EVERYTHING is changing in mid-January.
As content becomes easier and less expensive to produce, creating content personalized to your audience is becoming all the more crucial.
In his recent talk at the Digital Media Licensing Association’s annual conference in New York , CGI.Backgrounds’ CEO Randal Cumming discussed the importance of personalization and interactivity in marketing.
As we move into 2025, personalization will become even more essential.
Here are three strategies for personalizing content to your audience using today’s most advanced technologies, based on our 20+ years of experience working with some of the world’s largest brands.
1. Localizing Content to Your Customers' Geography
Big brands like Mercedes, Aston Martin, and General Motors need to customize their marketing materials for a variety of locations, and so do small automotive firms, design firms, and product marketers.
This is essential for effectively reaching your audience. The visuals and messaging that appeal to buyers in the North American market often differ substantially from what appeals to buyers in Europe, the Middle East, or Asia.
Brands that effectively localize their content will excel, while those that try to provide a uniform experience across multiple geographies will struggle. Non-localized content can feel generic, or worse, inauthentic and culturally tone-deaf.
With today’s technology, it’s easier than ever to localize your marketing collateral for a global audience. At CGI.Backgrounds, we offer RAY HDR and HDRi Maps, as well as 3D scenes and backplates from locations around the world. Our customers often use these tools to localize vehicle renders and other marketing materials.
For example, a designer might create a digital twin of a vehicle to showcase a new model’s features. Using our HDRi Maps, they can quickly swap backgrounds and lighting to position the car in different locations worldwide.
For an Asian audience, the vehicle might be placed on the streets of Tokyo or in Shenzhen. For a North American audience, it could appear near Bixby Bridge along the iconic Highway 1.
Once a visual concept is finalized, the availability of high-quality imagery with embedded lighting data makes it relatively simple to adapt the concept for different audiences. Our localized automotive renders are often used as end tags or bumpers in car commercials, or on brands’ regional websites.
In 2025 and beyond, think about how you can personalize your content to meet the needs of all your customers.
2. Targeting Customers by Demographic
However, many brands fail to use this data effectively. They often show the same visuals to every customer, regardless of their interests and background.
This approach leads to lower conversions and higher return rates, as customers may not understand the product’s value or feel that it is too generic.
Personalized content can make a significant difference. For example, a car brand could tailor the options in an online configurator based on the demographic data of each user.
The configurator might default to a specific paint color or trim option that appeals to a particular age group or gender. Younger consumers might see a vehicle with a high-performance trim, whereas older consumers might see trim levels tailored to families or luxury buyers.
This enhances the product’s appeal by showing customers the version they are most likely to purchase based on their preferences and demographics.
Artificial intelligence makes this even easier by inferring useful insights from customers’ previous interactions with your brand.
3. Adding Interactivity to Your Marketing Collateral
By giving customers control, you empower them to make the best choices for their needs. Additionally, the data gathered from these interactions can further refine and personalize future content!
New technologies, such as WebGPU, will soon make it more affordable for brands to display interactive experiences directly in customers' browsers.
As Randal mentioned in his presentation , pixel streaming used to be prohibitively expensive. However, client-side rendering will dramatically reduce costs, enabling brands to offer interactive experiences for a wider range of products.
For example, here at CGI.Backgrounds, we are currently involved in a project that allows customers to interactively visualize jewelry and other small items in 3D within their browsers before making a purchase.
Interacting with a digital twin of a product allows customers to better understand what they are buying, reducing the chance of negative surprises upon delivery. This approach helps increase conversion rates and decreases returns.
If you choose to offer interactive digital experiences, the quality must be excellent. Poor graphics or unrealistic lighting can undermine the premium image of your brand and drive customers away instead of drawing them in.
Bad visuals are one thing, but bad interactive experiences are clunky, amateurish, and offputting.
That’s why we are excited to use our RAY HDR technology and HDRi Maps to add realistic reflections, spectral highlights, and precise lighting details to these experiences for our customers.
For example, in our jewelry visualization project, our RAY HDR tech ensures that diamonds in a digital twin of a ring glitter realistically, and the background of a jewelry store is visible in the reflections on a platinum bracelet.
These hyper-realistic, fully interactive experiences will evolve from “nice-to-have” to “must-have,” especially for high-end brands. Offering customers the ability to explore your products interactively will significantly enhance their connection to your brand.
Need Help Personalizing Your Branded Collateral?
If you want to explore how today’s advanced visualization technologies can help personalize your marketing, reach out to CGI.Backgrounds via email at contact@cgibackgrounds.com
