Obsess has been acquired by Infinite Reality. Learn more [here](https://www.theinfinitereality.com/news/infinite-reality-enters-into-definitive-agreement-to-acquire-virtual-shopping-platform-obsess).
Obsess has been acquired by Infinite Reality. Learn more [here](https://www.theinfinitereality.com/news/infinite-reality-enters-into-definitive-agreement-to-acquire-virtual-shopping-platform-obsess).
Virtual experiences for holiday help brands and retailers transform the online shopping experience into an interactive retail environment. An immersive VR holiday shopping experience is a 360, digital, interactive shopping destination dressed for the holidays to drive shopper engagement, sales and strengthen online communities during the busiest retail season.
With immersive holiday activations, brands have the opportunity to create innovative, 3D activations that leave a lasting impact during the busiest time of the year. Virtual retailing solutions increase shopper engagement, expand brand relevance and elevate product education to inform buyer decisions—which is especially impactful in driving sales during the hyper-competitive holiday season. Showcase brand moments and seasonal collections in a dynamic and highly-visual environment. As a one-stop shop to discover, research and purchase gifts, VR holiday experiences have helped brands drive impressive results in engagement, reach, conversion and ROI on holiday marketing campaigns. Brands can boost engagement during peak shopping season by including elevated features such as personalized quizzes to offer tailored gift suggestions or gamification that promotes product discovery.
3D e-commerce experiences transform how shoppers interact with brands and products, deepening consumer connections—such as with curated gift guides fit for the holidays. Expand brand relevance during the holiday season by including immersive technologies that resonate with consumers, such as virtual holiday pop-ups. Launch virtual holiday pop-up shops to build buzz around curated seasonal collections and brand moments. Brands can pair virtual pop-ups with physical activations to amplify reach and extend ROI through an omnichannel experience.
Immersive virtual holiday experiences offer brands a unique opportunity to empower consumer purchasing decisions through visual shopping functionality such as 3D product customization. Brands can also improve conversion in virtual holiday experiences by embedding interactive videos and multimedia content that enhances product education and storytelling opportunities.
Download the Virtual Experiences for Holiday one pager to learn more about how VR holiday experiences boost engagement, expand brand relevance and elevate education for new product launches.
Leading brands in fashion, beauty, CPG and beyond have leveraged Obsess-powered virtual holiday experiences to maximize impact during the busy retail season. Book a demo or email us at contact@obsessvr.com to engage holiday shoppers in interactive and immersive VR holiday experiences.
To start off our “Meet the Leadership Team” initiative, we would like to introduce John Mann, the Chief Technology Officer at Obsess. We asked John to share some highlights from his remarkable journey in the technology industry and some insights he’s gathered over the years. Here’s what he had to say:
Q. Could you share some highlights of your professional experience and how that path led you to Obsess today?
JM: Absolutely. My journey to Obsess was somewhat random. I had worked at a FinTech company three jobs prior, and during COVID, I was the CTO of two different companies simultaneously. When they decided to move in a different direction, I was let go and started job hunting. Through a network connection, I ended up building 5G networks and software for the government, which was completely outside of the retail space. However, I soon realized that wasn’t what I wanted to do—I missed the web development world and the startup environment.
That’s when I came across Obsess. Within a two-day window, I learned about retail, fashion and three.js, and I knew this was exactly what I wanted to pursue. My job search helped me realize what I didn’t want to do, and ultimately, it led me to Obsess, where I found the best engineering team I’ve ever worked with.
Before this, I worked at Microsoft for seven years, where I was involved in some significant projects like Xbox Live sign-up, Windows Live sign-up and even touched the Hotmail sign-up early in my career. I also worked on MSN internet access (yes, dial-up!) and had a brief stint at Getty Images, among other projects. After that, I fell in love with startups—working on everything from insurance to compliance software, travel advertisements and even parts management for planes. After trying corporate life post-Microsoft, I realized it wasn’t for me and have been in startups ever since.
Q. What initially inspired you to enter the tech space, and what continues to motivate you today?
JM: My initial inspiration came from a friend of mine. I’ve been coding since I was nine years old. I started with a Commodore VIC-20, then a Commodore 64, and coding became a hobby throughout high school and into college. A friend of mine, Donovan (I have to give him credit!), asked me why I wasn’t studying computer science. At that point, I didn’t think I could make a living coding, but when I realized it was a real job, I thought, “I’m going to write code whether I get paid or not—so why not get paid to do it?” Donovan even got me my first job out of college.
