Liberty Mutual gets millions of views for parallel stories in a 360-degree video ad on Facebook

The 360-degree ad is beginning to catch hold.

Yesterday, for instance, LA-based Outlyer Technologies announced a new format — the 360-degree interactive ad with virtual reality option, based on its newly developed technology.

And Liberty Mutual Insurance has extended the possibility of more standard 360-degree video through the release of an ad that employs the space for parallel narratives. It has been rewarded with more than 4.4 million views since the ad went online at Facebook last month.

Working with the social networking giant, it created a “360° Video Quiz” ad where the spherical space was divided into four sections: a title and three concurrent two-minute mini-stories that depict alternative courses of action when your car breaks down in the woods.

As you drag and move around the space, you’re given three parallel scenarios:

A. Get comfortable
B. Wander into the woods
C. Call Liberty Mutual’s 24-hour roadside assistance

There’s not much mystery in these “duh” alternatives, but they play out at the same time — although in different parts of the space — in a two-minute video of what would happen for each option. Your “choice” is simply to watch one or more of the stories, by moving between them.

Liberty Mutual Director of Digital Jenna Lebel told me that one camera shot four different two-minute stories, which were then stitched together into a spherical space. It’s available for now only on Facebook, she said, although the company is looking into other display venues.

She noted that Facebook has worked with “a handful” of brands since Q4 to use 360-degree video for panoramic views of products, but her company chose this approach of competing story spaces.

To her and Facebook’s knowledge, she said, this is the first such use of this approach.