Scale Lifestyle Shot:

CG product shots are a great innovation in product marketing. They offer a realistic “look and feel” of the goods in a couple of days without breaking the bank.

A scale lifestyle shot is one of many types of promo visuals that allows estimating the size and proportions of the product like nothing else.

In this post, our CGI company will discuss scale lifestyle renders in depth. What is it? Why is it beneficial for product promo? How to produce an outstanding scale lifestyle shot? Let’s find out in detail!

If you want to learn more about this powerful marketing imagery, read on!

#1. What is a Scale Lifestyle Shot?

A scale lifestyle shot gives you an accurate replica of your products from any angle. With CGI, such a shot includes different backgrounds that suit the product and highlight the scale of objects in the frame. Many manufacturers want to show their goods in different environments and how it interacts with them. 

A 3D lifestyle shot is a type of visualization created in the CGI environment to display your product model.  It is a popular choice for marketers as such images offer a realistic representation of the size and scale of the product concerning its surrounding. 

In online furniture marketing, scale lifestyle shots allow for an easy depiction of how large or small the item is and how it will look in your home or office. The main uses of this type of CG imagery include showing off the size of the objects in comparison to each other, as well as making sure that a customer knows exactly how the product will fit in their space. 

The process involves using 3D modeling services to create an accurate digital replica of your product and build the setting around it.  Then comes texturing, rendering, and compositing — the result is an image that looks like it was taken with a real camera. 

That kind of product image is usually taken from above and shows the product along with all its accessories and other objects within its environment. It allows an understanding of how the item works with other objects in the same space. Read more about upselling and cross-selling opportunities that come with such types of CG renders in the article about group lifestyle shots.

#2. Benefits of a Scale Lifestyle Shot in Product Marketing

Products are the heart and soul of every successful business. This is why your marketing visuals should shine, reflect every detail, and portray a realistic lifestyle scene. The product should be displayed in a natural setting and accompanied by other products used alongside it. 

Scale Lifestyle Shot in 3D Rendering vs. Product Photography

A visual presentation of a product is meant to sell the item to as many potential consumers as possible. Before the advent of digital photography, photos of products were made using regular cameras, lighting, and studio settings. This process takes a lot of time, money, and effort.

CGI is an alternative to traditional product photography, which is a perfect solution for many e-commerce owners who want to get an edge over their competitors. For many types of products, renders have proven to be more effective in capturing the essence of the product than photographs have been. 

The main advantages of CGI over product photography are flexibility, high quality, and quick turnaround time. With it, e-commerce owners can leverage the power of content marketing — building a library that they then use for omnichannel promotion activities.

#3. Why Use CG Scale Lifestyle Shots in Product Promotion?

Your product is only as good as your brand, and CGI allows you to create images that stay true to the vision of your brand. This ensures that all of your marketing collateral looks consistent and professional. 

With CG scale lifestyle shots, you can further enhance your product’s appeal by creating a setting that’s also relevant to your target audience. This can be done by:

• Experimenting with concepts. Creating scale lifestyle shots allow recreating any location, settings, lighting scheme, interior style, etc. that you want. This makes it possible for marketers to get images that would otherwise be impossible or too costly to shoot with a real camera and props. 
• Demonstrating product functions. Communicating product functions and putting your product in its natural environment will help customers understand how to use it, what it does, and how to benefit from owning it. These are all things that are essential to the decision-making process of the purchase. 
• Estimating the size of your product before you purchase it will help prevent buyers from being disappointed when they receive a slightly different item than expected. Naturally, it will lower the return rate significantly.
• Evaluating the product in space helps customers understand how it will fit in their place.
• Adding related products allows you to up-sell and cross-sell more goods (for example, if you’re selling lawn furniture, adding lawn chairs and rakes). 

#4. The Best Marketing Channels for a Scale Lifestyle Shot

Creating and sharing compelling visual content of your products will help to build a strong relationship with your customers. CGI allows you to create highly engaging but also informative content that can help you increase your conversion rates. You can do this by driving traffic through marketing channels like PPC ads, social media campaigns, and email marketing.

