Luxury beauty brand Lancôme has taken customer experience to a whole new level by partnering with award-winning Wilkins Avenue AR to host a 4-minute immersive shopping event inside its flagship store in Paris.
While browsing the high-end fragrances, cosmetics and skincare products at the L’Oréal-owned Lancôme store on the prestigious Champs- Élysées, headset-clad customers are invited to climb aboard an actual flower delivery truck and be transported to the Grasse region’s spectacular rose fields and the quaint streets of Paris, all through the innovative use of augmented reality (AR).
Grasse, France, the capital of French perfumery, is the inspiration for Wilkins Avenue’s AR experience and the location of Lancôme’s recently purchased rose farm where the brand will expand the cultivation of its iconic roses.
The nearly 10-acre estate of organically farmed fields of Centifolia roses and other aromatic plants has been named Domaine de la Rose by Lancôme and provides a breathtaking backdrop for the animated journey on which Lancôme’s customers embark when they don the carefully sanitized Magic Leap AR headsets.
Wilkins Avenue’s highly engaging immersive retail experience appeals to shoppers’ visual and auditory senses via soothing digital displays of beautiful rose fields and custom soundscapes designed to enhance the relationship between the brand and the consumer.
The rose fields, centuries-old terraces, and on-site distillery are exquisitely replicated through expert set design and the best artistic talent in the industry.
The journey to Domaine de la Rose is not reserved only for Lancôme customers wearing AR headsets. Visitors strolling around the shop can also become immersed in the enchantment via Wilkins Avenue’s broadcast technology that sends the picturesque scenes straight to giant screens on the walls throughout the store.
Prior to the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, Lancôme welcomed upwards of 30,000 visitors each month to its Avenue des Champs-Élysées flagship store.
The lockdowns that occurred because of the pandemic forced even the most luxurious brands to innovate quickly and find new ways to engage customers in the absence of traditional in-store touchpoints.
Wilkins Avenue AR is taking this innovation one step further and is reinventing retail in the post-covid era. By expanding upon the digital ingenuity of the most successful brands and bringing state-of-the-art technology into the physical store to elevate the brick-and-mortar retail experience, Wilkens Avenue is rapidly becoming synonymous with the wildly creative concept of retailtainment.
