Brands and the Metaverse: Embracing the Future of Customer Engagement
By Decentraland, , in About Decentraland
Despite recent less-than-positive coverage of the metaverse and metaverse-related activities, building and creative development continue unabated—much as it did years prior to the hype train rolling into town.
And as before, the opportunities for brands and companies to create close connections with metaverse communities, and deepen their engagement with existing customers, evolve at pace.
As one of the most established decentralized metaverse platforms, Decentraland continues to partner with organizations, creating unique activations that tell compelling brand stories and reveal previously unseen elements of products and services.
Why Decentraland? Breaking down the advantage for brands
Given that the relationship between brands and customers is now one of greater involvement, responsiveness and collaboration—to the extent that brands that fail to genuinely connect or ‘converse’ with customers are swiftly rebuked—the Decentraland ecosystem is ideally geared towards realizing and extending this association.
As a blockchain-based, decentralized metaverse platform, Decentraland facilitates deeper engagement and ownership of assets, including the land on which activations are built, with immersive experiences centered around gamification.
In short, brand experiences are built specifically around lengthy interaction and participation for a customer that wants to engage.
It is not unlike an experiential activation in the real world that provides a unique, fully immersive encounter. The advantage that Decentraland has is that this immersive encounter can be accessed from anywhere via a laptop, significantly increasing a brand’s reach.
And how many real world experiential activations have you come across that defy the laws of gravity, integrate jet packs, or reveal hidden content depending on what the visitor is wearing? Decentraland’s community of creators, supported by the Foundation, consistently brings fresh ideas to the virtual world, boosting experiences for brands and their customers.
Additionally, the existence of blockchain-based digital assets and a personal in-world backpack or connected digital wallet, means that visitors to scenes within Decentraland can also enjoy prizes, airdrops and other unique collectibles. Savvy brands and companies have also been implementing rewards schemes where holders of digital brand assets can redeem these for discounts and other benefits in the physical world. This has the effect of driving foot traffic to bricks and mortar stores and reinvigorating retail spaces.
Lastly, the freedom brands have with Decentraland, to set their own agenda and dictate their own business model—as in no revenue sharing, no partnership fee, no minimum advertising spend, for example—means the upside is theirs to keep.
Case studies: Brands in action in Decentraland
Brand: The Voice by Virtual Brand Group
Development studio: Vegas City
The Voice TV series, which airs in 150 territories, launched in Decentraland on November 2022 with a four-day virtual pop-up event in partnership with NBC at the Metaverse Music Festival. Festival goers, made up of music fans and the Decentraland community, could experience the world-famous music audition process, collect notes in a voice-themed game and win exclusive The Voice wearables inside an immersive branded space. They could also take selfies on an iconic spinning red chair with celebrity coaches Gwen Stefani, John Legend, Blake Shelton, and Camila Cabello.
Fans spent an average of 49 minutes per session—generating 13 times more engagement than typical social media platforms.
The Voice campaign was led by Justin W. Hochberg, CEO of Virtual Brand Group Inc. a former producer of the American version of The Apprentice. Hochberg advises global brands like Forever 21 and Barbie among others, on connecting with youth culture and driving engagement via new digital media like virtual fashion, games and interactive worlds.
“The average click-through rate for an ad on social media like Facebook is less than 1%. For The Voice experience, it was 1300% more, even when there was nothing free being given away. That math on its own tells me that the world of immersive engagement is so much more powerful than what I call pancake media (two-dimensional, flat screen click bait). It’s phenomenal to see those types of results.”
Developing a successful activation, says Hochberg, is all about iteration:
“You try something, you adjust it, you look at the data—unlike a TV show, where once the programme airs you can do very little about it until maybe the next series.”
Due to the success of its initial activation, VBG and ITV Studios subsequently launched The Voice Studios in Decentraland, a new permanent space enhancing player engagement, games and fashion with interactive show elements 365 days a year.
One of its most successful new additions to the experience was launching the first ever virtual celebrity coach fashion for Kelly Clarkson, Nial Horan, Blake Shelton and Chance the Rapper.
Brand: AbsolutLAND
Development studio: Parcel Party
ABSOLUT teamed up with Decentraland community members Parcel Party and DCL BabyDolls to create a captivating ‘Wild Berri Dance Battle’ that drove impressive user engagement and retention. A giant NPC on stage performed an emote which users had to match within the given time to earn points.