Here are some tips and tricks on how to leverage the best marketing channels with CG scale lifestyle shots:

• Fill in product pages. The more engaging the visual content is, the more likely people are going to share it with their followers. This will help you reach a larger audience for free! You can include your CG scale lifestyle shots on your product pages to make them more informative and accurate. This will help you better convey the look and design of the item and how it benefits people in real-life scenarios.
• Build your email newsletters.  Product 3D rendering for email marketing campaigns can be used not only for promo but also for customer retention. Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to keep in contact with your customers. With the help of 3D visuals, you can build a strong relationship with your audience and drive more sales through email marketing campaigns. This will also help you improve your customer acquisition costs (CAC) over time by building trust and brand loyalty. Lifestyle shots for email marketing campaigns are highly effective in demonstrating value and driving sales because they create a better understanding of how the product will benefit consumers.
• Boost social media presence. For businesses, having an aesthetic social media CGI post is crucial for the success of their marketing strategy. Companies need to be able to convey a variety of images to their audience. One can use these images in various ways, such as posting them on Facebook or Instagram to show off the company’s new product line or adding them to Pinterest or Tumblr for blog content. Aesthetic social media CGI posts will help you increase your follower base, improve brand awareness and generate more traffic to your website.
• Make effective PPC ads to drive traffic to your website. You can create highly targeted and state-of-art visual ads that will appear in search results and on social media platforms. With a CG scale shot, you be able to capture the attention of the larger audience by including several products in one picture. 
• Create an impressive digital and print product catalog. If you’re running an e-commerce and retail business, online and printed product marketing materials like catalogs or flyers are a must-have. Scale lifestyle shots should be a key component of your catalogs, package inserts, and point-of-sale displays

#5. Tips on What Makes an Impressive Scale Lifestyle Shot

In this section, we are going to talk about what makes an impressive CG scale lifestyle shot and also give you some tips on how you can create one:

• Composition. The composition of your 3D scale lifestyle shot should be well-balanced and visually appealing to the viewers. Try to make the layout pleasing to the eye and focused on the product — it should enhance its design and features! Make sure your composition helps customers to estimate the actual size of the advertised product. For example, viewers can compare product size with the surrounding items or a person standing next to it. If you want to highlight a slick thin smartphone design, then your scale lifestyle shot should also include something thin. If you want to emphasize how big the smartphone’s screen is, show it in the person’s hand.
• Storytelling. A scale lifestyle shot should tell a story about the idea behind the product and make people want to know more about it. An excellent way to create a lifestyle shot is to show someone using the product. 
• Attention to detail. A scale 3D shot should demonstrate all the qualities of the product, and clearly communicate its size, shape, and design elements. Include shadows and reflections on the item’s surface, which makes it look even more realistic.
• Angles. From different angles, objects can look different, specifically, in their proportions and size. This is called foreshortening and is essential to understand if you want to create an excellent 3D product shot. For scale lifestyle images, we recommend using a direct general view or a more dynamic top view at about 45 degrees. This will give the viewer an accurate impression of the size of the product its shape and its proportions. If possible, include a human model or a common object next to the product for the scale comparison. 

If you’re trying to convey an accurate size of an object, there’s no better way than a well-done scale shot. This type of picture shows a realistic view of the product in relation to space and other objects. On top of that, this helps to give context to the product in question, which has a tremendous impact on how well it sells.

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Scale lifestyle shots are even more effective because they show the object in its natural environment. This allows viewers to imagine themselves in that setting, not just focus on the product itself. It also helps them visualize what it would be like to own that item, making people more interested in buying it. With CGI, creating any setting for the product is fast and easy which makes it the most efficient tool for lifestyle pictures.

Scale lifestyle shots should be used in conjunction with other lifestyle images to capture your product thoroughly. Try not to rely on scale lifestyle shots alone; instead, use them as a starting point and build upon them by adding more detail. You can also use these images to help you plan out the rest of your marketing campaign by asking yourself how you want your customers to feel when they see each picture.

CGIFurniture is a team of 3D artists, innovative marketers, and project managers who can take your product and set it up in a beautiful environment with 3D modeling services. Let us create your product’s CGI within unique scale lifestyle shots!

Max Kharchenko

Senior Account Manager

An ultimate problem-solver and skilled negotiator, Max provides first-class advice to clients. He is an extrovert, a dog person, and a sheer pleasure to talk to. In his spare time, Max enjoys playing basketball and watching Netflix.