Foresight 22: Trading physical clothes for digital ones + why Snap is opening up access to its AR try-on technology
A bi-weekly newsletter diving into the concepts, people and brands shaping the future of retail, entertainment and connectivity.
Welcome back to Foresight!
This week we're looking at a concept where the resale and digital clothing worlds come together in a new partnership between The Dematerialised and startup Twig. I’m fascinated to see the response and if Gen Z continues to focus on digital appearances as much as the physical given their love for real-world experiences.
Snapchat recently announced it will be opening up access to its AR technology to allow brands to offer AR try-on to consumers. The hope is the tech will become a standard shopping tool and this will help businesses overcome the significant technical hurdle of creating AR-ready assets.
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IDEAS, INSIGHTS & FORWARD-THINKING PERSPECTIVES
How The Dematerialised is attempting to bring shoppers to Web3 by trading physical clothes for digital ones
In an attempt to lure shoppers to Web3 and promote resale, digital fashion company The Dematerialised is offering to exchange physical clothing for digital fashion. By accepting payment from London-based startup Twig, physical items can be traded for immediate cash that can be used on the digital fashion NFT marketplace. Using AI, Twig analyzes the value of items via submitted photos and transfers money to a card that can be used to checkout on The Dematerialized. Twig is then responsible for reselling or donating the goods. The environmental responsibility effects of digital fashion have been a key element in the messaging, with the hope that the partnership will limit physical clothing consumption. The thinking around this is if someone is looking to show off an outfit on social media, digital fashion has the potential to offer a sense of immediate gratification while being a less wasteful alternative.
Linking digital and physical clothing and accessories has been a focus area for brands attempting to get Gen Z’s attention, who are seen putting as much emphasis on their digital appearances as physical appearances. The majority of initiatives we’ve seen pair digital items with physical purchases and The Dematerialised is looking to turn this concept on its head. With over 70 percent of Twig’s customers being Gen Z, founder and CEO Geri Cupi believes allowing them to convert physical clothing into immediate credit is also helping democratize the process of buying goods in Web3 now that users aren’t limited to cryptocurrencies. Cupi also says a “good proportion” of customers are spending credits earned on NFTs—making a solution like Twig pay a very easy entry point for digital assets.
Will AR try-on technology become a must-have shopping tool now that Snapchat is making it readily available?
By opening up access to its AR technology, Snapchat is betting on AR try-on becoming a standard shopping tool. New tools and not having to develop or acquire this technology independently, simplifies the process of creating three-dimensional, photorealistic versions of products for brands and makes it easier for consumers to integrate AR try-on into their shopping routines. Digital products for try-on will also now be easier for Snapchat users to discover via Snap’s new “Dress Up” section, which is the first time it has dedicated a space for this type of content. Allowing other apps and developers to use Snapchat’s technology outside of the Snapchat app for free will hopefully help with AR adoption and development will expand to tap the unrealized potential of AR use while shopping. “We want to empower use cases where the context would change the type of experience compared to what you would build for Snapchat,” says Carolina Arguelles Navas, Snap’s global AR product strategy and product marketing lead.
Snap believes there is an opportunity to overcome the considerable technical hurdle of translating products into AR-ready assets. “We want to be a business-to-business tech solution because of the value we can give brands,” Navas says. “We believe that AR is the future, and for that to happen, we want more partners and companies and people to build in AR and think about how that helps to solve new problems that we aren't solving on our own.” Recent acquisitions have allowed for improvements to its 3D asset manager and incoming features including a capability to fit flat product photography onto a user-submitted full-body selfie. Instead of experiencing try-on on a moving image, product overlays will be possible on a still image. With product try-ons collected in one place, similar to Instagram’s shopping tab, brands with integrated catalogues through Shopify can enable in-app purchases and others can use a link to redirect shoppers to a website. Content is automatically eligible for discovery when brands participate and use these tools. The ability to save try-ons and share them on Snapchat with a friend is a “core part of the end-to-end shopping experience,” explain Navas.
WHAT I’M READING
Google shows off AR glasses that might make a case for augmented reality
Pinterest quietly launches a live-streaming app for video creators
Spotify enters the metaverse with new virtual island on Roblox
Nreal Air Glasses launch with cool, immersive augmented reality
Olaplex rolls out first AI employee
Snap Partner Summit Piles on the AR