How the ancient art of massage is being transformed by VR

Imagine you are sitting at your office desk, stretched by deadlines and stressed by office politics. A minute later, you are sitting on a idyllic beach, watching the sunset, and someone is gently massaging your neck.

That’s probably a common fantasy, but now it is also a reality, thanks to the next big step in massage therapy. The ancient art is being transformed by virtual reality (VR), with massage clinics and therapists the world over discovering the transformative power of the technology.

In South Africa, the revolution is led by a company called Sheer Bliss, which works in the corporate space, mainly visiting company offices and call centres. The massage is quick – typically 6 minutes – but the combination of working the most stressed muscles and offering a brief escape to a beach paradise amplifies the experience.

Massage therapy goes back in history several thousand years, first as a sacred form of natural healing in India and later to pamper royals and the rich in ancient Egypt. These days, it is democratised, at least if you can afford it. But thanks to VR, it can now become a mass market experience.

Sheer Bliss conducts an average of 27,000 massages a year, with teams in Johannesburg, Cape Town and KZN. Its mobile massage concept means it can also cater for conferences and large sporting events.

However, it’s not so much a case of VR saving the massage industry, as massage giving VR a boost, by providing a wonderful use case for its practical application.

Picture: iStock

“We needed to find something new to offer our customers,” says Nadine Hocter, founder of Sheer Bliss. “At the same time, we were looking at a way to future-proof the business.

“I was really lucky in that a group of MBA students at GIBS were given Sheer Bliss for their innovation project. We spoke about various ways of making our original massage more immersive. VR was mentioned, but it was in a meeting with a client who wasn’t biting that we sold the idea.

“Without realising it at the time, our business moved into a class encompassing the Fourth Industrial Revolution.”

That may have been accidental, but taking the business to a new level was not.

Nadine heard Sorbet founder Ian Fuhr talk at the launch of a small business competition called Eureka. It is run by ORT SA, a non-profit organisation that trains thousands of South Africans in business development, teacher training, skills development, work readiness programmes and basic computer literacy.

“I had another business that I entered into the Eureka competition and this is where I got to know ORT,” says Nadine. “I am a single mom and I had never been in a position to educate myself on business. I just happen to have been very business savvy.

Picture: Sheer Bliss

“I did the business boot camp and learned so much about running a business, things that I was doing but learned to do better and, in some cases, learned things that I had avoided because I didn’t know how – like reading my financial statements!

“Now I have a good handle on all of the elements of the business and when I am stuck, I can easily reach out to someone in my ORT network for help.”

The climax of that story was being named Business of the Year 2018 in the annual ORT Jet mentorship programme.

“ORT has absolutely changed the way that I do business, I keep a close eye on my numbers and I am very clear with roles in the company. Since being a part of ORT I have stopped working ‘in’ my business and work ‘on’ it instead.”

Surprisingly, while the transition from a traditional beauty business to a high-tech, high-volume business was difficult, it was not complex.

“We did this very quickly, tested and tried a lot of different headsets and content, but it was not easy in the least. We had a deadline of three weeks to get it right and we did.

“There was very little support for VR and the space is still very small, so I find myself networking and developing really good relationships with anyone in the space so that we can all learn from each other. Now we have created our own content with South African beaches.”

Picture: iStock

Finding the right content was just one challenge. The team found that VR devices overheat, batteries go flat, and Internet access would always be a challenge out in the field. On top of that, VR technology is still only an approximation of reality.

“We are currently using Samsung Gear as we find it to be the most comfortable headset, but the resolution is not always as good as we would like. We are also looking at the Oculus VR headsets.”

However, those experiencing it for the first time quickly forget the pixelation of images.

“The general response is ‘Wow!’. So many people have not yet experienced VR, and giving our clients first time experiences has been magical. We really enjoy watching people look around inside the headset. When they come out of it, they have so many great ideas.

“The cost of content is high and, as a small business, it is a challenge to splash out on content. We hope to cultivate a good library of South African landscapes over time. Ideally, we will move into the advertising space and use VR video with massage to give potential clients something different.”

Arthur Goldstuck is founder of World Wide Worx and editor-in-chief of Gadget.co.za. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram on @art2gee

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