• Wall Street Journal, Friday, June 24, 2016 8:38 AM

At the Cannes Lions advertising festival, media companies like Gannett and AOL pitched a new vision for marketing that includes branded content and virtual reality (VR). "VR  was a popular talking point among ad agency executives, tech companies such as Samsung were demonstrating their latest hardware, and online services such as YouTube were showcasing the contentnow available on their platforms," according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. Salespeople and VR experts from Gannett’s USA Today Network showed a sizzle reel for its upcoming weekly VR show called “VRtually There,” as well as branded VR content it’s already produced for companies such as Honda. The company also demonstrated a new VR ad unit it created, which it’s calling a “cubemercial." It places the viewer inside a virtual-reality room. "Brands will be given the opportunity to showcase videos or products on each of the cube’s six sides, said Gannett’s chief revenue officer, Kevin Gentzel," the report said.

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