An avatar is an electronic image which is a representative of a computer user. It means that an Internet user’s personality.
joined with the screen name or a particular handle. Avatar pictures are personal icons which are objects showcasing the user. Moreover, they are used as for endorsement or as tool for interaction in many virtual communities.
In this bizarre world of people communicating using keyboards, when someone compliments us by saying that “Your avatar looks just like you!”, we surprisingly feel really good. In the recent times, avatars have become quite popular succeeding the emojis and stickers.
It’s becoming a growing means of communication with friends over social media. With the increased trend of regional keyboards like Hindi Typing Keyboard, we can witness many brands downloading Hindi Typing Keyboard using this in way digital way for their market campaigns.
In the earlier times, avatars were only a part of gaming niche, but it has grown to be a part of social media platforms and advertising. As we know this Gen Z lives in their shell of gaming, social media, and entertainment, hence including avatars in this mainstream culture is a really smart move.
Social Media Platforms are witnessing Avatars performing Concerts used by Musical Acts
Thanks to the pandemic, many ventures including concerts and tours had to be abruptly get cancelled in 2020 but musical acts like The Weekend found a magnificent way of using avatars to perform for the audience. They worked with wave and created a live concert in partnership with Tik-Tok, and not just this.
The fans were able chat and interact with their Avatar. This was the first in-app cross reality moment for Tik-Tok. Taking everyone by surprise, “The Weekend Experience” on Tik-Tok raised a massive amount of $350,000 for the Equal Justice Initiative.
Avatars Become A Life Saver For Brands Since In-Person Productions Get Restricted By Social Distancing
In this time of crisis, brand are suffering for not being able to shoot commercials with ease as they used to. Though few have incurred some loses, many have found some interesting ways to keep their brand alive even in these trying times. So, as we say, ‘Necessity is the mother of invention’, many brands have come with brilliant ideas of using avatars to shoot their commercials in an innovative way.
Genies, that create popular bobble headed avatars as seen a significant growth in demand for Celebrity Avatars rising to 350% growth since March 2020 which is really huge.
Some popular brands that have collaborated with Genies are- Procter & Gamble, Gucci and New Balance. With this genius idea, brand can shoot without leaving their houses with the same talent. So rather than shooting outdoors on the location, talent can just use their avatars and the content still feels justified.
Since the usage of Avatars is time saving and in turn much faster than regular shooting with productions, this has allowed brands to save lots of money for launching campaigns on a better scale and much quickly.
Gaming Skins’ For Avatars Helps In Generating Revenue Streams And Partnership Opportunities
Not to forget, Avatars are still a much relevant part of gaming and as we all know, gaming has been highly popular since the pandemic. One of the popular ways for people to have fun with their gaming avatars is by dressing them up with the help of ‘Skins’ as we know.
In the recent times, keyboards like Hindi typing keyboard has been persistently used by celebrities who have been seen creating their avatars and sharing it with friends and family. As we know skins are expensive hence it’s quite a business for games and their sales. Many industries like Fortnite earned $1 billion from skins in 2019, just by using avatars in marketing.
Though they are not actually new to the audience, but Coronavirus can be given a huge credit for its sudden popularity in the audience. Since the youth finds it really cool to see and use, we can expect more dimensions to it in the future. Also, as we know that brands aren’t really afraid of experimenting new things for their business, we can expect its higher engagement with the audience for products and services in the future.
Marketing to Avatars
Since we know that in virtual worlds, audience and consumers are willing to take initiative, marketers know they can easily segment its reach. For any company’s growth, it needs to think more of the potentially rich market rather than the virtual world to understand the potential of its customer- the avatar.
It’s not a hidden fact that we are that is virtual reality will grow to be one of the largest communications platforms which is the prime reason why brands realize that avatars can be a key for brands to make their place in cultural conversations and moreover in mindset of consumers. Hence the idea of personalization is really important for brands to grow with avatars in 2021.
