CHINA. L’Oréal Travel Retail Asia Pacific recently introduced several Virtual Celebrity Avatars in an effort to revolutionise the physical and digital beauty experience across its brand portfolio.
In late 2022, the company hosted two Metaverse-driven campaigns for Viktor&Rolf and Lancôme incorporating the avatars.
The ‘Virtual KOLs’ combine real-life retailtainment with Metaverse experiences, enabling travellers to discover L’Oréal Travel Retail’s diverse portfolio of brands in a novel way.
Some of the Virtual Celebrity Avatars include Angelababy and Virtual KOL Ling. Ling is the fourth most popular virtual KOL in China and was recently featured in Vogue China.
In July 2022, Viktor&Rolf partnered with Shenzhen Duty Free and DFS Group to launch a statement pop-up in Times DF at Mission Hills Haikou. The animation featured an array of disruptive phygital experiences.
Angelababy showcased the pop-up to her fans via an O2O livestreaming event, where she highlighted Viktor&Rolf’s Flowerbomb and Spicebomb scents. Audiences were able to experience the augmented reality-powered Virtual Try-On room led by Angelababy’s Virtual Avatar, Angela3.0.
In a brand first, Viktor&Rolf invited Chinese KOLs CallmeVila, IamReddi and 虚拟人AliCE to visit the pop-up in Hainan and share their experiences via their Virtual KOLs.
Notably, the brand launched a record-breaking Viktor&Rolf Douyin challenge which reached over 42,000 participants and garnered a whopping 126 million impressions.
Lancôme partnered with CNSC to launch an experiential phygital pop-up called ‘Live the Unforgettable Happiness of Travel’ at the CNSC Sanya International Duty Free Plaza.
The animation featured a virtual world which recreated the physical pop-up store in the Metaverse. The Metaverse store featured the Virtual KOLs of Ling and Angie, who feature in an interactive story that took audiences on a tour of the pop-up and Hainan.
Lancôme created a dynamic frame-by-frame computer-generated animation of the two KOLs. Virtual KOLs often limit their collaboration to static imagery, due to the confidentiality of Metaverse codes. However, on this occasion, the two Virtual KOLs aligned their technology to create the animation.
The virtual travel VLOG was created from scratch, with two separate companies remodelling each second of the animation using motion capture to create an authentic travel documentary experience in the Metaverse.
At the physical pop-up, travellers received an in-depth skin analysis using the Lancôme SkinScreen, the latest beauty tech innovation from Lancôme. They also discovered Lancôme’s best-selling products, categorised for three stages of the travelling journey: before flight, inflight and at destination.
Lancôme’s Idôle fragrance was a special focus of the animation. The scent was highlighted via an immersive swing experience, powered by a 360-degree LED screen.
Travellers were asked to select their origin and calculate the number of miles it took to travel to Hainan and the resulting CO2 emissions. To offset these emissions, Lancôme teamed up with Haikou Luya Youth Public Welfare Development Center to plant 3,000 trees in Hainan. The trees were planted across 23 acres in Riyue Bay Beach in Wanning City. ✈
