Friday, March 20, 2015

Mall Leverages Augmented Reality for Spring Campaign

In order to let shoppers experience spring and summer fashion trends in news ways, Westfield created Future Fashion, a project that leverages virtual reality, social media, content, user-generated curation and digital avatars in order to get them to shop in-store. The installation will go live on March 27 at Westfield London, travel throughout April to Shepherd’s Bush, and then move to Westfield Stratford City.
Content and Connectivity Create New Shopping Paradigms
The three key themes that power this pop-up are S/S 2015’s most covetable trends: denim, floral and future modern. Each trend has been translated into a series of digital fashion experiences that will take visitors on a journey of the season’s trends through virtual reality and avatars. The components of the campaign are what make this interesting. They include:
Mall Leverages Augmented Reality for Spring Campaign
Virtual Reality: Westfield has paired virtual reality headsets with gesture tracking technology. This allows users to see their own hands within the virtual world, making them directors in their own conceptual fashion journey.
Fashion Avatars: The technology will recognize the users’ shapes and represent them through fashion avatars that celebrate each of the trends as they make sweeping shapes and movements across a large screen.
Edit Me: After being immersed in the virtual journey of the season’s key trends, visitors will then be able to digitally curate products that fit these trends and can be found in retailers within the center. For the first time since its launch in 2014, Westfield’s Edit Me functionality will also include menswear.
In addition to the technology, the content hub aggregates Westfield’s social media content and features unique content that is designed to further engage the shopper in the form of quizzes, trend reports, tutorials and mobile focused videos.
The content that complements the technology is based on content that is generally widely successful in the fashion and retail verticals online. These include:
Style Quiz – What Denim Are You? Four denim styles are brought to life through faces made from denim. The style of each shopper is revealed through stop motion films when they speak to a camera about their style personality.
Trend Reports – Low-Fi / Luxe Style: A digital photographer and a fashion illustrator hit London’s streets to report on how people are styling themselves: low-fi or luxe. Shoppers can skim and interact with the imagery.
Video – Grow Your S/S 2015: Shoppers can watch Hyperlapse films showing the construction of three Spring/Summer 2015 looks translated into floral sculptures.
How-To – Accessorizing with Flowers: Shoppers can watch step-by-step film tutorials from leading hair stylists on how to add live flowers to their own undoes.
How-To – Choose Your War Paint: Shoppers can watch a series of stop motion makeup tutorials that animate the product from the page to the model in order to bring three key looks to life: graphic swipe, 90s minimal and contouring.
Myf Ryan, Westfield’s Marketing Director UK & Europe, shared:
The launch of the new season is such a prominent time for Westfield that we wanted to highlight the breadth of fashion offered at our centers and bring the top trends to life through technology. This event will take our shoppers on an incredible virtual journey, which pushes the boundaries of fashion and technology.
Retail Is No Longer Transactional, It Is Emotional
“Transactions are often the main conversion we look at, but shoppers are introduced to a brand in one place, the story deepens in another. They fall in love with a product in another and the ultimate purchase happens in yet another,” says Jeremy Bergstein of The Science Project.
When retailers combine the power of story and overlay it with social conversation and interactive technology, they can excite shoppers by adding value to their experiences. The excitement translates to engagement and connection—to a place, product or idea—thus becoming action. And that action is often a transaction that is not just financially based, but emotionally based. Not only has the brand achieved revenue, but it has built affinity and loyalty.
What are some of the ways your brand is leveraging technology in-store to create more dimensional, story-driven shopping experiences?

No comments:

Post a Comment