No7’s product images are CGI. Here's why yours should be too.
Enticing consumers effectively online and on social channels is imperative for consumer brands. Beautiful, accurate representation is paramount – but how? For brands like No7, CGI renders have proven to have the answer.
When we first began using CGI with No7’s owner Boots, it was to support prototyping and design development. But as the image quality reached truly photorealistic levels, it opened up the potential to eliminate photography and create high-resolution marketing assets ahead of manufacturing. Today, these digitally generated visuals enable campaigns to be launched before the first tube, bottle or pot has rolled off the production line, and with greater freedom to manipulate, group and reuse images, as required.
Brands can also enjoy impeccable brand consistency and quality - without the costs and logistics of repeated photoshoots. Combined with smart asset management (cataloguing) of the renders, they drive high levels of asset reuse. Being able to size, scale, zoom and rotate images to suit different backgrounds and placements, is something traditional photography simply can’t compete with. With renders, it’s quick and easy to apply the product image to different backgrounds and to suit specific placements, in various groupings - all while keeping brand and colour accuracy intact. Need to place the product image in a video end frame, digital out-of-home, social media and a print 96-sheet? Done.
Aiming for perfection
As with all new technology, breakthroughs prompt pile-ons. Commoditised CGI suppliers focused on high volumes and low cost without the crucial ingredient of design and sector expertise, have duly rushed into the market, but the quality of the images they’re providing is doing a disservice to their clients – and to the reputation of CGI images.
The best visuals are provided by design and production agencies who understand brand IP, value brand consistency and appreciate the potential damage to the brand of getting them wrong. Research by GWI has shown Gen Z to be particularly unforgiving of brands who demonstrate a lack of professionalism or quality in their digital presence.
Under the skin
Beyond the non-negotiable question of quality, there are operational pressures that can also be relieved by effective deployment of CGI and content management of product information – data, as well as visuals. This is the bit a lot of agencies, otherwise strong on design, miss. Ingesting and effectively organising individual design elements and metadata - from the logo to the copyright line, ingredients list or regulatory warnings - in a well-structured and easy-to-use content management system - unlocks big improvements in automation and consistency across a brand’s marketing operations. It eliminates errors and powers adjustments to individual elements of content to directly drive real-time updates of the pack. This is highly beneficial at times of regulatory or ingredient changes, but also personalisation – be that for self-purchase and for seasonal gifting.
Digital Images That Sell
Photorealistic product renders are a game-changer.
Taking up the slack
The beauty sector has weathered the seismic changes of the past three years remarkably well, and with personalisation and self-expression being more important to consumers than ever, it’s well placed to ride high, even in the face of rocky times for consumer spending. But as shoppers’ expectations grow, the complexities and pressures on marketing and the supply chain do, too. Through services such as providing CGI product imagery, agency partners like Spark, with an understanding of both marketing creative and operations, can step in to take on some of the heavy lifting and help increasingly lean brand teams make big ideas happen.