The future is here, and it looks like...a hipster Colonel Sanders? Strange as it sounds, turning the antebellum-esque brand icon into a Millennial-friendly digital influencer is just one way that brands around the world are turning to XR to reach their audiences in inventive new ways.

Here to delve deeper into the ins-and-outs of marketing in XR is futurist Cathy Hackl, co-author of the brand-new book, Marketing New Realities. From Coachella, to virtual try-ons, and yes, even KFC's "playboy chicken impresario," Cathy explains how XR technologies will change the way we interact with our customers.

Alan: Today's guest is Cathy Hackl. Cathy is a futurist, speaker, and amazing author. Cathy is an Emmy-nominated communicator-turned-augmented-and-virtual-reality-global-speaker, producer and, author. Cathy has worked with You Are Here Labs, HTC VIVE, as a virtual reality evangelist during the launch of their latest headset, the VIVE Pro, and during the company's partnership with Warner Brothers blockbuster, Ready Player One. Cathy is also the co-author of Marketing New Realities: An Introduction to VR and AR Marketing, Branding and Communications. Cathy has been featured in media outlets like CNN, Silicon Beat, Entrepreneurs, CMO.com, Forbes Venture Beat, and so many more! She is a global adviser for the Virtual and Augmented Reality Association, and a leading voice in the VR space. For more information you can visit cathyhackl.com. It's with great honor that I welcome developer/marketing specialist Cathy Hackl.

Welcome to the show, Cathy.

Cathy: Thank you Alan appreciate it. Happy to

be here.

Alan: It's such a great pleasure to have you.

We've been very fortunate to have traveled around the world together,

and been on different stages, and it's so great to finally have you

on on my show.

Cathy: I know! I'm really excited for your

podcast. Congratulations.

Alan: Thank you so much. The idea with this

podcast is to bring as much value as possible to businesses who are

trying to kind of wrap their head around, "should I get into VR?

What should I do? How do I get started?" All of that. So, I

think you have an incredible insight as to this, and your book,

Marketing New Realities. Let's start there and kind of unpack some of

the ways that marketers are starting to use virtual and augmented

reality, and let's dig in from there.

Cathy: For sure. So when we started the book

-- I co-authored it with Samantha Wolfe -- when we started the book,

you know, really the reason we wanted to do the book was to create an

educational resource. For marketers, specifically, that had lots of

questions that weren't sure. And we created it as an educational

resource for those marketers, that wanted questions answered. Also,

as a way for marketers to educate their clients, right? They could

bring the book to a meeting, they could leave the book with a

potential client. So, you know, we just really put a lot of heart and

soul into it, in making it something that people would be able to

benefit from, from an educational standpoint. So it's been quite

successful, you know. We were at the South by Southwest bookstore.

Adobe Summit had us up at their bookstore as well, so it's been a

wild ride, I have to say.

Alan: Absolutely incredible. So I actually

had the pleasure of reading this book, maybe... it's gonna be... when

did you publish it?

Cathy: 2017, was it? I think it was 2017.

Alan: I remember reading it on a plane, and I

was just glued to it. The whole flight, I read the book. And for

those of you don't know, it's called Marketing New Realities; it's

available on Amazon, and you can get it there. The book is really

in-depth, as to the ways you can use virtual an