Things to consider when implementing Virtual & Augmented Reality, to boost engagement and brand awareness in the fashion industry.
Companies often choose to improve on existing features or incorporate new features into their mobile applications, in order to engage with their consumers, increase the awareness of their brand, as well as keep up with new trends and technologies.
Virtual (VR) and augmented (AR) reality, are ‘technologies that overlay digital information on objects or places in the real world for the purpose of enhancing the user experience’ (Berryman, 2012). This technology was first used in 1992, to develop a Virtual Fixtures system at the U.S Air Force’s Armstrong Laboratory (Rosenberg, 2002).
Since, many brands across all industries have adopted this technology in their marketing strategies in order to increase the customer experience and their brand awareness.
IKEA for example uses virtual and augmented reality to allow their consumers to visualise how IKEA products may look in their homes, assisting them to make a decision on whether or not it will fit in with their current living space (Economist, 2017).
fig. 1 – IKEA’s advertisements showing their mobile application feature using Virtual and Augmented Reality ‘Place’, in use.
Looking more within the fashion industry…
Shoe brand Converse have also developed a virtual and augmented reality ‘Shoe Sampler’ application, allowing their consumers to instantly visualise how the various types and colours of Converse shoes may look on their feet (Mishra, 2018). The application also allows the consumer to capture what they are seeing and share this on social media for their friends and family to comment on, assisting them on making a decision to purchase Converse’s products (Mishra, 2018). Not only does the Shoe Sampler use augmented and virtual reality technology to increase the customer experience and increase their brand awareness, but it also contributes to driving e-commerce sales (Mishra, 2018).
fig. 2 – A youtube video demonstrating the use of Converse’s mobile application using Virtual and Augmented Reality, ”Shoe Sampler’.
Looking at the success of Converse’s Shoe Sampler application in engaging with consumers and increasing brand awareness, what is important to know about how to use augmented and virtual reality technology to achieve something similar with your fashion brands?
- You will need to create a default figure
When developing a virtual or augmented reality feature, the digital content that you wish to be projected will need a default figure to attach itself to, whether it be a virtual image of a dress attaching itself onto a default figure of a woman or a hat onto a figure of a head (University of Bath, 2011). - Creating your content will take you some time
This is especially the case with fashion brands. The more products you wish to include in your augmented or virtual reality feature, the more products you will need to create digital versions of, in order to project them in your content (University of Bath, 2011). - Mapping your products to your figure
Similar to the issue of creating content taking a great amount of time to complete; once this has been done, each digital version of the product that has been created will then have to be mapped against the default figure. For example, each digital image of each clothing item that a brand sells, will have to mapped to the exact points of a default body figure on the AR feature allowing for the clothing to move as the figure moves (University of Bath, 2011). - Coding is not for everyone
Coding can prove to be a tricky and tedious task especially for those who are not expertly trained in the skill. You may need to spend a great amount of time in order to be trained successfully in coding, otherwise sourcing this task externally can be very costly to your fashion business. If the coding of the AR or VR feature is carried out incorrectly, the error could take just as long to correct, thus a high chance of your launch date being delayed (University of Bath, 2011).
REFERENCES
Berryman, D. (2012). Augmented Reality: A Review. Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 31(2), pp.212-218.
Economist (2017). IKEA undertakes some home improvements. [online] The Economist. Available at: https://www.economist.com/business/2017/11/02/ikea-undertakes-some-home-improvements.
MISHRA, G. (2018). How Augmented Reality Is Transforming Retail. [online] business.com. Available at: https://www.business.com/articles/ar-transforming-retail-experience/.
Rosenberg, L. (2002). Virtual fixtures: Perceptual tools for telerobotic manipulation. Proceedings of IEEE Virtual Reality Annual International Symposium, pp.76-82.
University of Bath (2011). Augmented Reality for Smartphones. A Guide for developers and content publishers. Bath: UKOLN, University of Bath, pp.1-54.
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