How to engage today’s consumers: AR, VR and MR for retail

Immersive retail in action

As immersive technology matures and consumer interest grows, brands feel the need to roll out augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR) experiences. Now is the time to create thoughtful strategies, nimble enough to withstand the ebb and flow of shifting consumer expectations and a dynamic device ecosystem, and implement with a “test and learn at scale” mentality. It’s more than an opportunity to extend your commerce reach, it’s the future of storytelling, community, culture, work, and sustainability.

In this e-book we explore why the time to act is now, and dive into the 4 steps to follow:

1. Create high quality 3D digital versions of your products.

2. Own the quality, management, and use of product visuals.

3. Maximize the data you capture from immersive applications.

4. Unleash the brand from the confines of its physical stores and flat, 2D experiences.

Change your approach to marketing

Be bold: make changes

Immersive technologies unlock a dizzying range of opportunities for brands. To fully embrace them demands courage, community, and authenticity. They are, by their very nature, untethered from the confines of the physical world. Perceived limitations around digital experiences that brands have previously followed no longer apply.

The interaction brought about by extended reality (XR) applications - the catch-all term for AR, MR and VR - creates a conduit between brands and their customers that is more direct than ever before. Customer relationships are becoming more personal and personalized.

Embrace the immersive era

After embracing unprecedented consumer shifts during the COVID-19 pandemic, the retail industry barely had time to catch its breath before being flung into the immersive era. The good news is, the upgraded technology infrastructure many brands pushed forward to keep up with the digital demands of the pandemic has paved the way for XR use cases.

Processes, workflows, and consumer experiences that once relied on in-person collaboration or physical occasions have already been overhauled into remote work and digital platforms. This next phase will be about how to synchronize the digital and physical into a consistent and meaningful brand experience.

Virtual try-on

Take virtual try-on as an example. Consumers shifted to online purchases and there’s no sign they want to go back into the stores to try on garments. With only images of products to guide them, consumers purchase online and return what doesn’t work. But there is a huge environmental price to pay for that consumer behavior. Digital buying is bloating the supply chain and as it does, so grows the environmental footprint of the brands.

With a 3D virtual try-on experience, consumers use an accurately sized digital human avatar based on their measurements and body type, making it possible to get a better sense of how a garment will fit and which size to purchase. More accurate sizing leads to fewer returns and a better purchase experience.

Brands that began investing in 3D asset infrastructure during the pandemic to support experiential digital commerce already have much of the tech required for the virtual try-on use case, which could be worth millions in revenue and decreased return rates.

Virtual retail spaces

Fully digital versions of retail spaces and showrooms are changing how customers interact with brands. Brands are experimenting with recreating the in-store experience on mobile phones and in VR, providing a more engaging way to shop in 3D and leveraging the different interaction models and production value offered by immersive technology.

XR experiences give consumers an all-access pass to the brand. They can participate in runway shows, get the latest season’s drop delivered directly to their smart mirror, and even participate in product design and R&D.

What’s more, in a virtual retail space, visitor behavior data can be fed back to a customer relationship management (CRM) system – an invaluable tool for marketing and sales teams.

3D scanning for realistic materials

For shoppers, it’s essential that the online product experience is accurate to the physical properties of the product. The immersive experience must be as close as possible to the real life product, otherwise valuable customer confidence is easily destroyed.

Here’s where XR tech offers several easy-access solutions to marketers. From mobile-friendly photogrammetry, to digital photography input that can easily be incorporated into a 3D model to accurately represent materials, assets can be quickly created and incorporated into a real-time 3D marketing workflow.

Case study: Globe-trotter

Taking luxury shopping to new heights

Globe-Trotter has delivered high-end luggage to clients like Daniel Craig, Eddie Redmayne, and Kate Moss for more than a century. Established in 1897, the luxury travel lifestyle brand produces handcrafted luggage and leather collections for in-store and online purchases.

Knowing that traditional ways of selling products like photographs or rendered images wouldn’t be enough to turn shoppers into buyers, Globe-Trotter delivered a 3D web configurator that would build customer confidence in purchasing sight unseen, custom luggage valued at upwards of $2,700 USD.

