Attendance at the second-ever Metaverse Fashion Week in April experienced a significant decline of 92%, reflecting the negative sentiment towards immersive virtual worlds and the persistently bearish crypto market. However, in the past week, the resilience of immersive Web3 experiences has been reinforced by a series of notable announcements made by prominent consumer brands.
Metaverse Beauty Week Aims to Showcase the Branding Potential of the Metaverse
The second edition of Metaverse Fashion Week, held in April, experienced a staggering decline in attendance, plummeting by 92%. This decline was attributed to a deteriorating public perception of immersive virtual realms and the prolonged bear market in the cryptocurrency industry.
However, in a surprising turn of events, the resilience of immersive Web3 experiences has received a significant boost in recent days thanks to a series of impactful announcements made by heavyweight consumer brands.
Apple made headlines last Monday with the unveiling of its new mixed reality Vision Pro headset, reigniting discussions about the metaverse with a level of enthusiasm not seen in over a year. In a similar vein, French luxury brand Louis Vuitton announced its commitment to establishing a long-term presence in the Web3 space, specifically targeting high-impact customers.
Building upon this momentum, Creative agency Cult has engineered Metaverse Beauty Week, a five-day event beginning Monday, aimed at bringing cosmetics brands into the metaverse. The event aims to demonstrate the value for consumer brands in establishing immersive and creative virtual marketing initiatives.
Similar to Metaverse Fashion Week, most of the events during Metaverse Beauty Week will take place on Web3 metaverse platforms, primarily Decentraland and Spatial. However, this event will also incorporate programming within Roblox, a highly popular Web2 online gaming platform.
The addition of Roblox is noteworthy, as it boasts a significantly larger user base compared to Web3-native metaverse platforms like Decentraland. While Decentraland sees an average of 10,000 daily users, Roblox’s figure soars to approximately 66 million.
Throughout the week, visitors to Metaverse Beauty Week will have the opportunity to explore virtual beauty-themed pop-up games and experiences across Decentraland, Spatial, and Roblox.
Spatial and Decentraland will be interconnected through portals, facilitating seamless navigation between the two worlds. However, since Roblox is a closed platform, visitors will need to access it separately.
Prominent beauty brands participating in Metaverse Beauty Week and establishing their presence across the three platforms include Neutrogena, Lush, Flannels, and Clementine, among others.
While the connection between the metaverse and fashion is relatively straightforward, with animated avatars showcasing outfits inspired by real-life brands, integrating cosmetics into the virtual realm poses a more abstract challenge.
According to Kim Currier, Decentraland’s head of marketing, this presents an opportunity for brands to get creative and explore how their brand identity can be translated into the metaverse in ways that go beyond physical representation.
For example, Neutrogena has collaborated with actress Kerry Washington to develop a series of immersive games within Decentraland that aim to convey the experience of using the company’s cosmetic products while incorporating marketing messages.
Participants in Metaverse Beauty Week can accompany a virtual representation of the Scandal star into an empty airplane to search for hidden containers of Hydro Boost Moisturizer (essential for travel). They can also join the Emmy-nominated actress in a surreal, space-like cosmos where they must dodge asteroid-like coffee cups and smartphones on a giant floating bed to obtain a packet of Cleansing Makeup Removing Wipes (key to a good night’s sleep).
If these interpretive experiences prove successful with participants, they could potentially broaden the appeal of metaverse installations to various consumer brands, extending beyond those with direct ties to the online, avatar-populated ecosystem.
The scope for metaverse installations to captivate consumers for more than a few seconds presents a unique opportunity for brands, particularly in the luxury space, to engage their target audience in a highly immersive manner—a feat that is challenging to achieve through traditional advertising.
How often is your target audience engaging with your content for more than two seconds, if you can even get them to stop their thumb on a TikTok?
Kim Currier
Metaverse Beauty Week will run throughout the week, culminating in in-person events in London on Friday.
To access more event news: cryptodataspace.com
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