As part of our ongoing ‘Ask the Experts’ series, we have brought together some of the Fashion industry’s leading Digital Transformation specialists to answer your most pressing questions. Today, we ask the team: what practical advice would you have for those wanting to extend their digital assets into consumer-facing applications?
Here’s what they had to say…
Digital transformation is about changing the way we do business, giving us the power to achieve our business goals and strategies. The first step in this journey should be to create an end-to-end future-process that identifies how and where digital capabilities will be used to solve business problems. This will help clarify where the company will want to leverage digital assets in consumer-facing use cases.
For example:
- Digital assets could be used early-on to gather consumer insights and vet design concepts. Nike has done this recently with its A.I.R. collection in which they used a combination of AI inspiration, 3D hard modelling, and 3D printing to present aspirational concept products.
- Alternatively, digital assets could be used in the e-commerce process to more fully represent physical products. Altra recently created extremely high-quality 3D scans of physical products that could be explored in real-time by the consumer online. Under Armour used a traditional 3D pipeline where high-quality digitised materials, 3D hard modelling, and sophisticated rendering resulted in product images for their website, but in a fraction of the time and without requiring a physical shoe.
In each of these cases, the product was developed, created, and presented in a way that best met the brand’s requirements.
My advice for teams wishing to use digital assets is to explore these types of use cases within their own business to determine how they set up their pipeline and if they will require multiple variations. In my experience, creating an open-standards-based pipeline where core assets can be used in any number of end uses is typically the best way to solve this problem and provides the most flexibility. Ask questions such as, “will I need to mix multiple product types for head-to-toe presentations?”, “will I need to create both still images and real-time 3D experiences?”, “will my assets be used in 3D games such as Roblox or Fortnite?”
Knowing all your intended customers and ensuring flexibility will allow your company to gain the maximum value, revenue, cost savings, and speed from your consumer-facing digital assets.
Before you start, do your homework!
I know this might sound obvious but the term “3D assets” is all encompassing. The needs of Merchandisers are different from the needs of Designers. And the needs of Pre-Production, Product Engineers, and Production are different again from the needs of Merchandisers and Designers. Exactly what 3D assets are being created now and for whom? Moving those to “customer facing applications” is not “drag and drop.” In fact, internal assets may need to remain internal because they were created for one particular purpose rather than for many. Often leadership gets overly excited with “cost cutting” opportunities like eliminating e-Commerce photo shoots, without understanding the details and limitations of the brand’s existing workflow.
And the term “customer facing applications” is also broad: ask yourself ‘WHERE, WHY & WHEN do I want to share 3D assets?’
If you’re new to 3D, mapping all of this out up front gives you a roadmap to work toward, and the requirements for assessing a variety of tools for the job. This will also allow you to proactively identify the skills and people you will need to involve to make this happen. In some ways, beginning NOW has its advantages.
If you’re already on the 3D journey, you are no doubt already well versed in the pain points we face with interoperability and image integrity; one asset simply does not fit all purposes. In this case, you may find that bringing new technology into your workflow may be needed to leverage the work currently in progress for a specific department. And don’t be opposed to challenging that workflow; just because it suited the brand 3 years ago does not mean it still does today!
For example, if you want Merchandisers and Designers to collaborate on a seasonal range plan, then engineered 3D assets may be overkill and GenAI may be a better fit to create realistic options (that could even be shared with end consumers for feedback or pre-order) BEFORE taking designs to 3D Engineers for prototyping. This could finally lead to the elimination of CAD croquis and foam core boards which can be replaced with virtual range plans supported with data insights, allowing us to only take APPROVED styles into 3D prototyping and production.
The portfolio of tools we now have available (GenAI, Data Analytics/AI, 3D, Virtual Fit/Try-On, etc) give us the opportunity to re-think our current workflows and to invent new ones.
Digital is a journey, not a project, and replaceability and agility are our secret superpowers. Don’t be afraid to question existing digital workflows holistically. The key to success here, like any digital transformation, is to identify the change and work with everyone to map out the best practice to move forward.
Find Craig here.