As for what continues to motivate me, it’s the constant learning process. For example, I’ve recently learned three.js and now work on 3D retail stores. Then, with the launch of Apple Vision Pro, I started exploring SwiftUI for its operating system. Each new tech stack excites me, and I love learning enough about it to teach it, which allows me to see its strengths and weaknesses. That passion for learning and teaching keeps me going.
Q. The launch of Apple Vision Pro was a huge moment for Obsess, developing the first-ever shopping apps on the device. How do you see the future of virtual reality and augmented reality evolving for brands, and what opportunities will this technology create, both in retail and beyond?
JM: I think the big advantage in the VR and AR world, is not just the information you’ll have access to in those spaces, it’s the virtual connections that you have—the social environment—and adding that to shopping. In Soho you see so many tourists, not shopping by themselves, but shopping with groups, and they like that social “Hey, what do you think of this?” “Do you like this outfit?” “Oh, let’s go to this store”. That social component is going to be so critical in the VR space, and the headsets actually allow you to emulate pretty closely, to be next to the person, and have that level of connection. I think that’s going to be huge. I think that’s the big future of shopping in the VR space.
Q. I can definitely see the social aspect transforming the shopping experience. Now, onto another hot topic—AI. How is Obsess currently integrating AI into its virtual experiences, and what are some key ways AI will shape the future of these experiences?
JM: We’re already using AI in several areas, from scene and store design to generating 3D models of products. We’re also working on AI-powered virtual store associates that interact with customers, offering personalized recommendations like, “Is this makeup right for me?” or “Does this dress suit me?”. The advancement of generative AI in the last year has been remarkable, making it 5 to 10 times better than it was just a year ago.
Looking forward, AI will shape experiences through faster generation and personalization. For instance, it could analyze shopping habits to make tailored product recommendations, similar to how Spotify personalizes music suggestions. Imagine a retail experience where AI recommends items based on your shopping history, preferences and trends—creating an entirely personalized experience. Of course, there are privacy concerns and compliance issues like GDPR and CCPA, but AI-driven personalization will be a game-changer in retail.
Q. Absolutely, personalization is going to be huge. Lastly, Obsess has worked with many leading brands across fashion, beauty, CPG and more, creating over 350 virtual experiences to date. Is there a particular experience or project that best showcases the technological strengths of the Obsess platform?
JM: There have been a lot of amazing projects, but one that stands out is Crate & Barrel. The realism we were able to achieve, from the store transitions to the rooftop views, and the ability to change scenes inside the store—it was remarkable. The way our platform managed the products, environments and interactions all came together seamlessly. Another highlight was our work on J.Crew’s app for Apple Vision Pro. That was one of the most complex and exciting projects I’ve ever worked on. The photorealistic environments, the ability to change outfits and interact with the mannequins—it was truly immersive. J.Crew on Apple Vision Pro was a whole new level, and despite being a brand-new operating system, we pulled it off with a lot of hard work and fun.
Every year, brands invest in stunning, festive campaigns such as over-the-top brick-and-mortar displays and interactive pop-up experiences to capture shopper’s attention, highlight seasonal collections and drive sales during the holiday season. With virtual holiday pop-up experiences, brands get the best of both worlds: digital extravagance and engaging interactivity in immersive pop-up experiences primed for the busy shopping season. Plus, as an added bonus, a virtual plane to showcase holiday campaign assets.
Pair physical holiday pop-up activations with a digital counterpart to maximize the ROI and extend its reach, or create a standalone virtual holiday pop-up filled with decor and features only possible in the digital realm to engage shoppers. See how leading brands in fashion, beauty, CPG and more have worked with Obsess to create virtual pop-up experiences for their holiday campaign mix.
6 Virtual Brand Pop-ups for Holiday Online Shopping
Coach Virtual Holiday Gift Shop
Open for the holidays, Coach unveiled an ultra-engaging, highly-gamified virtual pop-up store set in a retro gift shop for shoppers on their direct-to-consumer e-commerce site. The virtual experience showcased products form the brand’s holiday collection, and featured several engaging features such as a mascot scavenger hunt game and the ability to shop with friends via live video feeds. Combining technology, innovation and creativity, Coach won a Webby Award in Retail and Shopping in the Metaverse, Immersive and Virtual Category for this virtual holiday experience.
