When it comes to selling a big ticket and emotional purchase such as a superyacht, there is more of a story to be told than what is currently offered in the yachting industry. A story that should be individualized to each prospective future yacht owner, proportionate to their own desires and needs. No one understands that more than Thomas O’Nial, a former yacht sales manager and commercial director for some of the biggest shipyards, before joining Camper and Nicholsons, dealing with the world’s most high-profile clients. So when he found the reliance on static renders and plans to be outdated tools for selling new-build superyachts to prospective buyers, he created his own. Now, he’s acting as a bellwether for the next era of superyacht marketing with Virtuelle, an agency providing a new way for people to experience their future superyacht before it’s even built – through the use of virtual reality 3D tours.
3D tours utilize the use of high-resolution imagery and advanced software to stimulate the experience of exploring a space. The advent of this technology creates a fully immersive digital universe that the user can experience by wearing a dedicated headset or by using smartphones or tablets. The use of virtual reality first found popularity in gaming consoles, before making its way to the real estate sector. It gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic when potential buyers were no longer able to physically visit properties they were interested in touring. Now, this technology has made its way to the superyacht industry, with Virtuelle upending the adamantine trappings of yacht marketing for new builds, going beyond the rote edicts of using 2D media renderings of vessels that only paint part of the story for their future owners.
Over the course of our conversation, I find out what galvanized Mr. O’Nial to make this leap into starting Virtuelle, the attitudes to new technologies in the industry, the importance of personalization, and how storytelling is key to a successful marketing strategy.
Virtuelle wants to give prospective yacht owners an enhanced purchasing experience through virtual 3D tours. How did your idea of introducing this technology into the yachting industry come about?
Virtuelle was founded just under two years ago, with the aim of helping tell the story of things that are not yet built. Any environment you cannot touch, feel, or visit because it doesn’t yet exist, we aim to reproduce it in a realistic, virtual setting so that prospective buyers can fully understand what the project is about.
I’ve had a number of roles in the yachting industry, working in a couple of shipyards, such as Princess and Sanlorenzo, being on the client side selling new builds. And then with Camper and Nicholsons, which is more of a brokerage company also dealing with a lot of new builds and having conversations with shipyards. This is where I got the idea to launch Virtuelle because I saw the need when I was trying to sell new builds. I noticed that most clients had a lot of difficulty to fully understand what it is that they’re buying.
Was there a specific moment when you felt the potential of this endeavor, or did it build up over time?
It built up as technology advanced. It started with 360 technologies, such as Matterport, years ago. When a yacht can be photographed it’s quite easy to go and do a 360 tour. But to do that with something that does not yet exist requires 3D. The real catalyst was COVID,because people could not travel, and so had to find an alternative. Before there was quite some resistance, and because it’s such a high ticket asset, people would make the effort to travel and visit yachts and shipyards. With COVID this possibility disappeared, and people had to find another way of doing things. Personally, I had the need for a product like what we are building today when I was with Sanlorenzo, for example, traveling to the Far East and other parts of the world where Ionly had a few renders and layout available to me to tell the story and explain the project to clients.
It was not enough. A lot of people fail to visualize and imagine 3D spaces. That’s when I started looking at other ways of doing things. I started looking into video game technology and thought – why not combine the two? The technology is there – it’s possible. People are building these whole worlds and it’s already gaining traction in the real estate sector, so why not do that for yachting and offer a better client experience?
What role did the COVID-19 Pandemic play, if any, in changing attitudes to what is a rather traditional industry in its way of doing things for yacht marketing?
COVID was really the catalyst because it removed the other option – to go there physically, and people had to find other ways. I think that really opened attitudes from both the seller and buyer sides. Particularly with the sellers. As we know the yachting industry is quite traditional and things are always done in a certain way. There’s a saying that goes “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, which currently really is prevalent in yachting.
But if you’re not able to do what you’ve always been doing – which is to welcome clients at your shipyard or at boat shows to show them your product – then you must find other ways of doing this. Otherwise, you’ll get left behind. It’s not enough to rely on your brand equity and image. People want to touch and feel, especially with new buyers coming to the market. That’s also an effect of COVID, the yachting industry grew tremendously. The wealthy realized that life is short, and that yachting is one of the best ways to spend your days. Fortunately for the industry, it grew at quite a rapid pace. A lot of new buyers came to the market. For those people, if you cannot show the boat, and they have no previous experience, you have to find another way of conveying this information.
In addition to the pandemic, the industry is witnessing a shift in superyacht ownership. The average age of a buyer has become younger. How will the advent of 3D tours enhance their buying experience, particularly if they are first-time clients?
For new buyers, it’s been a challenge to explain what a yacht is without having them physically on board. This is something I’ve experienced myself on numerous occasions – the Far East,in China, for example – meeting with prospective buyers who have never been on a yacht before. They really struggled to imagine what the space could be like. If you only have a few images and no reference point it’s very difficult for people to picture themselves on board. What we aim to do is bring them on board as much as possible with these immersive technologies.
Younger generations UHNWIs (Ultra High Net Worth Individuals) value experiences. It’s really impactful for luxury brands to offer the best client experience throughout the whole journey. That starts from the first touch point a new client can have with your brand. The customer journey is very important in that, how do you build trust with the prospective buyer? Trust is important in creating connection. How do you convey information in a clear way? These are all elements where we aim to help shipyards because when there’s a new space or yacht being presented there’s a huge gap of information between the seller and the buyer. The seller knows what he’s selling. He’s built it and designed it, they have a much deeper knowledge of the asset than the buyer. The buyer is maybe considering a few yachts, and he only has the information that’s given to him. He hasn’t been on board, he doesn’t have the same level of knowledge and understanding of the vessel.
