Augmented Reality: The Promising New Luxury Challenge

New communication channels, promising alliances and daring collaborations, it is today through augmented reality (AR) that brands innovate to seduce their customers. Faced with new expectations, technology and luxury seem to have come together to give birth to a new era, more reactive and definitely immersive.

Hyperconnection & immediacy

Experience and emotion are now at the heart of the codes of contemporary luxury. In a market dominated by the "digital natives" where hyperconnection reigns, luxury needs to be more connected, more sensitive, more receptive. It is therefore crucial to create fluid and immediate interactions with customers... and sometimes all it takes is a simple application. Indeed, thanks to smartphones and social networks, augmented reality technology makes it possible to integrate virtual elements in 3D, live, within a real environment.

By combining virtual and real and giving the illusion of perfect integration to the user, augmented reality perfectly meets this need for immediacy. Customers can now try products, immerse themselves in the brand's DNA and become more receptive and more able to buy at a distance or in a store. Between "see now buy now" and the desire for sustainability, brands are integrating the new market codes by adapting to encourage purchases. An exercise that works because it responds in particular to four current challenges for luxury, namely the question of interactivity; immersion; innovation, and of course the signature experience.

According to Thibaut de La Rivière, director of Sup de Luxe :

"The augmented reality sector is extremely promising for luxury and will continue to develop. It is an ideal technology for brands, where excellence today rhymes with instantaneity and proximity".

The future of luxury

The physical stores that no longer have the same functions are reinventing themselves, and brands are now seduced by the capacity for influence and decision making in the act of purchasing that these new processes offer.

We remember Dior and its "Check'N'Dior" filter, allowing virtual testing of the 2019-2020 fall-winter collection, or the Gucci application and the fitting of the famous Ace sneaker. This is followed by sharing on social networks, and of course direct links to e-shops. A facility that also encourages customers to visit the store to complete the experience and enjoy exclusive products, only available in physical points of sale. This technology, baptized "try-on", is used by many companies through different tools: special filters, snapcodes, advertisements or interactive terminals. These devices have a bright future ahead of them, as the market for augmented reality could reach $83 billion within two years and the market for cryptographic objects could exceed $200 billion last year.

And since emotion to sensation is only a step away, the next step in this evolution will take place over the next few years with the ultimate experience of Virtual Reality in 4 dimensions.

A simulation device that allows you to transcribe certain senses, such as the scent of perfume, the breath of the wind, the warmth of a sunbeam... ideal for immersing yourself in the atmosphere of a spa for example. A virtual journey where the experience, ever closer to reality, is amplified. The future of luxury thus oscillates between physical and digital, real and virtual, and the boundaries seem to be getting thinner and thinner