Why should you create immersive experiences in communication?

A festive digital animation for L’Occitane en Provence by WANDS Paris

An immersive brand experience proposes an enriched environment that encourages the audience to use its senses, to feel involved and to interact. Immersion takes various forms in brand communication strategy and adapting content creation – physical spaces transformed to invite the audience into the brand universe, augmented reality and spaces using virtual reality or 3D, holograms, light projections, gaming spaces, customization possibilities… The new brand content wants to be engaging, different and emotional. The agency WANDS Paris develops innovative approaches and sources the best technologies for their deployment.

The end of year period represents a key moment for brands that need to stand out. The brand L’Occitane en Provence has solicited the agency WANDS to think of a concept and immersive digital experience for all their markets worldwide around their star product for this period – the advent calendar. This example highlights the reasons why immersion is of paramount importance to reach marketing objectives.

The benefits of an immersive brand experience

Immersion and its uses in a multi-channel structure provide an amplification and resolution of brand objectives: memorization by the audience, whose cognitive aspects are activated; engagement which is provoked by the emotional aspect of the experience; growing notoriety of the brand offering an experience to share; and differentiation, by a unique communication line. A study outlines that 61% of consumers would be more likely to buy from brands who use immersive technology, such as augmented or virtual reality and 3D content.

Hence, for L’Occitane, several specific objectives were defined before starting the project to develop special features: the accessibility of the experience which needed to be user and mobile friendly; conversion by encouraging gifting and advent calendar sales; a boost of traffic and engagement; and finally, the ability to collect data and KPIs. The concept that was developed corresponds to these objectives while bringing surprise and playfulness.

Combining performance, technology and creativity

The approach by the agency WANDS began by an exploration of the brand universe – that of L’Occitane of Provence is rich, authentic, colorful, engaged. From a study of the brand values and the theme of the year – crafters of nature – as well as a reinterpretation of the illustrative and chromatic range of the universe, a global concept has emerged. The ambition was to indulge the audience in the enchanted world of the brand through three digital activations that fit into the e-commerce website.

WANDS has worked on the artistic direction, the design, and the development of an immersive landing page with the main objective of converting. The aim was not only to highlight the advent calendars in an immersive page design and to propose a direct “Add to cart”, but to explain the characteristics and differences of each calendar, and their unique selling propositions. The customer journey has been optimized to define the shortest way to the cart. Finally, a widget invites the audience to discover other products. The animation is integrated within the e-commerce website through an HTML code or iFrame, offering an enchanted parenthesis.

The second animation brings to light a virtual advent calendar that aims to drive traffic, conversion and engagement in more than 26 countries. The agency has imagined a 3D setting with a Christmas tree formed by cubes, turning on a pedestal and using visual elements from the holiday campaign. Every day, one box opens itself upon a click, to reveal an offer, keeping the suspense of the discovery for the audience. A form allows data collect and the reception of the offers by email. Just like the first animation, this experience is customizable by each country, in terms of images, texts, links and email template. A communication plan accompanies the animation to explain the concept of the virtual advent calendar.

Finally, the third animation is more experimental and implies the audience participation with a Gift Finder – through questions and answers to find the ideal gift. The originality resides in the design of the experience, based upon the artistic direction of the global experience and an animated 3D box at each step. After answering the questions, the box opens itself in an explosion of ribbons, provoking surprise, before revealing suggested gifts.

The stakes for the brand were multiple: the importance of being immerged into the brand universe, the storytelling, the adaptation with the e-commerce website of each market, adapted UI and UX, the presentation of the USP (unique selling proposition), and the specificities of each market.

An experience deployed internationally

Artistic design, 3D content creation, simple consumer journey, brand immersion, technical development… To these criteria, the brand added an essential one: the international dimension of the project to guarantee the holistic dimension of the brand and to allow the local adaptation by several countries. Indeed, each experience is customizable by the markets who can change the text and thus, the language (including Arabic or Mandarin for instance), the visual assets, the links and template. Customization is offered to the users through a personalized back office. Furthermore, the users can be managed by an administrator who can handle different access levels. The data from the audience can be downloaded safely by each market. For an optimal operation, the integration of Google Analytics in the back office allows for the a follow-up and tracking of the animations, to obtain the relevant KPIs – number of clicks, length of sessions, bounce rate… Technology is as the service of an immersive and innovative approach, and invites the user to wonder within the brand universe.