Obsess, provider of an experiential e-commerce platform for creating immersive virtual stores, launched Branded Avatars, allowing companies to customize the look-and-feel and character style of shopper avatars to create branded metaverse experiences on their e-commerce sites. Shoppers can personalize all aspects of their branded avatars, including skin tone, facial features, body shape, clothing, and makeup.
Charlotte Tilbury is the first company to partner with Obsess to offer the new functionality, introducing it as part of its Charlotte’s Beauty Realm holiday wonderland.
Shoppers will be able to customize their avatars in a browser-based virtual store environment—with no download, signup, login or fee required. The function also allows shoppers to apply complete makeup looks to their avatars.
In addition, the new function enables friends to shop and attend events together in real time with their friends’ avatars. Shoppers can use their personalized avatars to walk through and experience the virtual environment together, discovering, learning about and purchasing products, all while interacting and conversing in real time.
"Innovative brands have been looking to incorporate more personalization, gamification, and social interactivity into their virtual store experiences to make shopping in these environments more engaging, social, and fun—essentially more like shopping in real life," said Neha Singh, founder and CEO of Obsess, in a statement. "We're thrilled to launch this industry-first innovation and to push avatar technology forward for all consumers outside of gaming environments. Our platform now enables brands to create their own custom metaverse on their sites, where both the environment and avatar style match the brand’s look and feel, to give consumers an unforgettable shopping experience."
"We're thrilled to continue our partnership with Obsess and to launch an exciting new avatar functionality within Charlotte's Beauty Realm that allows customers to experience our holiday campaign in another dimension," said Corinne Suchy, chief growth and technology officer at Charlotte Tilbury, in a statement. "We have broken new ground with Obsess as we use advanced technology capabilities to create personalization options that offer a phenomenal level of detail that one would expect from a brand led by a visionary like Charlotte Tilbury."