These days, even products that have remained largely the same at their core for decades need to explore the ways in which new technology can assist them in connecting to customers. Right now, the tech proving to be a game-changer for brands and products across several industries is live streaming.
Having been widely adopted by the general public through the likes of Facebook Live, Instagram Live, and Twitch, companies now feel comfortable using it as a means to showcase or advance their offering. For the uninitiated, a live stream isn’t much more than a video stream, but when applied correctly, the fact that it’s live makes all of the difference.
From a new way to experience online products to luxury brands offering an innovative way to captivate potential customers, live-streamed productions look to be the way forward.
Making the experience even better
Perhaps the most profound way in which live streaming is being applied is to products that rely a great deal on the experience. When online, people can find just about anything that they want, but for an online-based product to become better, it can build into a live stream, offering real-time engagement with the brand and the product. The best way that this works is when a live stream is a two-way event, with those watching being able to influence or engage with those hosting the stream.
The furthest that live streaming has developed in this sense is in the advancement of online games, specifically online game show and table games. Take live roulette, for example; it’s played in rounds with the players wanting to bet on numbers for each spin. So, the game streams the real table and croupier to the player, with OCR technology set up to read the table while the player bets through the UI on their phone or computer. Suddenly, roulette isn’t a video-simulated online game, it’s real, live, and offers that same bricks ‘n mortar casino experience at the convenience of the users.
The same can be seen in the way that music is evolving its online presence. For decades, aspiring artists have posted their covers on video platforms like YouTube, but now there’s a surge of people staging live shows rather than just offering on-demand content. Data analysis of a popular live music platform has found that not only are viewers overwhelmingly positive about the live-streamed experience, but they’re also very likely to buy into products as a direct result of the live experience.
Building into live commerce
The idea of truly organized and direct live commerce isn’t a concept that’s overly well adopted in western markets. Sure, so-called influencers have been paid to sling promoted items over videos on social media, but in China, the likes of Taobao Live and Baidu have crafted full channels dedicated to shoppable live streams. They work similarly to the influencers, but the streams from the likes of fashion site MOGU are specifically designed to showcase products, help customers, answer questions, and more: offering shopping and entertainment all in one.
Luxury fashion brands are starting to explore the potential of live streams, too. There’s Rihanna’s Fenty Social Club on Instagram, which offered a form of escapism while also raising brand awareness, and even informal meets from Marc Jacobs to connect to consumers. As it stands, live streaming fashion shows is the primary use of the technology at the luxury end, but it wouldn’t be a surprise to see some fast fashion outlets explore the live streaming techniques that have been so successful in China.
There’s so much that companies can do with live streaming, from offering interactive options to live chat windows, that just about any brand can benefit from exploring the technology.
