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This is not how to advertise virtual reality, Samsung

This is not how to advertise virtual reality, Samsung

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We've had a lot of fun with Samsung's Gear VR since we first tried it back in September. Despite the total cost, the untethered portability combined with the decent resolution of the Galaxy Note 4 has made it one of the first successful attempts at making virtual reality plug-and-play. Now, Samsung has released its first ad for the headset in the form of this two-minute video. It's an unfortunately boring representation of an exciting technology — the whole thing comes across as more of an instructional video than anything. The spot is full of close-ups of the touchpad being used, the Note 4 being snapped into place, and not-so-thrilling exchanges like this:

"And where are you?""I'm in a really intense battle."We get it — virtual reality is a hard technology to showcase. Like is the case with the Oculus Rift, you really have to try these headsets out to understand how startling the experience is. For what it's worth, the best example of advertising virtual reality we've seen involved Volvo sending us an actual product in the form of a skinned version of Google Cardboard last fall. Samsung obviously can't start sending Gear VR and Galaxy Note 4 units to show off its capabilities unless it wants to live up to the hopes of Oculus's Ben Cohen, who told us that "the ideal price for Gear VR is zero." If you want to try out the Gear VR for yourself, Samsung is displaying the technology at mall kiosks and in brick-and-mortar stores. There, the Gear VR can take you to virtual worlds and away from the boring real one in this ad.