E.l.f. Cosmetics Virtual Holiday Workshop
The e.l.f.z worked their holiday magic with the Virtual Workshop by e.l.f. Cosmetics, coating every virtual corner with glitter and the “most OMG gifts” of the season. The virtual holiday pop-up shop enabled visitors to discover must-have beauty stocking stuffers and digital branded mini games like a matching game built into a red sequin wall. The virtual playscape was primed for shopping during the busy gifting season, with each product available for purchase directly in the workshop. Spotlighting the Sleigh the Holiday Gift Finder, shoppers could find their perfect present with a three-question quiz.
Elizabeth Arden Holiday Experience
Revlon beauty brand, Elizabeth Arden, routinely refreshes the products and decor in their virtual experience, leveraging visual merchandising to highlight new products. For the holiday season, they showcased their curated gift sets, wrapped neatly in red and gold. Outside, visitors were greeted with a flurry of snow. Inside, they were met with festive decor, a personalized skincare quiz, new branded online games such as a two-level matching game and their infamous AI-generated gallery-style exhibit to showcase the brand’s history through AI-enhanced archival footage.
Rao’s Virtual Holiday Saucery Pop-up
Legendary specialty foods brand Rao’s immortalized their IRL pop-up experience with a digital twin—later revealing a holiday version of the Virtual Saucery as part of their seasonal marketing campaign. The Virtual Holiday Saucery Pop-up shop empowered users to explore the brand’s best in glass products and get lost in the sauce, learning more about their premium portfolio and difference. Shoppers were immersed into Rao’s virtual brand world with seasonal decor, animated cheer and interactive features such as their custom digital jigsaw puzzle game and holiday giveaway challenge.
Crocs Virtual Holiday Pop-up Shop
Screenshot
Adding to their troupe of virtual pop-ups, including their innovative Jibbitz experience, Crocs created a virtual 3D holiday experience—decking the halls with boughs of holly and seasonal Jibbitz. When entering, users could take a quiz for suggestions on the perfect present, directing them to thematic rooms with the recommended products; from glitzy, disco balls to pink, fuzzy walls, each room emphasized the personality of the famed shoe charms in it. To further engage visitors of the experience, Crocs also included media assets from their holiday campaign and a custom branded game to catch Jibbitz for an exclusive prize.
Laura Mercier World of Beauty: Holiday Edition
Stocking stuffers and gift sets galore, the Laura Mercier World of Beauty virtual experience got a stunning, festive makeover for the holidays. Sporting new animations and decor, the temporary look showcased the Orveon brand’s seasonal collection alongside engaging, fan-favorite features of the original experience. Visitors could still play the scavenger hunt game, take a custom color quiz and try on personalized product recommendations with AR technology. As always, each product was available for purchase directly in the virtual experience—users could even add full looks from their color quiz results and the Virtual Try-On feature.
Immersive holiday pop-up experiences are a powerful tool for brands looking to engage shoppers in new and exciting ways. Focused on personalization and engagement, these highly-visual experiences are transforming holiday online shopping. To learn more about how to stand out this holiday season with interactive virtual holiday pop-up experiences, book a demo or email contact@obsessvr.com.
Virtualized retail stores are fully shoppable, 3D digital twins of brick-and-mortars, enabling brands to recreate IRL locations in dynamic, virtual environments and amplify the reach. These online replicas combine the intuitive in-person shopping experience with the convenience of virtual, enabling shoppers to explore, browse and shop at exact locations from all around the world. Shoppers can navigate the store just as they would in real life and interact with products from their fingertips.
These virtual experiences extend the ROI of physical locations, expanding a brand’s reach with 24/7 accessibility, increasing engagement and conversion rates by bringing real-world aesthetics to a highly engaged online audience across verticals. But how do brands virtualize their retail storefronts? And what does the process look like?
We sat with Obsess’ Director of Content, Melissa Molina, to discuss the top three asked questions about virtualizing a retail store and the role our team plays in the creation of these digital twins.
How Can Brands Create a Digital Twin of a Physical Store?
