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The metaverse is the newest place for companies to make their mark on the next generation. Video game studios and digital developers are partnering with popular brands to create exciting metaverse activations.
Over the past year there has been a rush of brands experimenting in the metaverse.
Brands are immersing themselves in Roblox, Minecraft, Fortnite and other video game platforms to reach the younger audience that spends countless hours playing, exploring and socializing in virtual worlds.
Let’s take a look at some of the most innovative and impressive metaverse brand activations we’ve seen so far.
High fashion has been collaborating with the video game industry for a few years now.
100 Thieves, a popular esports org and fashion brand in their own right, worked alongside Gucci to create a backpack featuring the team’s colorway and Gucci’s logo-links. Spanish fashion house Balenciaga released a series of in-game skins in Fortnite. Plus, Louis Vuitton dropped a League of Legends capsule collection and designed a series of in-game skins. All this to say, fashion and gaming are no strangers to one another.
In celebration of its 100 year anniversary, Gucci continued its foray into gaming through a new collaboration with Roblox. Gucci Garden was an “immersive multimedia experience” that was designed to explore the style and sensibilities of the iconic Italian fashion house.
Visitors could walk through virtual rooms, each with a different theme from Creative Director Alessandro Michele. Users’ Roblox avatars were instantly morphed into a decorative mannequin that took on new colors, patterns and special effects with each space they entered. By the end of the exhibition, the avatar would be a totally different version of itself and unique from all the others.
From May 17 to May 31, 2021, the Gucci Gardens Roblox game saw nearly 20 million visitors, awarding tens of thousands of unique digital items for players to wear in-game.
Fortnite, one of the biggest video games in the world, is also considered one of the biggest metaverse platforms. Epic Games, their parent studio, has completely embraced the idea of IP crossover events.
Marvel Comics is one such brand that’s seen immense success with their collaboration with the famous Battle Royale game. In total, 47 Marvel characters have made their way into Fortnite including popular names like Deadpool, Captain America, Groot, Black Widow and Storm.
The activations have mainly come in the form of skins, or in metaverse terms, a player’s avatar. Along with these skins have often come themed pickaxes such as Deadpool’s Katanas and Groot’s Sap Axes. Back bling and gliders were also included as part of the Marvel bundles.
Fortnite is also known for their incredibly well-conceived live events, of which Marvel has also participated in. The Nexus War let users fight an epic virtual battle alongside Wolverine, Storm and Ironman.
Thanks to documents released during Epic Games’ antitrust court battle with Apple, the public now knows which activations were most successful. According to the Fortnite reporter iFireMonkey who released the document, Marvel takes the cake as the game’s most profitable IP collaboration. Followed not so closely by Star Wars, NFL and Travis Scott.
Not all metaverse brand activations take place in an existing virtual space. Some are created completely from scratch. Selfridges, the famed London fashion retailer, worked in collaboration with Yahoo’s Ryot Lab to create a cyberpunk-themed digital city for shopping.
Designer Charli Cohen designed a series of real-life and virtual Pokémon apparel inspired by the cyberpunk aesthetic. The neon-drenched locale, deemed Electric/City, is an immersive video-based experience featuring different areas of the urban landscape.
Users start off in Central Square with options to head to Festival Park where a large music venue sits with dancing avatars. Or they can head to the backstreet after party with more dancing and fashion. Here they can redirect their browser to Soundcloud to hear artist Tobacco Rat’s soundtrack made especially for this project. Fans can also activate an AR experience through Snapchat that allows users to don their digital Pokémon apparel.
Roblox is becoming the place for metaverse brand activations. This is thanks in part to their innovative creators tools that allow developers to create nearly anything a brand could dream of. With those very tools, Logitech helped create the world’s first metaverse music awards show in Roblox.
Through Logitech For Creators, an offshoot of their main brand that focuses on showcasing social media and streaming talent, the company created the Song Breaker Awards. This virtual space brought together musicians, social media influencers, activists and gamers all in one place to celebrate content creation.
The event was hosted by beauty influencer Bretman Rock and featured a performance from rapper Lizzo and singer GAYLE. Shroud, Jaden Smith and famous TikTok creators like Cost n’ Mayor also made appearances.
What made this Logitech activation most impressive was the interactive nature of the event. There were games to be played, badges to be earned and gear to loot, including Lizzo-branded t-shirts for player’s Roblox avatars to wear. As Meridith Rojas, Logitech’s Head of Entertainment, put it in a recent interview with AdWeek, “When we approached it, it was about figuring out how to invite the audience in,” she said, “as opposed to just dropping a program in the metaverse.”
6.6 million people tuned in to watch this year’s Logitech Song Breaker Awards, up significantly from 500,000 viewers during 2021’s event which took place on TikTok.
The metaverse has proven itself as a concept that both millennials and gen-z consumers are eager to explore. We’ve only begun to see what these platforms can offer in terms of both utility and entertainment - from video games to VR shopping and virtual concerts. With brand integrations pushing developers to conceive more and more ingenious ways to engage with new audiences, it’ll be interesting to see where the metaverse will take consumers next.
Products and services from monetization to measurement for games and brands growing in the metaverse.
