Avatars as brand ambassadors
will come into their own in 2018,
with more brands using avatars as
spokesmodels. For fashion brands,
this means considering their clothes
not only in the physical realm but
how they are rendered digitally.
Lil Miquela, a digital social media
influencer with more than 450,000
followers on Instagram, has already
shown the potential marriage between
fashion and avatars when she modelled
a dress from New York-based fashion
brand Area in a social media post.
Avatars will not only be used as
marketing tools, but also as a way
to offer greater customisation for
online shoppers. The news that in
October 2017 Amazon acquired Body
Labs, a company that creates true-
to-life 3D body models, signals the
growing omnipresence of avatars.
‘Being able to create highly realistic
3D models of the human body is
essential for making meaningful
progress in areas such as personalised
shopping, autonomous vehicles, mixed reality and smart homes,’ says
Eric Rachlin, co-founder and chief
technology officer at Body Labs.