Molina: To virtualize a retail store location, we recreate the physical store with photography. First: we gather reference images of the store, floor plan and square footage to get an idea of how big the store is. Based on that, we provide recommendations and a timeline for how long the process will take before coordinating a time with the brand’s on-site store team and our network of specialized photographers to begin the shoot.
A member of the Obsess team is always onsite to direct the photoshoot, working with our photographers to mark viewpoints, ensure the store is perfect from every angle and prioritize any focus areas or hero collections. Our photographers will shoot multiple shots in each direction to capture the smallest details, and then stitch them together for a seamless 360-degree effect. We work with the onsite team to update everything for an ideal, mobile-friendly user journey. This ensures the journey feels natural and the end user is able to move around, explore and discover products freely. That’s the joy of shopping in person that we try to translate over to the photographed digital twin.
Once shoots are complete, our team builds out the digital twin in our proprietary CMS, AVA, and works with the brand to ensure all products are shoppable. Prior to launch, we also dedicate resources to ensure that all content within the store is of the utmost quality and functioning smoothly—including embedded media and campaign assets, plus e-commerce and other third-party integrations.
How Long Does it Take to Virtualize a Retail Store?
Molina: We’ve turned around virtual retail stores in as little as just a couple of weeks! The launch timeline is dependent on a lot of different factors, including the size of the store. With larger stores that have more complex layouts, for example: it can take us a little longer. Typically, we deliver a photographed, shoppable store from end-to-end within 8-12 weeks from a brand signing with us.
Is There a Limit on the Space that Brands Can Digitize?
Molina: There are no limitations–we can really shoot everything! We’ve shot large, multi-level stores with intricate layouts, and have digitized it all. Over the years, we’ve perfected this process, launching more than 100 digital twins, ranging from flagship locations and showrooms, to pop-up activations for leading brands in fashion, beauty, CPG, media and more.
Ready to scale your physical presence and engage a new audience of digitally-native shoppers with virtualized retail stores? Find out more by booking a demo or emailing us at contact@obsessvr.com.
In the ever-evolving landscape of digital commerce, the line between physical and virtual continues to blur. As brands navigate this hybrid reality, understanding consumer behavior within these new spaces becomes a critical data point. Enter: AVA Analytics, an innovative tool designed by Obsess to bring a new dimension of insight into 3D virtual experiences.
Imagine walking through an immersive virtual store, with each step and gaze tracked to create a more intuitive and engaging environment for users. Every interaction within these experiences is translated into data and visualized through AVA Analytics. Obsess’s proprietary metrics dashboard doesn’t just display numbers; it reveals patterns, behaviors, and preferences, enabling businesses to optimize their virtual storefronts with the same precision they would in a physical space.
At the core of AVA Analytics is the concept of spatial and behavioral analytics. It operates beyond counting clicks or tracking time spent on a page. It’s about understanding how users move through a 3D environment, what catches their eye, and how they interact with products in a space. The dashboard is foundationally supported by Google Analytics 4, integrating traditional web data with a new layer of spatial intelligence.
Obsess, in partnership with some of the world’s leading brands and retailers, has created over 350 virtual experiences. Through these, AVA Analytics has become a powerful tool, transforming raw data into actionable insights that every team member—from marketers to product designers—can use to make informed decisions.
Consider the engagement data: sessions, visitors, pages viewed, session length, product clicks, and more. This data represents the pulse of your virtual store, telling you who your customers are and what they’re doing. It isn’t static; it’s dynamic, offering insights over any selected time period, allowing businesses to track trends and adjust strategies in real time.
3D Spatial Heatmaps are among the most advanced features of AVA Analytics. They provide a bird’s-eye view of your store, where you can see exactly where visitors are spending their time. It’s akin to having a thermal map of customer interest, showing you the hot zones where products are drawing attention and the cold zones where they’re being ignored. This helps ensure that high-engagement areas are maximized for both customer satisfaction and sales.
Product and content performance metrics go even deeper. AVA Analytics allows you to see how visitors interact with specific hotspots within the virtual store. This means you can identify which products, pieces of content, or navigational arrows are engaging your audience most effectively. It’s about creating a virtual space that isn’t just visually appealing but also intuitively designed to guide visitors to what they want.
