Character-Driven Commerce

Innovative brands are using gaming’s character-centric storytelling as a canvas on which to forge connections with fans and fandoms. Beauty brand partnerships with major gaming franchises expand upon existing worlds and fan bases/cultures, while pioneering new labels are creating their own gaming-reverential universes.

Supporting Beauty’s Self-Care Stretch

Socially responsible beauty and grooming brands are using gaming platforms and their mechanics to further expand their remit into all forms of self-care. Initiatives range from in-game therapy sessions to confidence-boosting financial coaching and entrepreneurial tycoon-style games (in which being a beautypreneur anchors the game).

Creating Connections: Phygital Services

Commercially astute brands are keeping gamer brand fans on the line with in-game phygital commerce capabilities (buying real items in-game). Elsewhere, in-store activations bring digital creations (with the potential to veer into the fantastical) into the real world.

Zalpha Activations: Dialling Up Discovery via Play

Other beauty brands are meeting tweens in their favoured virtual environments, including Roblox and Fortnite, using play to elevate product discovery. The best approach the challenge of credibly integrating brands into gaming environments via Gen Alpha-wooing absurdist tournaments or activating within existing hit games.

Virtual Beauty Creators & Aesthetics to Watch

Among American and British Gen Zalphas, 55% believe their online avatars represent their true self better than their real-life appearance (Pion, 2025). Pioneering creators and emerging content formats are servicing this appetite for self-expression transcending bodily limits and presenting a ready-made opportunity for in-the-know brand involvement.