Metaverse & Brandiverse Trends, Q3 2024: Upgrading Shoppability & Audio

Roblox x Shopify Power Phygitally Focused In-Game Shopping

Supercharging real-life/virtual retail crossover, Roblox has teamed up with Canadian e-commerce provider Shopify to enable brands and partner creators to sell (physical) items without leaving the platform. Shopify Checkout will launch in Q1 2025, following various pilots of similar technologies (see below) for different purposes over the coming months.

The shoppability of metaverse platforms has previously been limited to redirecting to e-commerce sites.

Nars x Journee’s Audio-Anchored Anniversary Space

Shiseido-owned Nars’s partnership with German metaverse builder Journee for the cosmetics brand’s 30th anniversary celebrations – which include the launch of Nars’s Explicit Lipstick – revolve around a film-noir-centric vision of Downtown New York (steam rising from rain-slicked streets, red glowing lights).

Playing on Nars’s propensity for provocative product names (Orgasm, Deep Throat), users navigate the city to an after-party at urban château Maison Explicit, where they’re guided through the experience via Dirty Talk (a shade from the Explicit collection) telephones.

For instance, on clicking on a phone, visitors are given instructions on how to use the experience’s augmented reality try-on feature or told more about the Maison’s rooms by brand ambassadors American R&B singer Ciara and actors Pom Klementieff (French) and Camila Morrone (American). Each contains an interactive experience: for instance, in Ciara’s room, a dance floor lights up, with visitor avatars receiving instructions on how to use it.

Users collect lipstick shades, each of which unlocks an e-commerce code for a free sample or the chance to win a real-life product.

Roblox x Warner Bros x Fandango: Beetlejuice Movie Tickets

Also offering phygital utility, Warner Bros’ [Beetlejuice] Escape the Afterlife Roblox activation for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (1988 blockbuster Beetlejuice’s sequel) lets American visitors buy real-life movie tickets in-game via an integrated virtual box office by US-based ticketing platform Fandango. Ticket buyers also receive a cross-Roblox avatar skin. The experience, in which gamers escape ghouls and rescue characters from the film, has attracted 24 million visits since its August 9 launch.

Walmart Realm: ‘Your Dorm Your Way’ Shopping & Loyalty Link-Up

Extending its brandiverse (a discovery-based, non-communal virtual environment), initially launched in May 2024 for the back-to-school season, Walmart Realm comprises shoppable back-to-school virtual rooms for Gen Z college students (carts redirect users to Walmart.com).

Hosted by British-American virtual retail platform Emperia, this seasonal instalment of Walmart Realm – Your Dorm Your Way – features five themed rooms based on trending internet aesthetics (including Y2K and royalcore), curated by college-attending American influencers, who explain their dorm picks in video content within stylised frames on rooms’ ‘walls’. Users can collect hidden Sparks (in the shape of Walmart’s logo) to unlock rewards, such as 50% off a Walmart+ membership.

Roblox x Ikea’s In-Game Roles

Likely readying for a Shopify-operated store (see above) – Ikea UK’s June 2024 launch of The Co-Worker game (since visited nearly five million times) saw it recruit 10 people via an online ad on its e-commerce site and social media to work in its Roblox universe, with roles paid the London living wage (£13.15/$17.45 hourly). Online applications featured questions like: “If you were pixelated Ikea furniture, what would you be?”. Tasks included redesigning showrooms and serving Roblox versions of Ikea’s famous café food (like meatballs). Workers could transfer between departments and secure promotions.