Visualizing the abstract: Robeco’s brand identity in Virtual Reality

Robeco is a Dutch asset management and financial services firm based in Rotterdam. It’s an iconic global company with a rich history rooted in the entrepreneurial harbor city. But in terms of brand identity, how does one combine historic elements with an innovative, pioneering investing approach? Robeco wanted to show their heritage to the world, and Scopic delivered. 

Explaining heritage

Virtual reality lends itself perfectly when translating an abstract process into something concrete. Financial services can be quite abstract and complex, making it difficult to create an emotional trigger through marketing. When creating Robeco’s story in VR, the goal was to explain Robeco’s core values and approach, while keeping its history in mind. The idea was to turn this video into a marketing tool used by employees in every major Robeco office. 

Inside the world of Robeco

The video was filmed entirely with Nokia OZO. In order to introduce the viewer to Robeco’s history, Scopic created a ‘cinema’ with 2D animations projected on a screen in front of you. Complemented with spatial audio and drone shots, Robeco’s present position is showcased before diving deep into the world of asset management and investment banking. This quant world, created entirely in 3D, allows the viewer to ‘wander in the abstract’ while learning about Robeco’s core values and engineering approach. Altogether, the video gives a complete overview of the company.

One for all

Even though Robeco was established in Rotterdam, it now is a global player in the market. In order to illustrate this and make the video suitable for every major office, Robeco and Scopic decided to create country-specific endings. Now, when watching the video on an event in France, you are being introduced to Robeco France while flying past the Eiffel Tower. Accordingly, a total of seven end cards where created, along with customized VR applications, and distributed towards the offices. The videos are now being used on marketing events all over the world, showing the VR can be a useful tool in the corporate world.