In July, the Swiss watch brand Piaget unveiled a two-minute, seven-second virtual reality (“VR”) “Polo Experience” that transported viewers to a polo match in Chantilly, France.
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Anatomy of a Virtual Reality Campaign: How Piaget Created the Polo Experience
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Over the last decade, collaborations between luxury brands and contemporary artists have gone beyond mere artistic partnerships towards a new kind of luxury branding.
PARIS – Art and fashion have always developed side by side, for fashion, like art, often gives visual expression to the cultural zeitgeist. During the 1920s, Salvador Dalí created dresses for Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiapparelli. In the 1930s, Ferragamo’s shoes commissioned designs for advertisements from Futurist painter Lucio Venna, while Gianni Versace commissioned works from artists such as Alighiero Boetti and Roy Lichtenstein for the launch of his collections. Yves Saint Laurent’s vast art collection, recently auctioned at Christie’s in Paris, testified to his great love of art and revealed the influence of a variety of artists on his own designs.
In the 1980s, relationships between luxury brands and artists were advanced when Alain Dominique Perrin created the Fondation Cartier. In the Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain, a book marking the foundation’s 20th anniversary, Perrin says he makes “a connection between all the different sorts of arts, and luxury goods are a kind of art. Luxury goods are handicrafts of art, applied art.”
The Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemparain building in Paris
In July, the Swiss watch brand Piaget unveiled a two-minute, seven-second virtual reality (“VR”) “Polo Experience” that transported viewers to a polo match in Chantilly, France.
In July, the Swiss watch brand Piaget unveiled a two-minute, seven-second virtual reality (“VR”) “Polo Experience” that transported viewers to a polo match in Chantilly, France. But not merely to its sidelines. Relying on the immersive technology, which is designed to simulate a user’s presence in a real or imaginary environment using a special headset, viewers could experience the match from the saddle of a pony galloping across the field.
Available in two formats—3-D virtual reality, as well as 360-degree video, a less immersive application that uses special cameras to capture images in every direction simultaneously—the film was Piaget’s first attempt using VR to connect with potential buyers. “It was a way for us to show that we can be really innovative and audacious and in tune with our times,” said global communications director Valerie Nowak.
"It was a good opportunity to create another emotional link with our clients and our audience."
Concept
Designed to coincide with the July introduction of the Piaget Polo S timepiece, a new entry-priced steel watch, the Polo Experience was intended to curry favor among a very targeted clientele. “Because this watch is aimed at the younger generation, it was very important for us to digitize our launch,” Nowak said.
“At the end of the day we know these kinds of experiences are the ones that engage our followers and our audience,” Nowak added. “It was a good opportunity to create another emotional link with our clients and our audience.”
In parallel, the brand created a promotional film clip featuring ambassador Ryan Reynolds in a fantasy sequence set atop the roof of a Manhattan building.
Execution
Filmed in Chantilly, France in May, the VR experience involved both a drone and one player with a special rig equipped with eight cameras. The experience itself lasted two minutes, but it was stitched together using the best moments from a real 49-minute match.
“It was a great challenge,” Nowak said. “It was difficult with the horses; we had to get them familiar with the drone, the noise. Because very often when you have a VR experience, you have 3-D images, but the horses are real. There were no synthetic images.”
The VR experience was unveiled during a global launch event in Brooklyn, N.Y., in July, with Reynolds and a host of celebrity friends of the brand in attendance. But it continues to be shared in Piaget boutiques worldwide, from Paris to Amsterdam to Shanghai. The device used—be it an Oculus headset, a Samsung Gear VR, or a simple cardboard-smartphone combination—varies from location to location, Nowak said.
Costs
Nowak was not able to specify what Piaget paid to create the Polo Experience, but VR experts say that productions of this nature can run into the tens of thousands of dollars. As with many marketing efforts, the return on investment can be difficult to track, but Nowak said Piaget is keen to continue its virtual reality experimentation.
“The Internet has become a very important place where people get access to info about luxury brands through images and videos, and then they go to the boutiques to discover the products,” Nowak said. “It’s the first time we used VR. We have so many ideas to continue to explore what VR can bring to our communication strategy.”
Editor-in-Chief, JCK
Victoria Gomelsky is editor in chief of JCK, a 147-year-old jewelry trade publication based in New York City. Her freelance work has appeared in The New York Times, WSJ Magazine, Robb Report and The Hollywood Reporter. She divides her time between New York City and Los Angeles.