How do 3D tours play into the bigger marketing strategy of a brand?
Spatial information is one of the most important things to convey. A yacht is a 3D environment. We are in it when we are experiencing the final product and right now this 3D information is conveyed with 2D media. Essentially, the seller is giving the buyer a puzzle with more than half of the pieces missing!
Giving a realistic, immersive 3D experience gives the whole complete puzzle. The buyer can say “okay, when I’m sitting on my sofa in the sky lounge this is what I see. From my cabin I can walk this distance to the aft deck, etc..” They could really see the deck spaces, the volumes, the headspace, the distances, and the layouts. It’s a much more complete way of transferring information. And that builds trust at the end of the day.
Emotion is a core tenet in marketing, especially for an intimate purchase of this stature. What role does Virtuelle play in bringing a new take on storytelling?
There are a few tenets to the emotional side. One is being present in the space, and experiencing being inside the future yacht. There are other things we do that further increase that. The ability to experience different times of day – being onboard your superyacht on the sundeck at sunset, and seeing it at night or the middle of the day. Creating these different settings for the clients to imagine how they’re going to experience the yacht.
What increases the emotional connection of the buyer with the brand is control. This is the difference between active and passive consumption of content. The traditional way, where you watch videos and look at images, that is passive consumption. You are just taking in what’s given to you. With an immersive experience, the client is in control. He is actively consuming the content and engaging with it. There are many studies that show this increases satisfaction, rapport, and connection with the asset that’s being experienced. I think that’s very powerful.
How important is it to adopt a tailored marketing approach for prospective owners from different cultures and backgrounds?
Personalization, that is one of the core principles of luxury. Luxury is about having something made just for you, that nobody else has. That also applies to your purchasing experience of a certain asset. Being able to offer buyers a personalized experience that adapts to where they are from and to what use they want out of the yacht is something very important to be able to offer.
With realtime 3D marketing, you are able to take the vessel to a completely different place at the click of a button. Say for example you are speaking to a client from Dubai, you can have him onboard his future yacht with a background of Dubai, but if you’re selling the same yacht to a European or American client, you can switch instantly and have the boat in front of Portofino or the Greek Islands. You can tailor each client’s experience according to his personal taste and status. This creates a much more personalized experience for each client. They are experiencing their future yacht in their future cruising ground with their desired interior for example. They are already mentally on board. That’s the emotional side we are trying to replicate.
Is there a significant difference in the type of technology used to present the experience – be it a mobile application, headset, or on the web?
Technologies are used in different ways. The way we operate is by building bespoke solutions. We don’t have one product that we implement to all of our clients. We aim to understand what each of our clients is looking to achieve, who is being targeted, and who is going to be the user of the experience. Besides agreeing on the different functionalities depending on what the client wants to do, we also advise on the best way to publish the experience. For that, there’s a different way of doing things. VR headsets, which are great for a full immersive experience, are best when they are guided by a salesperson who knows how to operate the technology, in an environment where the client wearing the headset does not have to worry about too many things, such as how to operate the headset. This increases the impact of the experience.
We also provide the possibility for sales teams to carry their fleet in their pocket through a dedicated mobile application. You never know when you run into a client and when you have to pitch or explain a project. That could be in a restaurant, a hotel lobby, or on a flight. It could be extremely powerful when you have all the tools in your pocket, on your phone. For that purpose, we develop bespoke mobile apps in which we package the experiences so that they can be made available anytime, anywhere without an internet connection.
The immersive experiences can also be viewed on large screens connected to a high-performance gaming platform, for use in sales offices for example. This gives the possibility to tour the yacht in a relaxed setting on a sofa with the whole family, as they are being walked through their new boat. There are many ways of doing things, we are not attached to one in particular. We look to provide the best solution to the client’s needs.
With trends rapidly changing, where do you see the industry heading in the next few years, and what initiatives should every brand, broker, or marketer take in order to not be left behind?
It will take time and be a combination of things. Experiences and experiential marketing are on the up. People are longing for something different because much of the yacht industry’s marketing is the same. A lot of people are getting tired of the same image of a couple on a yacht, enjoying a glass of champagne at sunset, etc… It’s overdone. You cannot differentiate like this. I think we will see the trend of experiential marketing going up.
People will also do things differently to attract the younger generation of buyers that are coming. In the US alone, there’s a tremendous amount of wealth that is going to be passed down in the next 10-20 years. The industry has to adapt to this changing demographic and their tastes. Sustainability for example is very important. Not only talking about it but actually acting. I believe regulation will also come relating to sustainable practices in yachting. Yachting is in the spotlight for the wrong reasons, and the industry has to be proactive in changing our image. In terms of marketing, the image has to evolve. It’s not just about having a big yacht and enjoying time in absolute luxury. It’s about what yachting has to offer, and that’s absolute freedom, in my view. To be able to explore this beautiful planet we have in a sustainable and responsible way. To enjoy what one has spent a long time working hard towards. The way yachts are marketed to the next generation of buyers has to evolve, and we hope to help shipyards achieve that.
You can find out more about Virtuelle by visiting their website.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.