Mountain Dew, Volvo and Jim Beam all have jumped onboard the virtual reality bandwagon lately, using the technology to promote upcoming events and launches.

These three big brands are not the only ones – it’s been a year since Facebook showed how dedicated it was to VR with its acquisition of Oculus Rift, and brands are definitely taking notice.

But the ad dollars still aren’t quite there, according to Adweek. Major brands and marketers are looking to VR as a big piece of their campaigns, but the monetization problem hasn’t quite been solved.

Mountain Dew launched a VR experience at SXSW this year targeting snowboarders with 3D video. Volvo partnered with Google’s VR product, Cardboard, for a virtual test drive.

According to some agencies, the costs of 3D video are often too high to justify, especially as VR headsets are still not a common (or often affordable) product for consumers.

Much like the early years of social media, brands are certainly taking notice of the marketing potential of VR but advertisers are slower to invest in uncertain tech. If social media is any blueprint for how this plays out, VR should only have a couple of years to wait before everyone catches on.

Read more at Adweek.

Brief Take: Brands are wary of investing too much in what might be the next Google Glass, so the VR products going on the market now will have to prove themselves a bit more to be taken seriously by those who control ad dollars.

[Image courtesy of Mountain Dew]

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