Finally, audience demographics and behavior provide a comprehensive view of who your visitors are and where they’re coming from. Detailed insights into geographic location, device distribution, and traffic sources are at your fingertips, offering a level of customer understanding that was previously unattainable in virtual environments.
In the ever-evolving landscape of digital advertising, brands and retailers are continuously looking for ways to capture new audiences—and Roblox is amping up the advertising game with immersive ads on their platform. With nearly 80 million daily active users, the gaming platform is prime real estate to get more eyeballs. Roblox, a platform known for its user-generated games and social interactions, offers a unique canvas for advertisers seeking to captivate younger, tech-savvy audiences.
Immersive Marketing Capabilities on Roblox
Branded Roblox experiences are revolutionizing the way companies engage with younger generations, and immersive advertising functionality enables them to extend their reach across virtual spaces by directly integrating ads into the experience. Blending seamlessly into the gaming environment, advertisers are able to reach new audiences without disrupting gaming flow and connect new, highly-engaged users to their brand experience.
Roblox’s ad system supports 3 formats:
Video ads – where advertisers can serve up to 30 seconds of video content for users to watch in-experience, videos can be both click-to-play or set to autoplay
Image ads – insert static, non-clickable images within the 3D space; think of a virtual, in-game billboard for Roblox brand experiences
Portal ads – a static, non-clickable image with a door to teleport users into an advertiser’s brand experience, driving discoverability and engagement at scale
Brands and retailers can opt for always-on engagement, creating evergreen content to market an evolving brand world, or campaign focused creatives that entice users to explore themed experiences or events—allowing brands to experiment and find innovative ways to capture their audience’s attention.
Each ad format allows for highly targeted advertising, ensuring that the ads are relevant to the audience and enhancing the chances of engagement. Ad content is dynamic and specific to the user—if a user is ineligible to see ads, ad units will default to display the Roblox logo.
amika on Roblox: Virtual Advertising
Haircare brand, amika, debuted their Roblox brand collaboration with Obsess, a colorful playscape embodying the brand’s commitment to inclusion, responsibility and sustainability. The amikaverse is a community-centric extension of the brand’s purpose filled with custom branded mini-games and exclusive UGCs that empower self-expression. To drive traffic to the experience, amika included immersive ads in Roblox, pushing new users to the amikaverse through the use of portal ads. By teleporting users to their virtual world with portal ads, amika was able to scale their discoverability and maximize their reach on the platform.
Natively placed ads in the immersive environment allows advertisers to strengthen their Roblox brand partnerships by building brand affinity with leaned-in audiences across the platform, connecting new users to their brand experiences and building their brand on Roblox.
Gamification can be leveraged to uplevel a brand’s marketing strategy—creating engaging, novelty experiences that captivate the end user. The use of game design elements, in traditionally non-gaming contexts, creates an interactive experience that is unique and memorable. Immersive, gamified experiences have been proven to boost shopper engagement, increase time spent with your brand and deepen consumer relationships with your products and services.
By tapping into the psychological principles of gamification, like competition, achievement and recognition, brands and retailers can captivate shoppers with custom branded experiences. Custom gamification as a marketing strategy enables brands and retailers to retain customer loyalty and increase retention, gain robust consumer insights and increase brand education.
Customer Loyalty and Retention
Brands and retailers can utilize custom mini-games to simultaneously create memorable brand experiences, and encourage customers to return and engage with your brand more often. Using game-like rewards and challenges can incentivize long-term engagement and retention by tapping into consumers’ natural drive for competition, achievement and recognition.
Korean beauty brand, Laneige, incorporated gaming elements into their Virtual World prompting users to discover numerous products, the brand’s scientific background and marketing campaign assets. The featured Scavenger Hunt game encouraged users to explore the experience in order to find hidden icons, leading to a reward upon completion: a 5-piece gift with purchase.
Gain Consumer Insights
Gamification methods, such as product recommendation quizzes, provide rich zero-party data by capturing direct feedback from customers, offering detailed insights into their preferences, needs and behaviors that can fine-tune your marketing and product development strategy.
Obsess brand partner, Olaplex, utilized branded quizzes to gain zero-party data in their Virtual Salon with their Hair Diagnostic questionnaire; the interactive quiz provided users with a curated hair regimen full of the brand’s products, based on their answers. By filling out the questionnaire, consumers are providing the brand with data they otherwise would not have, allowing Olaplex to capture in-depth information on what their audience is looking for.
