More brands and businesses are looking to create an avatar to communicate more effectively with their target audience. This marketing trend skyrocketed due to the human-to-human disruption caused by the pandemic. With everything shifting online, digital icons create an authentic and deeper connection between the audience and a brand. As a result, having your own brand avatar has become one of the leading digital marketing trends in 2021.
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In this blog, we’re going to discuss the following:
What is a Brand Avatar?
A brand avatar is an icon that acts as the face and voice of a brand. Businesses like yours can create these virtual portrayals based on the personality, values, and beliefs of your brand. It can be a real or fictional person, an animal, or even an animated object!
This digital character is your brand’s spokesperson and is often regarded as a window to the consumer world. When prospective buyers communicate with the business avatar, they create a connection that is difficult to forget. This is mainly because humans crave genuine and real-life interactions, and brand avatars can offer this.
Reasons Why Every Business can Benefit from a Brand Avatar
Amazing Storytelling
Stories have a unique place in the minds and hearts of people. Brands that promote themselves through storytelling are more likely to succeed than brands that don’t. With the boom of brand avatars, stories are being communicated more effectively. Brand avatars narrate stories with more clarity, creativity, and interaction.
Instant Recognition
Consumers often find it frustrating to find the perfect brand that suits their needs and values. This is due to the plethora of brands available to the audience for all products and services. At this saturation point, brands with business avatars make it easy for prospective buyers to identify them. This is also supported by scientific evidence of faster visual processing and recognition by humans.
Humanized Connection
A brand avatar is the embodiment of a brand that interacts with customers. As sentimental beings, buyers are more inclined towards brands with avatars that speak, act, and look like humans. The more humanized, the more people trust and associate themselves with the business avatar. This boosts both loyalty and awareness of businesses.
Social Media Booster
Social media continues to dominate the promotion channels in the digital realm. An avatar, which is a virtual element, has more flexibility and freedom on these social channels. Through the ephemeral features of social media, these icons quickly capture the dwindling attention span of an audience. Not only can they be added to social platforms, but they can also be used as a brand’s signature.
Increased Trust
As a virtual icon, avatars are easy to modify according to the context, demographics, and culture of a particular audience domain. When buyers find themselves in the characters, they experience a deep psychological attachment to the brand. When customers can relate to an avatar, they are likely to trust the brand more. Consequently, this improves trust and cements their loyalty towards the brand.
Alternative Representation
A brand logo tells people the name and vision through a combination of text and visuals. But these trademarks may fail in conveying brand values, goals, and beliefs. It becomes even more difficult when there are new changes. In such cases, business avatars serve as the right tool to represent the brand instead of logos.
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Focus on Gen Z with Brand Avatars
Gucci
To tap into the Generation Z audience, Gucci partnered with Genies, a digital avatar company. Gucci’s narrative of empowering self-expression led to the creation of personalized avatars. Many users found this new way of promotion both fun-filled and engaging.
New Balance
Following the Italian fashion house’s lead, New Balance is using digital avatars to court Gen Z shoppers. It launched the new Fresh Foam Roav collection by partnering with the Genies company to better resonate with new target buyers.
Cheetos
Cheetos collaborated with Genies company to help personal avatars dress up with inspired costumes for their Halloween campaign. These avatars can also be shared across social media channels; thereby, promoting the brand on a larger scale.
Ralph & Russo
We collaborated with Ralph & Russo to create Hauli, a 3D brand avatar who wears Ralph & Russo’s latest creations. Ralph said; “She is a beautiful black woman, whose name in traditional Swahili is synonymous with strength and power. The ultimate modern woman; fusing both old and new, elegance and strength.
Brand Avatar: A Key Growth Factor of Businesses
Brand avatars are playing a key role in business growth through their unique features and vibrant visuals. The creative and interactive imagery is successful in attracting and binding the target audiences. Combing all the reasons, having a digital avatar is a must to grow a business in the digital era.
