This article is a sponsored feature in collaboration with Facebook.
Facebook held a recent conference on the potential of virtual and augmented reality for luxury. About 50 luxury C-level executives, who joined from five cities, were invited to a virtual reality playback of Hacker Square, Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, on May 27 with Oculus Facebook headphones Quest 2.
The aim of the conference: to show luxury executives the power and potential of augmented and virtual reality, in which Facebook invests, and to give them the opportunity to connect virtually after a year of social distancing. The one-hour event was a mix of presentations, 360 videos and talks, on stage in a movie theater or an old place in Italy. The program included a talk with Alex Himel, vice president of Facebook Reality Labs from California, and a conversation with Dominik Gruber, director of marketing for Porsche France.
Facebook’s luxury team showed examples of how RV allows customers to attend a fashion show, visit a workshop or a historic site restored by a brand from the comfort of their home, thus redefining access. An example: fashion professionals received Oculus headphones for the Balenciaga autumn / winter 2021 trade fair held in November 2020. The experience allowed guests to “turn to the people around them and study their language body and clothing, ”said Violaine Gressier, Facebook’s global manager of the luxury industry, thus breaking down the barriers between the digital and the physical world. A different approach to virtual reality came from Prada, which created a 3D video detailing the brand’s heritage and craftsmanship, with virtual reality creating a more immersive experience than just watching a video.
“Virtual reality is at a turning point,” Himel said. “It’s becoming more social: multiplayer games are booming, fitness is becoming a new vertical, people are starting to imagine how to use RVs as a work device. And of course, all this activity means that RV developers can make money. It is used to accelerate collaboration in design teams; train surgeons; NFL quarterbacks or different athletes use it to prepare for games. In the future, we believe that virtual reality can fundamentally change the way we work. “
In general, tech companies, including Facebook, invest more in tools to help brands sell on their platforms and help customers buy on them as well. AR, one of the areas explored by Facebook Reality Labs, combines real and virtual worlds and extends to home decor and clothing after the adoption of beauty and automotive brands through virtual testing and immersive personalization features . Facebook’s Spark AR platform allows creators, brands and developers to create AR effects for the Facebook ecosystem, including Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger. Some 600 million people already use RA on all devices, Himel said. Some “success stories” were shared: Louis Vuitton accompanied his collaboration with popular sport League of Legends which involves virtual and real clothing with an AR campaign, with great success: 6.1 million impressions, i.e. tests and visualizations, for your AR stories.