It’s not surprising that holiday sales account for a significant amount of retailers’ annual sales. Brands are continually searching for engaging and entertaining campaigns to capitalize on drive holiday shopping and sales. A 3D virtual store offers a new experiential shopping format and serves as a viable sales channel. With a virtual experience, brands can create an environment that is modeled off of their retail store, a creative concept store or a completely fantastical location.
Impact on Virtual Holiday Shopping
Virtual holiday stores allow brands to create completely immersive and discovery-driven experiences packed with educational content, primed for the busy gifting season. With 3D content and innovative features such as gamification and gift recommendation quizzes, brands across verticals were able to increase engagement, conversion and reach during the busiest time of year.
Key benefits of virtual holiday stores include:
- A new and engaging virtual channel that stands out from other holiday campaigns
- Interactive and discovery-driven shopping experience that drives sales and marketing ROI
- Engaging features that connect consumers to the brand
- A one-stop shop to discover, research and purchase gifts with seamless e-commerce integration
- Lower production costs for CGI visuals compared to on-location shoots and brick-and-mortar displays
To learn more about how immersive experiences impact holiday sales, download our e-book comparing industry benchmarks from partner Salesforce to Obsess first-party data.
Examples of Virtual Holiday Stores
Obsess has worked with a number of brands and retailers to create memorable holiday virtual stores and experiences. Each experience featured fantastical displays and larger-than-life decorations, while maintaining core e-commerce functionality for an immersive and enriching online shopping experience that drives virtual holiday shopping. From brands in fashion and beauty to CPG and beyond, these unique e-commerce experiences are able to immerse holiday shoppers into a virtual world unique to the brand.
Here are 5 examples of Obsess-powered virtual holiday experiences:
J.Crew Virtual Ski Chalet
J.Crew launched a digital après-ski retreat to delve into the brand’s essence and seasonal offerings. Full of interactive elements and holiday-inspired ambiance, the innovative ski chalet merchandised the latest men’s and women’s collection in unique ways. Users would navigate to the Snow Lodge for the newest women’s styles, and the Ski Chalet for men’s—a curated selection of seasonal looks and holiday gifts were seamlessly woven into the experience, offering a fully shoppable journey that encouraged virtual holiday shopping.
To add an extra layer of excitement throughout the experience, the brand included dynamic animations and custom gamification that engaged shoppers and deepened consumer connections. Festive gamification included a scavenger hunt game, vintage video game-style Ski Racing Game and a branded quiz that tested shopper’s knowledge on the brand’s long and storied heritage. The scavenger hunt also unlocked a chance at an exclusive luxe cashmere giveaway, which prompted users to explore the entire store. Click to read more about the Holiday World of J.Crew.
Corona Holiday Beach Hut
Constellation Brand’s Corona invited new and longtime fans to Feliz Navi-Drip it like it’s hot with Snoop Dogg in their Holiday Beach Hut experience. The Mexican beer brand revitalized one of their famed holiday commercials into an immersive experience that transported visitors to the same palm tree-filled beach sunset environment. The experience amplified their holiday campaign in VR and enabled consumers to explore products and engage with the brand in new ways.
Fans dived into the holiday spirit with interactive features throughout the experience, such as a custom arcade-style ornament collection game. In the colorful string light laden beach hut, visitors were able to watch the aforementioned commercial and hang with brand ambassador Snoop Dogg. Using AR technology, visitors were able to take a picture with Snoop and create a custom, shareable holiday card. Visitors were also given a chance to match Snoop’s iconic look if they entered the sweepstakes to win a limited-edition Talia Coles robe. Read more about the virtual experiences Obsess has created with Corona, including the Holiday Beach Hut.
Sephora X Cosmopolitan Gifting Suite
Renowned Hearst publication Cosmopolitan collaborated with beauty retailer, Sephora, and released the Gifting Suite. The virtual holiday experience empowered users seeking a scent for personal indulgence or as a sophisticated gift to discover unique scent profiles for their holiday shopping needs. Redefining the fragrance content and online shopping experience, the immersive experience focused around personalized luxury and discovery.
Lined with chic twinkly lights and festive disco ball-covered trees, the suite featured a curated selection of scents directly shoppable in the experience and thoughtfully arranged by notes. Central to the experience was a Cosmo-esque quiz, where shoppers were invited to unravel the nuances of their fragrance preferences. Click to read more about the Sephora X Cosmopolitan Gifting Suite.
H-E-B Grocery Holiday Home
Step into the Holiday Home of beloved Texas-based grocery chain, H-E-B. An immersive wonderland of flavors, recipes and holiday products unfolded through interactive features and cheerful animations. Adorned with festive decorations, the Texas-style home featured multiple rooms ready for the holidays. Users were greeted by virtual chef avatars that guided shoppers through classic recipes, covering appetizers, mains, sides and desserts. Each recipe pop-up was complemented by shoppable links of H-E-B products, offering a seamless buying journey that allowed users to kick-start their holiday cooking.
The virtual experience also provided the brand with a platform to spotlight its philanthropic endeavors and rich history. An interactive scavenger hunt game engaged users through a discovery-driven educational adventure that unveiled facts about the brand and unlocked exclusive holiday deals. Read more about the virtual grocery shopping experience from H-E-B Grocery.
Laneige Virtual World
Korean beauty brand, Laneige, launched a dreamy virtual world that enabled shoppers to explore fan-favorite products and their brand story in a fully immersive context. The experience launched with discovery-driven games and a variety of rooms dedicated to different product lines, and enabled shoppers to interact with products in different ways, including 3D views and multimedia content around ingredients and application. The brand regularly updated the cloudscape to align with their marketing calendar, including a full seasonal refresh that reflected new offerings and product releases for the 2023 holiday season. Festive updates included limited-edition collections, new flavors of the iconic Lip Sleeping Mask and a revamp of the classic scavenger hunt game.
“The virtual store is a powerful customer engagement tool that will allow shoppers to dive into Laneige’s unique scientific expertise and entertaining digital content, while also helping them select the right product for their skin needs, including our bestselling Water Sleeping Mask and Lip Sleeping Mask,” quoted Julien Bouzitat, Chief Marketing and Digital Officer of Laneige parent company Amorepacific U.S. Read more about the Laneige Virtual World, and it’s continued evolution.
These examples only scratch the surface of the limitless possibilities that can go into a digital holiday experience. To find out more on how you can create your own holiday virtual experience, book a demo or email us at contact@obsessvr.com.
