The Zaphat Can Turn You Into A Zombie…Sorta

Here’s an interesting approach to Augmented Reality marketing: turn hats into Zombie heads.

The Zaphat (pronounced like Zap Hat, not Zafat) is a new line of fashion apparel where the logo on the accoutrement acts as the target for an iOS/Android app that uses Augmented Reality to transform the wearer into an avatar of their choice.

In other words, when you wear a special hat, people can look at you with an app and see a Zombie instead of your head and then take a picture of you.

This takes personal branding to a new level and is meant to be a fun experience and a way to create images for your social network.

As long as the hat is comfortable, stylish and competitively priced I find it hard to see what’s not to like here. Being able to make you look like a Zombie is icing on the cake.

The Zaphat (and accompanying app) all developed by Zappar, could easily be popular in youth markets, and is obviously expandable to different pieces of clothing, allowing for an entire doppelganger wardrobe to be associated with any clothing line. That’s an interesting idea.

It’s a novelty product right now but some could say much of fashion is novelty anyway. So really, this product could fit into the greater world of style with nary a dispute by the fanciful lords of fashion, don’t you think?

On a deeper level, as AR technology progresses toward the eyewear prototypes being developed by Google, Vuzix, Lumus and others, a real and alternate way to present yourself to others could become possible, even trendy.

Imagine an entire AR costume party, or an entire stage play occurring where the actors’ costumes are rendered by the eyewear of the audience. Concepts like the Zaphat could be a stepping stone in the path to a future state like this.

Or it could just be a cool hat.

It will be available in the coming months at Zappar.com and at other retail stores to be announced.

The Zappar app is available at iTunes and Google Play