology in the field of e-commerce will be more
extensive. Consumers can try on clothes, try
cosmetics or experience home products online,
significantly reducing the uncertainty and risk of
shopping. This immersive shopping experience
will enhance user satisfaction and loyalty, and
promote the development of e-commerce. In
summary, the development prospect of VR
technology in the field of digital marketing is
extremely broad. With the continuous progress of
technology and deeper application, VR technology
will become an important tool for brand marketing,
bringing users a richer, unique and personalised
experience.
5.2 Recommendations for Business
Practices
Current research points to the fact that virtual
reality advertising does have significant short-term
effectiveness, and for companies with large IT
budgets and a reputation for innovation, making
the most of VR technology will be key to
improving the effectiveness of digital marketing
(Leung et al., 2020). However, firms need to be
aware that when the general evaluation of the target
brand is already very positive, a less attractive
product in a VR advert may result in consumers'
evaluations of the brand becoming less positive
(Zeph et al., 2021). Therefore, when designing VR
advertisements, companies must ensure that their
content is sufficiently attractive and innovative,
and carry out strict control in the development
process, testing and acceptance, etc., to ensure the
smoothness and realism of the VR content in order
to maintain the brand reputation. In addition to the
application of VR technology in advertising,
companies should also pay attention to the
synergistic effect of VR content with other
marketing channels. For example, VR content can
be combined with social media, email marketing
and other channels to form a multi-channel
communication and expand influence. Finally,
enterprises should also pay attention to laws,
regulations and ethical constraints when using VR
technology for digital marketing. For example, it
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553

should ensure that VR content does not infringe on
consumers' legal rights and interests such as
privacy and portrait rights. At the same time, they
should also avoid using overly exaggerated or false
promotional means to avoid triggering negative
public opinion. To sum up, enterprises should, on
the basis of a full understanding of its
characteristics and laws, plan scientifically and
integrate VR technology into all aspects of digital
marketing in order to enhance the marketing effect
and brand influence. In this process, enterprises
need to focus on market research, technological
innovation, content design, channel synergy and
compliance with laws and regulations to ensure the
successful application and continuous optimisation
of VR technology in digital marketing.
6 CONCLUSION
VR technology, as an emerging technological tool,
has demonstrated its unique value and potential in
a variety of fields. In digital marketing, the
application of VR technology in brand experience,
product display, and customer education and
training is particularly promising. Through
immersive experience, VR can provide consumers
with a new way of interaction, enhance their sense
of participation and experience, help enterprises
more effectively deliver brand information and
enhance brand image, and can also be integrated
into customer education and training to improve
the quality of teaching and establish a good
corporate image. However, to achieve this goal,
companies need to overcome challenges such as
technology costs and user acceptance, and actively
explore the integration of VR technology with a
variety of digital channels. There are still many
issues that deserve in-depth research on VR
technology-enabled digital marketing. Future
research directions can start from the following
aspects, such as studying the application effect of
virtual reality technology in different types of
enterprises to explore the best practice of virtual
reality technology in different marketing scenarios,
or studying the possibility of combining the
application of virtual reality technology with other
emerging technologies, so as to achieve smarter
and more personalised marketing effects. Through
the in-depth exploration of the above research
directions, the application of virtual reality
technology in digital marketing is expected to
develop further and create greater value for
consumers and enterprises.
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