L’Oréal Travel Retail Asia Pacific says it is ‘revolutionising beauty experiences for travellers’,  with the use of avatars and virtual KOLs.

 

The group aims to continue pushing ‘phygital’ boundaries through its celebrity avatars and virtual KOLs, such as Ling, who has been engaged in multiple brand collaborations and even appeared on the cover of Vogue China.

 

For example, L’Oréal fragrance brand Viktor&Rolf collaborated with DFS in July 2022 on a pop-up in Haikou, introducing consumers to fragrances via another phygital experience.

 

The brand’s pop-up store in DFS Mission Hills, Hainan, was officially unveiled together with spokesperson Angelababy via an O+O livestreaming event, where she introduced the brand’s Flowerbomb and Spicebomb fragrances. Customers were also able to 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.

 

Another example can be found for Lancôme, which partnered with Chinese retailer, CNSC on an experiential pop-up in Sanya, hoping to inspire customers to ‘Live the unforgettable happiness of travel’ in 2022.

 

“Using two virtual KOLs Ling and Angie, consumers navigate with the two friends together at the luxurious tropical destination of Hainan, sharing their experience at the CNSC pop-up to inspire more travellers,” said L’Oréal.

 

“Lancôme broke technology barriers by creating a dynamic frame-by-frame Computer Generated (CG) animation featuring virtual KOLs from two different technology companies.

 

“Due to the confidentiality of virtual KOL code and modelling techniques, virtual KOLs normally limit their collaborations to static visuals.

 

To create an interactive story between the two 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 realise the video interaction.”

 

Beyond enjoying an in-depth skin analysis via Lancôme’s Skinscreen machine, consumers also discovered the newly launched Idole Fragrance and enjoyed an immersive ‘swing’ 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 lending even greater meaning to the online-offline Metaverse experience.

 

 

While in 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 travelled 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.