Brand Engagement in the Metaverse: July 2023

Published 27 July 2023

Author

Brynn Valentine

2 min read

This month’s standout metaverse initiatives straddle sectors as diverse as beauty and fast food: McDonald’s offers restaurant work experiences in The Sandbox, Rihanna’s Fenty label turns Roblox players into cosmetic creators, and French brand L'Occitane takes curious customers on a bilingual ingredient journey.

McDonald’s McNuggets Land x The Sandbox Encourages Practical Life Skills: Tapping into Gen Alpha’s love of gaming and McDonald’s (the favourite restaurant for 37% of under-13 Americans; Morning Consult, 2023), the fast-food chain has launched a transient activation (July 20 – August 28) to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Chicken McNuggets.

Located within The Sandbox – a virtual world on the Ethereum blockchain where users can build, purchase and trade digital assets – McNuggets Land hones players’ real-world skills through McDonald’s employee role-playing (as Nugget characters). Positions include front-of-house staff serving virtual non-player character (NPC) customers and factory workers helping with food production. Players earn the platform’s in-game currency Sand. For more on brands encouraging real-life skills (and why millennial parents approve), see Brand Tutoring: Building Trust with Life Lessons in Captivating Gen Alpha: Engaging Brand Strategies.

Additionally, McDonald’s has organised a competitive element for players in Hong Kong, home to The Sandbox HQ. Here, 10 participants who complete the mini games can win real-life rewards, including a year’s worth of free Chicken McNuggets.

McDonald’s McNuggets Land x The Sandbox Encourages Practical Life Skills: Tapping into Gen Alpha’s love of gaming and McDonald’s (the favourite restaurant for 37% of under-13 Americans; Morning Consult, 2023), the fast-food chain has launched a transient activation (July 20 – August 28) to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Chicken McNuggets.

Located within The Sandbox – a virtual world on the Ethereum blockchain where users can build, purchase and trade digital assets – McNuggets Land hones players’ real-world skills through McDonald’s employee role-playing (as Nugget characters). Positions include front-of-house staff serving virtual non-player character (NPC) customers and factory workers helping with food production. Players earn the platform’s in-game currency Sand. For more on brands encouraging real-life skills (and why millennial parents approve), see Brand Tutoring: Building Trust with Life Lessons in Captivating Gen Alpha: Engaging Brand Strategies.

Additionally, McDonald’s has organised a competitive element for players in Hong Kong, home to The Sandbox HQ. Here, 10 participants who complete the mini games can win real-life rewards, including a year’s worth of free Chicken McNuggets.

McNuggets Land, The Sandbox

Fenty’s Co-Creation Roblox Lab to Launch IRL Lip Gloss: From June 30 to July 30, Fenty Beauty allows players to create their own beauty product in a digital lab.

Designed by American creative production company Sawhorse, the game enables mixing different colours so players can blend their perfect shade of the brand’s popular (real-life) lip gloss, Gloss Bomb. First, they must take time to explore the Roblox world and locate 10 key ingredients (such as grapefruit and orange oil) to unlock the Beauty Lab.

Next, players can upload their colour creations to a public board within the lab, which hosts all names, creations and a voting button. Roblox’s 214 million monthly users vote on their favourites, incentivised by rewards of Fenty-branded clothing for their avatars. The current leading creator (Glitter_yeet0) has more than 35,000 votes for their shade. The top 100 most-voted will be presented to Rihanna herself later this year, and the winner will see their shade produced and sold in stores.

To date, the activation has received 3.3 million visits (Roblox, 2023), reflecting Gen Zers’ and Alphas’ appetite for digital co-creation – a topic covered in Gen Alpha’s “Game-itects”: Live Creative Cooperative Mastery in Pop Culture & Media Futures 23/24. This phenomenon has been amplified by the community-centric mindset of beauty lovers, as discussed here.

Fenty’s Co-Creation Roblox Lab to Launch IRL Lip Gloss: From June 30 to July 30, Fenty Beauty allows players to create their own beauty product in a digital lab.

Designed by American creative production company Sawhorse, the game enables mixing different colours so players can blend their perfect shade of the brand’s popular (real-life) lip gloss, Gloss Bomb. First, they must take time to explore the Roblox world and locate 10 key ingredients (such as grapefruit and orange oil) to unlock the Beauty Lab.

Next, players can upload their colour creations to a public board within the lab, which hosts all names, creations and a voting button. Roblox’s 214 million monthly users vote on their favourites, incentivised by rewards of Fenty-branded clothing for their avatars. The current leading creator (Glitter_yeet0) has more than 35,000 votes for their shade. The top 100 most-voted will be presented to Rihanna herself later this year, and the winner will see their shade produced and sold in stores.

To date, the activation has received 3.3 million visits (Roblox, 2023), reflecting Gen Zers’ and Alphas’ appetite for digital co-creation – a topic covered in Gen Alpha’s “Game-itects”: Live Creative Cooperative Mastery in Pop Culture & Media Futures 23/24. This phenomenon has been amplified by the community-centric mindset of beauty lovers, as discussed here.

Fenty, Roblox

L’Occitane’s Bilingual Brandiverse: As 72% of Middle Eastern consumers say transparency of ingredient origins and product education influence their beauty purchases (compared with the global average of 55%; PWC, 2021), the French beauty label’s brandiverse (meaning an explorable yet non-communal virtual environment), L’Occitane en Provence, is navigable in both Arabic and English.

Powered by British virtual retail platform Emperia, it takes visitors on a point-of-view journey (experienced as if the viewer were present in a specific environment, rather than moving an on-screen avatar) through the brand’s native Provençal landscape, where its key ingredients, including lavender and almonds, are grown. Users can click on individual plants to learn about their role in the production process and their cosmetic benefits.

Additional educational videos reveal the intricacies of lavender harvesting, including facts such as one tonne of lavender flowers (which must grow at an altitude of 600-1,700 metres) yields 8kg of essential oil. Visitors can also click on virtual cards embedded throughout the landscape to read about L’Occitane’s producers and farmers.

The experience is shoppable: users select virtual renderings of L’Occitane products to buy for home delivery.

L’Occitane’s Bilingual Brandiverse: As 72% of Middle Eastern consumers say transparency of ingredient origins and product education influence their beauty purchases (compared with the global average of 55%; PWC, 2021), the French beauty label’s brandiverse (meaning an explorable yet non-communal virtual environment), L’Occitane en Provence, is navigable in both Arabic and English.

Powered by British virtual retail platform Emperia, it takes visitors on a point-of-view journey (experienced as if the viewer were present in a specific environment, rather than moving an on-screen avatar) through the brand’s native Provençal landscape, where its key ingredients, including lavender and almonds, are grown. Users can click on individual plants to learn about their role in the production process and their cosmetic benefits.

Additional educational videos reveal the intricacies of lavender harvesting, including facts such as one tonne of lavender flowers (which must grow at an altitude of 600-1,700 metres) yields 8kg of essential oil. Visitors can also click on virtual cards embedded throughout the landscape to read about L’Occitane’s producers and farmers.

The experience is shoppable: users select virtual renderings of L’Occitane products to buy for home delivery.

L’Occitane en Provence

Fenty, Roblox

L’Occitane en Provence

Fenty, Roblox