So many new platforms and social media apps, such as Snapchat, are employing digital marketing in innovative ways. These often involve 3D modeling, visuals that are much more personable – namely, avatars – and easily consumable, keeping users engaged.
Snapchat continually makes steps towards an enhanced relationship with eCommerce by integrating with new platforms and brands.
When using apps such as Snapchat, users have the option to make avatars that represent an e-version of themselves.
Back in 2021, Snapchat filed a patent with fashion retailers to create Bitmoji (the avatar collaboration) wearing digitized garments. The new range of clothing on the app gave the partnered brands an opportunity to showcase their latest products in a fun and user-friendly way.
Avatar personalisation offers a powerful conversion opportunity for brands. By latching onto this shift towards more interactive digital marketing, brands could improve their sales.
Recently, Carhartt has joined the growing list of top brands building their own Bitmoji fashion collections for over 1 billion users. They included numerous high-street and high-end brands like Adidas, Converse, Nike, Jordan, Crocs, Levi’s, American Eagle, Off-White, Vans, and designers such as Ralph Lauren as clothing choices on Bitmoji, providing expanded branding potential for their products.
Snapchat has realised that using brands helps to sell, but not how to directly enable users to convert their Bitmoji clothing into real life purchases just yet. This is an experiment in the works.
Roblox has also jumped on this bandwagon and recognised how important digital marketing is.
Burberry partnered with the metaverse world of Roblox to launch a virtual handbag collection crafted from materials such as clouds and water. In July 2022, the Roblox Avatar Marketplace allowed these limited edition bags to be purchased. This partnership worked, as Burberry’s branding has a ‘long standing affinity for nature and the outdoors’ and Roblox is all about these aspects. The marketing method here just made sense. The two brands could increase exposure in tandem.
Nike also teamed up with Roblox to create a virtual world called Nikeland where users are able to dress up their avatars in Nike-branded sneakers and apparel.
Nikeland is a place to try out Nike’s new products and get insights into their consumers’ interest in the brand. It could also evoke new interest in new consumers.
Nike recently filed its own request with the U.S Patent and Trademark office to protect this flow or marketing named as a function of “downloadable virtual goods’. Clearly, Nike intends to offer digital products for shoppers as this strategy improves sales and increases interest.
Marketing and eCommerce is becoming harder as new innovation changes the ball game.
While consumers become inundated with products and services advertised online across all digital platforms it is hard to stand out amongst the noise. What is key is that new methods of digital marketing are always on your radar and ready to be employed.
Now you know about a new trend – how do you even start to prepare? Say you wanted to get on an avatar or be seen in a 3D digital world on the metaverse too?
For now, this may seem like an impossibility with how costly and inaccessible these partnerships appear. It will expand. Your time will come. For now, all you can do is stay educated with what’s new in marketing and have quality visual assets at the ready. These don’t just mean eCommerce shots. You need photographs from all angles in order to transform these into digital assets and 3D modeled ones.
These photographs can be taken at a studio such as KittyKat and transformed by a team of creatives post-production using softwares into the 3D digitalised versions you’re after on a platform such as KittyKat Lab.
We know marketing in this day and age is not an easy feat. It’s a constant game of catch up and keep up. At KittyKat, we are AAI-engineered to create these data-driven visuals that convert, saving companies time, money and guesswork.
Don’t underestimate the power of visual product content and the need for consistent content creation. Good visual content convinces consumers to take that next step when they see something they like. Investing in high-quality content creation is vital for business growth and higher conversion rates in today’s market.
