Though VR is a relatively new medium, healthcare marketers are quickly discovering

what Fitzpatrick and his team learned: As means of making abstract concepts feel real, it’s hard to beat. Zimmer Biomet recently developed their own VR experience to help sell their Signature Solutions package which, like ILUVIEN, stood to truly benefit both patients and healthcare providers, but who’s value was difficult to express through conventional means.

Signature Solutions is a suite of services that’s designed to work holistically throughout hospitals to both increase efficiency and improve patient satisfaction. Jerry Youngblutt, one of the principals in the advertising firm Boyden & Youngblutt that Zimmer Biomet hired to help market the product, describes it as a swiss a

rmy knife: “It does something for everybody. It’s an advantage to the patient—it holds their hand and takes them all the way through from pre-surgery to 90 days post-op. It’s also good for the surgeon, monitoring cancellations and keeping surgeries on time.” Despite the ways it stood to benefit both patients and providers, Youngblutt says its radical nature makes it difficult to market. “We’re taking this paradigm-shifting platform to a marketplace that doesn’t know it’s coming, that doesn’t know it’s possible, and where you have multiple target audiences that have to say, ‘I like it. I want it.’ That is a very tall order.”

So, faced with the task of making the intangible palpable, Youngblutt turned to VR. His team worked with Groove Jones to develop a 5-minute virtual infographic, which they debuted at the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons’ annual conference. The VR experience showed users how Signature Solutions impacted each area of patient care and hospital efficiency.