How Fashion Brands are Utilizing Virtual Influencers
Virtual influencers and their impact on the fashion industry and brand success today.
The rapidly developing digitalization is keeping companies busy as industries across the board have had to adjust their operations to keep up with the virtual takeover that is gradually proving to be not just an industry trend but very possibly a vital part of the future of brand operations. While digitalization will eventually start to have a greater impact across all brand operations, at the moment digital tools and strategies are mostly utilized by the marketing segment. One of the most popular marketing strategies today is influencer marketing. This enables brands to join forces with social media influencers in order to harness their influence and massive following to promote and advertise their product to a specific online audience. This approach has proven very successful in the fashion industry. However, in an industry where turnover is constant and trendsetters are key, there is always room for innovation, and nothing is really permanent, not even the most successful marketing strategies. This is why fashion brands have now started to turn their attention from traditional influencers to character-driven virtual influencers.
Virtual influencers are digital characters who exist entirely on a digital platform, and because of this, they are a far superior choice over traditional influencers for brands who wish to tap directly into the digital landscape. After all, for virtual influencers, social media is not a hobby; it’s their native environment. Virtual influencers have quickly gained attraction from online users, and according to Hyperauditor, virtual influencers receive 3x more engagement than human ones.
This engagement demonstrates firsthand the demand that exists for virtual influencers. The fashion world took note of this, and countless brands are now jumping on the chance to work with virtual influencers in order to better reach their audience on the ever-changing social media landscape. A Korean fashion magazine, “Nylon Korea,” did this earlier this February when they partnered with a South Korean influencer, Rina, for a “Cheer Up K-Fashion” campaign. The aim of the campaign was to make K-fashion as popular around the world as K-pop and K-drama. Nylon Korea saw the opportunity to reach a wider international audience by working with a virtual influencer and masterfully utilized their partnership to give K-fashion the needed push.
Another reason why virtual influencers are growing in demand is the fashion industry’s gradual immigration to the digital platform, or in other words, the Metaverse. During the past few years, fashion brands have made efforts to integrate deeper into the digital roam with NFTs, virtual showrooms, and VR technology. Virtual influencers act as a gateway between the brand and this new virtual environment, and by partnering with a virtual influencer, brands can add credibility to their efforts. A recent example of this is Tommy Hilfiger’s New York Fashion Week show last fall, which was live-streamed on Roblox. While the physical runway show took place in Brooklyn, avatars walked around the platform’s virtual New York City wearing the collection. To promote the project, Tommy Hilfiger worked with virtual influencer Guggimon, who has an impressive 1.5 million followers on Instagram. This partnership created a buzz around the show and contributed to its overall success, both online and offline.
As we have seen above, the way fashion brands can utilize virtual influencers is practically endless. With the ongoing development of these virtual influencers, we can predict further opportunities in the future.