Immersive gamified experiences also enable brands to capture robust first-party data such as in-scene behavior. Brands are able to access information such as which product displays are the most appealing, and what their most popular offerings are based on how shoppers engage with different products and pages.
Increased Brand Education
Immersing shoppers into your virtual world helps with brand education and recall. Virtual stores and experiences are a unique and memorable forum for you to host educational content around your brand’s story and offerings. Including custom gamification, such as interactive quizzes and games, simplifies complex product details and campaigns, and turns them into engaging experiences that help your customers retain key information about your brand.
For example, in honor of J.Crew’s 40th anniversary the classic American fashion retailer partnered with Obsess to release a Virtual Beach House. The immersive flagship experience showcased the brand’s products in classic J.Crew print-themed rooms, and commemorated the brand’s heritage with exclusive content and custom gamification such as the Catalog Cover Pop Quiz where users were encouraged to test their J.Crew knowledge. The fashion brand later refreshed their Virtual World to celebrate their holiday campaign, aligning with their marketing calendar.
Gamification is a powerful brand marketing tool that brands and retailers can use to uplevel their strategy. Explore gamification in Obsess-powered experiences and learn how innovative brands like yours can deploy gamification tactics into your marketing strategy. To talk to one of our specialists, email us at contact@obsessvr.com or book a demo.
Retail market trends are ever-evolving, influenced by shifting consumer behaviors, technological advancements and cultural dynamics. A speaker at The Lead Summit 2024 in New York City even noted they’re seeing consumer trends shift every three months—quicker than ever. Between Shoptalk Barcelona, VivaTech and The Lead Summit, Obsess has identified three key market trends experts deemed essential for brands to foster deeper connections and reach consumers wherever they are.
1. The Creator Economy Boom
In a world where attention is sparse and equivalent to currency, consumer connection is vital to brand longevity. Nowadays, brand marketers face a delicate balancing act between compelling storytelling and connecting with shoppers by allowing them to share their own experiences.
At this year’s VivaTech and The Lead Summit, the booming creator economy was a hot topic, highlighting the intersection of technology and creativity in gaming, virtual reality, music, and entertainment. Valued at $100 billion, the creator economy continues to grow with over 50 million established creators worldwide. Discussions emphasized how AI algorithms are helping brands build personalized narratives and how new platforms are redefining content creation.
For example, Obsess notes the rise of Roblox as a dominant force in this growing creator economy. With its massive user base and immersive experiences, Roblox offers brands a new way to engage with audiences. Additionally, initiatives like Roblox’s $35 million Creator Fund demonstrate its commitment to attracting creative talent beyond traditional gaming, and brands are starting to leverage this potential to connect with a highly receptive audience.
2. Unified Commerce & Experience Innovation
Understanding how to engage customers across various touchpoints is essential for encouraging both new and repeat business. One of the key topics discussed at Shoptalk Barcelona this year was unified commerce, a shift also highlighted by Ben Miller, VP of Original Content & Strategy at Shoptalk, and covered by Coresight Research. Retailers are moving from a channel-centric to a consumer-centric approach. Modern retail must integrate all channels into one real-time ecosystem to provide the best consumer experience, allowing shoppers to buy from a brand wherever they are and whenever they want.
This underscores the need for a unified tech stack to drive purchase efficiencies and keep consumers engaged at every touchpoint. Creating memorable, cross-platform experiencesenhances the value of brand activations and increases ROI, ultimately building a unified brand experience and strengthening the customer’s long-term relationship with the brand.
Brands that tap into the cultural zeitgeist, supported by consistent, reliable data and a cohesive brand story, are well-positioned for success in this new unified commerce environment.
3. AI in Marketing & Consumer Data
AI-powered marketing and consumer data were key themes at the Lead Summit 2024. As cookies become obsolete, first-party data is emerging as the standard for brand marketing. This data, collected directly from consumer interactions with a brand, offers deeper insights into customer behaviors, preferences, and purchase patterns. It not only helps retailers refine their strategies but also ensures compliance with tightening privacy regulations and fosters trust with shoppers.
