The overall campaign is called Continuous Play and it’s the first of its kind to use Facebook’s Spark AR platform, which makes it an interesting move in itself. It launced in the men’s footwear department with the retailer boldly claiming it will ‘redefine immersive retail‘.
The instagram account for Auxiliary stated that Selfridges was “nice enough to provide a bottomless void for us to display our shoes on, thank you kindly for that. You can have a look at it today at Selfridges oxford street through your Facebook app.”
Experiential retail is really what the department store wants to be seen doing these days with initiatives like its Corner Shop taking it in that direction, as is the plan to open a cinema at the Oxford Street site, and its Skate Bowl in the menswear department. These all help to add further appeal to the store that should encourage shoppers away from their screens and into physical spaces.
Auxiliary already has a history with Selfridges, having launched its very first collection at the upscale department store last year. The company was started back in 2017 by Matthew Taylor, who had previously been with Swear London, Puma and Paul Smith.
The AR experience was put together with the help of Stink Studios, Retail Week reported, with its technical director Matt Greenhalgh saying the company used the “massive audience and rapid prototyping advantages of Spark AR and paired them with faithful modelling, a bold design and one-of-a-kind shaders to bring the auxiliary story to audiences in a dramatic new way.”