70% of unique visitors to the scene participated in the game (1,643 players out of 2,367 visitors) and top users enthusiastically competed for hours on end—with the average gameplay time a massive five hours.
“Collaborating with agency partners, Absolut carefully plans activations and designs captivating experiences centered around the community,” said Corey Kovnats, Metaverse Consultant for UEG/The Absolut Company. “Giveaways, gamification, and community engagement serve as pivotal elements in all of Absolut's metaverse events. By teaming up with Web3 native creators, studios, and ambassadors, Absolut ensures that its digital experiences resonate with the culture and principles of Web3.”
Brand: Metaverse Beauty Week by Cult LND
Development studio: Vegas City
Metaverse Beauty Week took place in June 2023. Cult LDN, the creative agency behind the event, was keen to create something similar to Metaverse Fashion Week for the beauty industry.
According to CULT LDN, over the five days, MBW secured 150% higher dwell-time compared to average dwell-time spent on beauty brands’ sites.
One of the driving factors for the high engagement was a gaming experience for Neutrogena, hosted by brand ambassador and American actress Kerry Washington, in an NPC (non-playable character) format, who guided users through a Skin's Vitals game.
Visitors interacted with the Kerry Washington NPC, on average, 26 times. By highlighting skin aggressors in a playful way and providing personalized skin analysis and product recommendation, Neutrogena scored a 92% completion rate on their gamified experience.
Elsewhere in MBW, 49% of attendees who claimed a wearable for beauty discovery platform Glossybox, subsequently clicked through to the Glossybox website—a huge 53 times higher than the average click-through rate for Instagram ads in the beauty industry.
Cat Turner, Chief Creative Officer & Co-Founder of Cult LDN said: “With such high levels of community engagement, flexibility and functionality of the spaces, we were able to construct some hugely engaging and delightful experiences for our brands and consumers. Working closely with Vegas City to bring these experiences to life, we were able to achieve some never before seen executions; such as a giant live melting bath bomb for LUSH or the multi-level gameplay experience for Neutrogena. These, combined with a programme of events across the week, kept people coming back to learn, meet and discover more.”
Brand: Ben Bridge
Development studio: Verse Digital
US-jewelry retailer Ben Bridge Jeweler, was the first international jewelry brand launched within Decentraland. Their activation took place during Metaverse Fashion Week 2023 and emphasized gamification built on repeat visits and wearable giveaways.
Lisa Bridge, president & CEO explains “Ben Bridge Jeweler has always been at the forefront of retail and creating unique experiences for our clients. The Metaverse is the future and we wanted to be one of the first to enter Decentraland and create a virtual storefront as well as unique wearables.”
According to data insights company GEEIQ, Ben Bridge garnered 47,695 minutes of dwell time with the average visitor spending 14 minutes engaging with the company’s virtual store—a near unheard-of statistic in the world of online advertising, where social media-originated brand impressions often clock in around three seconds.
Vogue Business called the Ben Bridge experience “a breakout success story” that drove engagement time by borrowing from a gamification playbook. These tactics included daily quests, treasure hunts and a ‘learn-to-earn’ approach to brand history, with visitors having to study a heritage wall and correctly answer questions set by the virtual avatar of CEO Lisa Bridge, to score a giveaway. The approach meant that among all of the highest performing brands at Metaverse Fashion Week, the small US retailer was most effective at engaging with visitors and maintain their interest whilst in the virtual store.
Immersive and compelling engagement, multiple tools and tactics to attract interest, and an emphasis on unique giveaways to drive retention and loyalty, are the foundation of a successful metaverse strategy. Brands and companies are increasingly seeing the benefits of using these elements to build experiences that go much further than existing channels and activations.
Interested in learning more about how to leverage the immersive and interactive nature of the metaverse to create marketing campaigns that drive results? Get the Metaverse Guide to get started.
If you are considering a metaverse project and would like advice on your strategy, insights into the Decentraland community, details on buying / leasing virtual land or marketing support, please share your details here and the Decentraland Foundation partnership team will be in touch.
Alternatively, if you are ready to build but need a Web3 developer, check out our studio registry to find a verified studio team to bring your ideal metaverse brands experience to life.