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1. THE BEGINNING
This innovation came to life when…
My co-founder’s sister said, “You guys do 3D stuff right? I’m remodelling my kitchen and it would be great if I could see what my kitchen will look like when it is done!” (circa 2007 — before the iPhone was invented!)
So the seed was sown: how could video game technology be used to visualise and add value to a builder’s customer acquisition capability?
Challenge accepted!
2. WHAT & HOW
The purpose of this innovation is to…
- Provide builders with a way to engage and measure prospective customers with virtual display homes in an innovative, visual and interactive way.
- Provide prospective customers with a highly visual, spatial and intuitive way to assess a variety of home designs.
It does this by…
Converting a builders CAD drawing, marketing collateral, floor plans, branding and existing display home interior design into a virtual display home using our custom software.
Multiple virtual display homes are brought together to become a Virtual Display Home Catalogue (VDHC).
The customer can then freely navigate around the home, and view the home’s floor plan from a bird’s-eye view.
3. PURPOSE & BENEFITS
This innovation improves on what came before because…
The prospective customer is actively engaged and can move freely around the home, viewing from almost any angle including a 3D floor plan. This greatly enhances the experience, and allows for deep insight into the spatial design and relationship of the home.
It is dramatically cheaper than building a display home and photographing it using traditional passive marketing techniques.
The benefits to the customer/end-user include…
For the builder, an innovative, scalable, measurable and repeatable capability.
For the customer, an easy to access, intuitive and comparable way to experience multiple home designs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week without unnecessary travel.
4. COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE
In the past, this problem was solved by…
A combination of illustrations, photos, panoramic virtual tours, purpose-built display homes, videos, complex 3D renders. The various media are made available to the prospective customer through traditionally ‘passive’ channels – TV, web, booklets, and brochures.
The VDHC offers a new and exciting ‘active’ channel, whereby the builder’s houses are available to virtually explore, discover and interact with.
Its predecessors/competitors include…
- Complex and demanding DIY software applications such as Autodesk Homestyler and MyVirtualHome.
- Traditional digital media such as VR Tours offer static 360-degree panoramic points of view.
- Specialist visualisation studios such as Architype3D.
5. TARGET MARKET
This innovation is made for…
New-home-buying humans!
According to the latest statistics from the Housing Industry Association (New Home Sales, February 2013), more than 73,000 homes and units were approved in Australia FY11/12, with over 44,000 sales and approvals for new homes in the current year to date.
The target for our service is builders who build more than 100 homes per year, and has a basic marketing capability.
The target for the resulting builder-branded VDHC app is the mid-twenties-to-early-thirtysomething first-home buyers who are statistically more likely to become deeply engaged with a virtual world and interactive visualisation.
6. DISTRIBUTION STRATEGY
It is available for sale through…
All popular digital media channels!
The builder-branded VDHC is a cross-platform application, that will ultimately be available through a web browser, iOS and Android devices.
Coming to a web-enabled device near you!
Our marketing strategy is to…
Raise awareness of the capability through our demo ‘Preview’ currently available on the Apple App Store.
Work with the Housing Industry Association (HIA) to develop a public-facing HIA App for the HIA industry house.
Capture the innovation story and contact builders directly using traditional marketing techniques and communicate the low-cost subscription model that we have on offer.
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FINE PRINT
This SMART 100 profile and the information it contains is a duplication of content submitted by the applicant during the entry process. As a function of entry, applicants were required to declare that all details are factually correct, do not infringe on another’s intellectual property and are not unlawful, threatening, defamatory, invasive of privacy, obscene, or otherwise objectionable. Some profiles have been edited for reasons of space and clarity.