Let’s assume that you already use 3D in product development: if you want to turn those files into assets for consumer facing applications, the main consideration is quality. There are many ways to bring 3D onwards to the end consumer: photorealistic images for retail, virtual dressing rooms, metaverse stores – just to name a few. Each of these have wildly different quality requirements, so:
Step 1: Decide what application you want to use your digital assets for
Step 2: Find out which quality type, file type, and other requirements your digital assets need to meet for said application
Step 3: Figure out the current parameters of your files, and
Step 4: Consider what changes need to be made to get them ready for the end consumer-facing goal
These changes can then be turned into a pipeline to efficiently extend your digital assets forward!
Find Sophie here.
The promise of Digital Product Creation is that, on paper, you can create digital twins of your products (or digital-only products), and then deploy them to any end-use that is compelling and relevant to your brand story.
Unfortunately, in practice, it’s not as easy as it sounds. The challenges of Apparel assets are very different from those in Footwear or Accessories (we learned this lesson at the North Face given the brand’s breadth of product offering). Doing one-off digital activations is very different from deploying 3D assets at scale, season after season. Having asset creation pipelines involving multiple contributors and vendors requires uncompromising attention to the quality standards if you want consistency in your outputs. Louis Vuitton has shown how their meticulous craftsmanship extends to the digital realm, in which the representation of product using exotic leathers has to be near-perfect so that decisions can be made knowing that what you see is exactly what you get.
That being said, generally speaking, my advice would be the following:
- Have a plan.
Understand what you are trying to achieve and why. Is it a one-off or a seasonal process? Does your activation fit within a well thought-out strategy that augments the brands’ storytelling? Knowing what you will use your assets for will inform how you build your pipelines. - Design your pipelines and workflows with consistency and visual quality at the core of your approach.
This will reduce headaches when you scale your deployment. Yes, perfect is the enemy of good, but your commitment to craftsmanship has to extend to digital assets. - Don’t underestimate the importance of asset optimization.
Whether you are deploying to a configurator, a game engine like Unreal, a web interface like Sketchfab, for 3D Printing or high-quality stills or simulation, the requirements and limitations are going to be different. - Stay curious and keep your eyes on the horizon.
Deployment of digital assets to consumer-facing product and brand experiences is where innovation and creativity can lead to truly amazing storytelling – if you stay up to date with what’s possible. - Experiment, learn and keep investing time and effort into deploying your assets in innovative ways.
Today’s consumers expect much more from brands than just good products. Stay in touch with expectations so you can surprise and delight them in unexpected ways.
And most importantly, have fun along the way!
Find Safir here.
The critical elements that come to mind can be summarised into 3 steps:
1 – Understanding the current state of your assets
The best starting point is to have stable, standardised assets. For example, when someone opens a few of your digital files, how consistent are they? Even if you don’t have greater ambitions for digital assets, well defined and applied standards are a critical success indicator. If the plan to go consumer facing is a small, one-off project, inconsistent files are less of an issue. If you plan to scale or automate, start with documented standards.
2 – Identify and validate the consumer facing applications and tools used
Each consumer facing application has its own set of requirements, capabilities, and value adds. Online configurators, digital showrooms, virtual mirrors, and the like, can have very different requirements. If you plan to triage digital assets for new applications in-house, have the tool provider walk you through the end-to-end process live. Your team will need a clear picture of that process so have the tool provider use your existing assets. If the results meet your needs, you’ll then have a solid understanding of the work needed to get from where you are to where you want to go AND you’ll know exactly what to expect. Often, we just see the asset in its final form and after we’ve bought in, we find out the process is too cumbersome to scale. In short, know where you’re going, make reservations ahead of time, and print the confirmation!
3 – Create the process to get from Point 1 to 2
To support speed and efficiency, identify areas where your standards can be improved to create assets ready to transfer into consumer facing applications. Don’t lose sight of how your current standards support excellence for your original use case. We don’t want to erode value there. As you build the pipeline, stay informed and ready to take advantage as new features are added to your chosen tools.
Summary:
Define, design, and refine. You can DESIGN a successful process when you’ve DEFINED what you’re doing and what you’d like to do. From there, you’re ready to REFINE the process to produce consumer facing assets to serve your goals.
Find Christian here.
