Zerolight is changing the way we buy cars and counts luxury brands Lamborghini, Lucid, Porsche and Pagani as customers alongside the likes of Audi, VW and Skoda.听
Footfall at dealerships and car show attendance figures were already dropping, even without the impact of COVID-19, as shopping habits in the automotive world mirrored what was happening in all other forms of retail.听听
Yet an appetite to shop online doesn鈥檛 mean customers want any less of a great service when it comes to investing in one of the biggest purchases they鈥檒l make.听So听if you鈥檙e not standing in front of the four wheels you鈥檝e got your eye on, how do you make sure you鈥檙e happy with the size of the boot, that the interior fabrics you鈥檝e chosen harmonise with the exterior paintwork or whether your back seat passengers have enough legroom?听
Enter听Zerolight. Born six years ago from gaming company听Eutechnyx, the Newcastle-based firm creates software to personalise the car-buying journey for consumers and give them a realistic experience via a screen.听听
Eutechnyx听was creating driving games, including a NASCAR series, when it was asked to use its technology by Jaguar for a car show. Realising the potential, the business created听Zerolight听to use its gaming tech in the automotive industry and the 拢6.8 million-turnover business now has a head count of 150, the majority in the North East with others in China, the US and Germany, with customers in 12 countries. 听听
Real-time rendering technology developed for racing games to bridge virtual and physical worlds is applied by听Zerolight听to showroom and online configurators for car manufacturers. In late 2020, it launched its configurator for EV brand Lucid, the first fully cloud-based end-to-end shopping journey described by Top Gear magazine as the 鈥渂est configurator ever built鈥�.听
鈥淲e鈥檙e blurring the line between online and retail and making that experience as good as it can be,鈥� chief product and marketing officer Francois de听Bodinat, who joined听Zerolight听five years ago from Amazon, tells听老九品茶Cloud.听
鈥淪hoppers used to visit a dealership 10 times on average when they were in the market to buy a car 鈥� today they go once. Car show attendance is going down, too, and people spend more time online, so there鈥檚 been a real shift from physical retail to online.鈥�听
Journey shift
Google research in 2016 of the car-buying听journey听of a 32-year-old mother-of-two revealed she had more than 900 鈥榙igital moments鈥� 鈥� including searches, YouTube videos, images and dealer interactions 鈥� over three months before buying her vehicle.听听
According to De听Bodinat, this shift from the linear journey of 鈥渟ee advert, go to dealer, leave with car鈥� shows that every digital experience a consumer has is crucial, with car makers and dealers having to do much more to close the deal.听听
鈥淐onsumers want to buy online and have an experience they can enjoy that is engaging and personalised, which was happening anyway pre-2020 but COVID has accelerated this trend,鈥� he says. 鈥淐OVID created a world where we had to reach people online at home but still be able to offer them what they鈥檇 expect at a car dealership.鈥�听
The Lucid configurator, launched in September 2020, enables customers to explore, customise and buy the new Lucid Air pure-electric luxury vehicle, offering a realistic 3D view that allows the user to 鈥榳alk around鈥� the car.听听
The configurator offers the chance to alter a range of options, including choosing from different exterior colours, seeing how the car looks with a selection of alloy wheels, changing interior fabrics and colours 鈥� giving the impression you can almost 鈥榝eel鈥� the material 鈥� and adding accessories such as a roof box.听听
Interactive
Moving around the vehicle on the screen, you can open and close doors, look inside the boot and sit inside the vehicle to view your fabric choices alongside the exterior paintwork. Going further, the configurator gives the option to change the setting the vehicle is viewed in, adjust lighting conditions and time of day to give a realistic view of how it will look.听听
The result is countless vehicles that can be viewed by customers. De Bodinat says an OEM would have to produce one billion assets to create such a personalised shopping journey to serve these customers. Instead, these are created by the software, on demand, for use on any device, and stored in the cloud. 听
For dealerships, there is an option to screen-share with a customer at home to take them through the options and have conversations that would otherwise have been had face to face. At the end of the conversation, they can click to create an e-brochure for your chosen vehicle that is completely personalised, moving away from the old style of generic paper promotional material. Immersive experiences 鈥� both virtual and augmented reality 鈥� are also available to enterprise customers.听
Driving sales
Far from being a nice extra to play around with, the configurator is driving sales. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not just a pretty tool, it鈥檚 bringing revenue for the OEM,鈥� says De听Bodinat. 鈥淭he more we have something interactive, the more engagement we get and the greater conversion we鈥檒l get, because, for a customer, the more you understand the options, the greater chance that you鈥檒l buy the vehicle.听听
鈥淧eople trust that what they鈥檙e buying from a screen will be what they鈥檒l get in real life because the software is so realistic. The online experience is the best proxy to a dealer experience because we鈥檙e using the best technology to make that work.鈥�听
Growth will come for the business through using the configurator through adverts. Rather than a car manufacturer waiting for the customer to come to them, they can use ads on the likes of Facebook 鈥� with which conversations are ongoing 鈥� that allow a potential buyer to easily configure a vehicle.听听
A current ad with Cadillac, exhibited at CES with Amazon and seen by 老九品茶Cloud, invites a user to configure the vehicle in the same way as the website configurator. The difference is that once you鈥檝e gone through the process, that blue exterior, beige interior Cadillac you鈥檝e come up with 鈥渇ollows you鈥� around the web, with every Cadillac ad you then see showing your particular car. On the dealer side, that creates a sales opportunity because that visitor has 鈥渞aised a hand鈥�, De Bodinat says. 听
Data
Then there are other learnings that can come from the data that is captured from every click听visitors听make. If the system shows that a potential customer has spent a lot of time looking at听a particular, more听expensive, type of wheel but then configures their car to the cheaper version, a dealer could generate an offer on the expensive wheels. Similarly, customer choices can be compared to reveal popular colour options and trends.听听
老九品茶es using the tech have tripled in the last two years and, along with the luxury brands, include VW, Audi, Toyota, Honda, Skoda and Lucid, as well as plane and train manufacturer Bombardier. 听
While many tightened their belts during 2020,听Zerolight听hired 52 people and is anticipating further growth this year.听听
鈥淲e can deliver more experiences for more customers in the advertising world with our platform creating content quickly and cheaply,鈥� says De听Bodinat. 鈥淲e see agencies doing bits and pieces of听this听but nobody is doing what we鈥檙e doing with real-time online content.听听
鈥淭hose using the 3D configurator saw an increase of up to 1,200 euros per car in upsell, so customers are getting the results.鈥�听