L’Oréal "phygital" experiences redefine beauty in travel retail

By combining real-life retailtainment with metaverse experiences, L’Oréal allows travelers to experience its diverse portfolio of brands and their iconic products in new, cutting-edge and more engaging ways.

The Group aims to continue pushing the boundaries of creative expression in the virtual world, creating unforgettable and shareable experiences for consumers as it defines the future of beauty in the metaverse including the use of Virtual Celebrity Avatars and virtual KOLs.

Viktor&Rolf Fragrances outdoor media panel takeover

Viktor&Rolf immersive "phygital" fragrance experience

Viktor&Rolf collaborated with DFS in July 2022 on a statement pop-up in Haikou, introducing consumers to its iconic fragrances via an immersive "phygital" experience. The brand’s pop-up store in DFS Mission Hills, Hainan, was officially unveiled together with spokesperson and Hong Kong model, actress and singer, Angelababy via an O+O livestreaming event, where she introduced the brand’s Flowerbomb and Spicebomb fragrances. Consumers could virtually experience the AR virtual try-on room via her online avatar, Angela3.0!

For the first time ever, Viktor&Rolf also invited virtual KOLs like CallmeVila, IamReddi and 虚拟人AliCE to Hainan which showcased the seamless integration of the metaverse with the offline pop-up. The Viktor&Rolf-branded Douyin challenge broke records, amassing over 42,000 participants and 126,000,000 impressions.

Brand Hero Genifique Serum with pre & pro-biotic fractions was highlighted throughout the consumer journey

Lancôme "in-flight zone" featured a number of skincare routines to combat in-flight skin stressors

Lancôme amplifies brand experiences with virtual KOLs

Inspiring consumers to "Live the unforgettable happiness of travel" in 2022, Lancôme partnered with leading duty free retailer CNSC on an experiential pop-up "celebrating the wonders of travel to spread wanderlust across Sanya," reads the press release.

Creating a new virtual world and allowing consumers to experience it as if in real life, this one-of-a-kind virtual immersion recreated the full experience of a physical pop-up in the metaverse.

Using two virtual KOLs Ling and Angie consumers navigate with the two friends together across Hainan, sharing their experience at the CNSC pop-up to inspire other travelers.

Lancôme broke technology barriers by creating a dynamic frame-by-frame Computer Generated animation featuring virtual KOLs from two different technology companies. Due to the confidentiality of virtual KOL code and modeling techniques, virtual KOLs often limit their collaborations to static visuals.

According to the team, to create an interactive story between the pair of virtual KOLs, it was first necessary to align the underlying technology and determine a set of technical languages that could be shared by both parties to realize the video interaction. The travel VLOG was created from scratch, remodelling each second of the animation using technical processes of motion capture, coloring, material processing, as well as light and shadow adjustment to recreate an authentic travel experience of friends in the metaverse.

Beyond enjoying an in-depth skin analysis via Lancôme’s Skinscreen machine, as well as exploring the brand’s iconic products throughout the three stages of a journey (pre-flight, in-flight and at destination), consumers also discovered the newly launched Idole Fragrance and enjoyed an immersive swing experience through the treetops of Hainan powered by a 360-degree LED screen.

Following the campaign, Lancôme collaborated with the Haikou Luya Youth Public Welfare Development Center to plant 3,000 trees, as part of the brand’s focus to create purpose-led experiences and provide greater meaning to the online-offline metaverse experience.

While at the pop-up, consumers were asked to select their travel origin using an interactive LED screen which calculated the number of miles each consumer had traveled to Sanya, and the resulting CO2 emissions. Together with Haikou Luya Youth Public Welfare Development Center, 3,000 Coast Oak trees were planted across 23 acres of land in Riyue Bay Beach, Wanning City, to offset consumers’ carbon footprint.