“Unity’s rendering technology allows [us] to deliver hyperrealistic 3D visuals, which is essential for our clients in the luxury industry, such as Globe-Trotter,” says Marie Guilloton, Marketing Manager at SmartPixels. “Unity’s platform fits perfectly into SmartPixels’ production pipeline as it has proven to be easy and intuitive to use.”

XR and Real-time 3D: Gaming tech is the key

Unity’s legacy in mobile games places it in a unique position to help brands create XR applications. Mobile games are among the most technically challenging forms of media to create from a technical and engineering standpoint.

Games are mostly 3D, they are real-time, and they are interactive. The content is dynamic and responsive. Unity is the leading platform for creating and operating this type of media. And this is the foundation of all immersive experiences.

Our commitment to mobile game creators has always been grounded in the ethos of making real-time 3D technology accessible to all. The more accessible and easy-to-use the tech is, the more people will create with it. This concept now extends to brands as they embark on their journey into the metaverse.

Rethinking marketing workflows

Regain control of content creation

As well as powering the next-gen customer experiences, the tech behind XR – real-time 3D – also powers innovation in retail workflows. The crushing demand for content, specifically 3D content, is only going to accelerate as immersive experiences become the norm.

Brands are moving to a virtual photography infrastructure to automate the production of photorealistic 3D assets to support marketing and sales needs. With this workflow, Unity develops an automated asset ingestion pipeline to transform computer-aided design (CAD) models into 3D models.

The Unity platform makes it easy for marketing or content resources to create 3D assets in multiple configurations, with lighting scenes and camera angles applied. This easy-access tool allows nontechnical resources to generate 3D assets at scale for use in marketing and sales content, no developer or technical artist required. The output of the 3D asset can be anything from a model to support AR product exploration to high-resolution images for print and social media campaigns.

Easy-access workflows such as this are key to a brand’s success with immersive experiences. Making it possible for marketing teams to own 3D content creation workflows means they can feed the ever-hungry content beast without the need to scale up large teams of developers and 3D artists – a very compelling proposition in a time of major 3D technology skill scarcity.

Unleash creativity with digital asset libraries

Digital asset libraries are where the power of real-time 3D tech can truly liberate marketing teams and allow them to unleash their creativity. Once established, the workflow that facilitates import of CAD models and converts them into 3D product models provides marketers with 24/7 access to the latest digital product models in real-time 3D. While it takes time to build the initial asset library, the time and cost savings from creating marketing content are notable.

By building a digital asset library of product models, and an associated workflow that ensures the asset library is kept up to date with the latest product iterations, it’s possible to feed a marketing content pipeline with high-quality assets. This enables quick and easy creation of interactive experiences, such as 3D configurators, digital media, videos, animations, and virtual showrooms.

And a digital asset library can also meet traditional marketing content requirements for up-to-date product imagery to be used in printed materials such as photorealistic renders, booth banners, and brochures. These can be created quickly and easily by drawing on the visual assets available in the digital asset library.

Some customer efficiencies gained by building a digital asset library:

• €500,000+ savings in marketing content production costs
• Videos created in 4–6 weeks vs 4–6 months
• Hi-res 2D assets produced 7x faster

Read the case study

Now’s the time to level up

Similar to the early days of mobile, if you don’t move now your brand will be trapped in a constant state of “catch up.” It’s time to start making use of this consumer ecosystem by:

1. Creating a digital version of every product.

Build your 3D asset library – this is the foundation of immersive experiences.

2. Take ownership of the quality of product visuals and maintain control of the brand across the digital product lifecycle.

Use those assets to collapse the distance between your brand and your customers with interactive, personal experiences.

3. Become data rich.

Immersive interactions and brand touchpoints generate more consumer data than ever before. Beyond the insights captured when consumers are engaging with your XR experiences, you can see how they are customizing products. You could engage a new generation of customers in the product design process, allowing them to influence product development, with nothing more than their smartphones or headsets.

4. Unleash the brand from the confines of its physical stores and flat, 2D ecommerce experiences.

Immerse consumers in a fantastical brand story, educate them on how the products are designed and manufactured, let them personalize their products with help of a meta-stylist, spark excitement with immersive, personalized fashion shows – there are literally no limits to what an XR brand experience can be.

Now’s the time. Make your move.