AI also continued to be a major focus, particularly in its application to marketing and advertising. AI allows retailers to utilize consumer data for personalized advertising, behavior predictions, and product recommendations. For instance, Obsess has harnessed AI’s potential for marketing by launching features like AI-powered quizzes, games and virtual assistants, which deliver dynamic results on a per-session basis. These tools have helped multiple brands collect first-party data and bring personalization in consumer interactions.
The retail industry is constantly in a state of flux, and brands must adapt to new retail market trends to stay relevant. Currently, we’re seeing the importance of embracing the booming creator economy, adopting unified commerce strategies for seamless customer engagement, and leveraging AI for personalized marketing. These trends underscore the need for brands to stay agile and innovative to connect with consumers effectively in today’s dynamic landscape.
With patented 3D technology, Obsess is enabling brands and retailers to engage shoppers with compelling, immersive content and take an omnichannel approach to retail marketing through 3D virtual experiences on their own websites as well as Roblox and Apple Vision Pro. Email us at contact@obsessvr.com or book a demo to learn more.
Interactive virtual catalogs have emerged as a game-changer for B2B product sales—shortening the sales cycle by informing decision making and reducing the need for door-to-door travel. Through virtual reality, B2B companies are able to enhance the sales process by virtually showcasing products in the context of their consumer’s needs through personalization and visualization.
Personalization Through Interactivity & Product Customization
Virtual catalogs highlight products in the context of their consumer’s needs by seamlessly incorporating interactivity to promote customization and personalization for product offerings, enriching the sales process for commercial products. Through interactive interfaces, clients can configure products, explore different specifications and visualize how solutions can be tailored to meet their specific needs—encouraging users to make the experience their own.
With customization features, users are able to create personalized orders by adding their brand logo onto products or by mix-and-matching different product categories to find an ideal set. From workwear to commercial furnishing, customization capabilities streamline the sales process, and empower clients to make informed decisions based on precise demonstrations of how products or services align with their unique requirements.
Product Education: Contextualization and Content
Using 3D visual contextualization and embedding educational content enables B2B companies to elevate user understanding of products in a dynamic, discovery-driven environment. Advanced visualization and informational content in virtual catalogs brings education to the forefront, making it easier for buyers to understand and discover new products. From industry compliance requirements to functionality, there are a lot of factors that those selling and buying workwear apparel, commercial furnishings, industrial appliances and more must address.
Highlight how various product categories perform in a variety of settings and how they meet different compliance structures with 3D contextualization and educational content. Generate tangibility for products by visibly placing them in a variety of environments fit to the end users’ needs, and showcase functionality with educational videos and hotspots that highlight important behind-the-scenes information.
How Virtual Reality Catalogs and Showrooms Increase Reach
Virtual catalogs and online showrooms transcend geographical limitations, empowering buyers from all over the world to discover commercial products, eliminating the need for door-to-door travel. Any time, anywhere, clients can examine products in detail, access multimedia content and seamlessly build out a detailed order directly from the experience.
By harnessing the power of innovative retail technology, B2B companies can shorten the commercial product sales cycle by showcasing products in the context of the consumers’ needs, addressing decision-making factors through product education and scaling accessibility for buyers globally.
To learn how to create a highly-engaging, virtual lead generation experience and facilitate B2B commercial product sales, email us at contact@obsessvr.com or book a demo.
Obsess-powered virtual experiences enable brands and retailers to reach their customers in 3D, across platforms, devices and product types. Any Obsess-powered virtual web experience can also be seamlessly replicated for Roblox, Meta Quest or Apple Vision Pro, and vice versa. Obsess’ cross-platform capabilities enable our partners to extend the ROI of their virtual experiences, increasing brand awareness and capturing different audiences native to each platform.
Web Browsers: Desktop, Tablet and Mobile
Browser-based virtual experiences increase reach and shareability, as they are accessible via URL on desktop, tablet and mobile. Brands and retailers typically choose to host their experience on their own websites, making the experience feel more natural and seamless throughout the customer’s purchase journey. By hosting a brand’s virtual experience on the web, they are able to reach a broader audience. The heightened accessibility allows anyone, anywhere to experience the immersive landing page, exponentially scaling the potential reach of the experience.
