Augmented Reality (AR) activations by beauty brands has been one of the most dominant digital themes resonating in the beauty industry. ModiFace, a leader in augmented reality, is empowering many of these brands to share and explore beauty products on a more personal level. The result? Increased sales, higher user engagement and increased digital reach, says ModiFace. Here, some examples of how brands are leading the way with Modiface’s AR and live-casting technologies.
In just the last few months, ModiFace has launched deeply-embedded custom AR experiences for Sephora, Estée Lauder, Smashbox, Condé Nast and Clairol, among others. The activations provide for the first time a customized AR capability for users to preview beauty products on their own photos and videos. But they also serve an additional purpose: providing an advanced digital toolset that empowers users to explore and share their beauty journey.
For example, Sephora, who has been a significant driver of AR innovation throughout the beauty industry, recently launched live AR video tutorials. These tutorials provide a step-by-step set of visual instructions calibrated to the user’s live video in order to achieve specific personalized looks, including smoky eye, contouring and sculpting looks. By enabling users to see a tutorial unfold on their own live video, with them as the main star, users are more motivated to try and share the resulting experience. By itself, this would be a significant benefit for both customers and beauty brand. However, ModiFace went a step further to enable live-casting across all partner apps. Essentially, with live-casting, users can directly broadcast their video to YouTube and Facebook, enabling them to share their personalized tutorials with friends and add unique tips and insights to the video creation. In effect, every user becomes an influencer, empowered by their own AR try-on video, customized AR tutorial, and the ability to live-cast to Facebook and YouTube directly from the AR experience.
Another example is Estée Lauder, who recently enabled a live photo and video AR try-on capability deeply embedded in the product pages throughout the brand’s website. By enabling users to see different makeup shades on their video or photo at the point of purchasing, not only do customers get a better sense of what products are best for them, but they also can share their preferences with their family to gain further advice and encouragement. This in turn influences others to explore a particular product, resulting in increased product awareness. Given that a significant portion of AR users share their final photo or video, the resulting indirect influence can become significant.
There are many other examples of brands leveraging ModiFace’s AR technology to motivate user engagement and sharing. Clairol recently launched their MyShade mobile application to provide personalized advice and hair color previews for users. And more recently, Smashbox launched a web and mobile web video try-on application across their full portfolio of products. The central theme among all of these branded apps is the view that each customer is also an influencer, with success ultimately measured by both direct sales as well as indirect sales generated as a result of users sharing their AR videos and photos.
Additional use of this technology is expected over the next 12 months, especially with more and more brands using the combination of augmented reality and live-casting for increased sales and engagement.