Obsess ensures that each web-based virtual experience is optimized for mobile first, making brand worlds portable for all consumers; visitors are able to access the page at their fingertips at any time. The mobile experience is especially important as many brand partners have opted to market their virtual experience via a scannable mobile QR code: on packaging, IRL retail stores, billboards and beyond.
Gaming Platforms: Roblox Virtual Stores
Brands on Roblox can cultivate community and activate a new generation of loyalists by engaging players in highly engaging, branded virtual gaming worlds. Roblox brand partnerships enable brands to reach new audiences by connecting with the platform’s built-in user base of 70M+ daily active users; Roblox collabs are particularly popular for brands looking to connect with the younger generations such as Gen Z.
With Obsess-powered virtual stores on Roblox, brands and retailers are able to create shopping-focused experiences that provide brands a seamless and manageable entry point onto the platform. While traditional Roblox worlds focus on game play, virtual stores on Roblox leverage gamification and tactical merchandising to promote digital purchases. As an official member of the Roblox UGC (User Generated Content) program, Obsess is able to 3D model all avatar items in a brand’s digital collection to be sold on the platform.
For Brooklyn-based hair care brand, amika, Obsess developed the amikaverse—a colorful, play-driven world embodying the brand’s commitment to inclusion, responsibility and sustainability. The amikaverse features custom mini games exemplifying each pillar of the brand’s mission statement, exclusive digital wearables that highlight self-expression and a digital sweepstakes offering limited-edition amika merch to be worn on the platform. In addition to the immersive experience on Roblox, amika is partnering with Obsess to create a matching web-based virtual store, hosted on their e-commerce site.
AR/VR Headsets: Meta Quest
Virtual reality and augmented reality headsets like Meta Quest enable brands and retailers to create life-like experiences that further immerse and captivate consumers. Meta Quest integration for cross-platform engagement is a great way for brands to leverage VR at retail stores and live events, such as pop-ups—providing an extra layer of immersion and memorability to in-person experiences and retail stores.
For example, cult-favorite activewear brand, Alo Yoga, launched the Alo Immersive Virtual Store in 3D on desktop, mobile and Meta Quest. Alo showcased their virtual store at their 2023 New York Fashion Week event, bringing an additional element of interactivity to the publicity event. Event attendees claimed the VR experience was transportive, particularly the meditation videos on the terrace—a stark contrast to the New York winter, where the event was hosted in IRL.
Hair care brand, K18, also partnered with Obsess to expand their virtual store across web, mobile and Meta Quest VR, enhancing online and offline engagement. The brand hosted in-person pop-up events that allowed customers to try on the headset and enter the experience; they were able to create a multi-sensory, full-body experience that enables users to explore content and products using gamified interactions at in-person events. Download the K18 case study to learn more.
Spatial Computers: Apple Vision Pro
Along with the highly-anticipated launch of the Apple Vision Pro device in early 2024, Obsess tapped into Apple’s spatial computing capabilities to bring innovative brands into a new era of retail; with promises of highly immersive and dynamic branded experiences, the Apple Vision Pro was a prime new channel for retailers to expand into.
Obsess developed four of the first-ever shopping apps for Apple Vision Pro—revolutionizing storytelling and consumer engagement in highly visual and interactive shopping experiences. Among the four was the e.l.f. Cosmetics “your best e.l.f.” visionOS app, an immersive journey of self-expression and relaxation. The brand replicated the app experience for all Safari browser users, regardless of device, bringing the e.l.f. community together and highlighting the brand’s commitment to accessibility and inclusivity.
Telecommunications brand, Orange, opted to enter the era of spatial computing in a different way: the brand made their web-based virtual store WebXR accessible. By making the Orange Virtual Home WebXR accessible, users can access the experience on Apple Vision Pro Safari; rather than through a visionOS app, Apple Vision Pro users can access the Orange Connected Home in Safari on the headset, expanding their reach.
Cross-Platform Ability
Brands can amplify their campaign activations, and extend the value of their assets beyond typical digital marketing channels, by creating virtual experiences and replicating them on various platforms. Every Obsess virtual experience is built for cross-platform distribution, so that brands can increase ROI and extend their virtual footprint across the web, mobile, Roblox and headset devices like Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest.
To learn more about how Obsess can help your brand create 3D virtual worlds, email us at contact@obsessvr.com or book a demo.
