In a week-long celebration of the beauty industry, creative agency Cult London set up the inaugural Metaverse Beauty Week (MBW), from June 12-17, on Web3 platforms like Spatial, Roblox and Decentraland and a few in-person events hosted at Flannels.
In an industry where touch, feel and smell heavily influence consumers’ decision making, the idea of a beauty week held almost entirely on the metaverse seemed bizarre.
Among the brands that participated were Lush, Flannels, THG’s subscription brand Glossybox and Lottie London, all taking part events held in the metaverse, incentivising visitors through a series of gamified experiences and products-as-wearables.
Cult London worked with Web3 development pioneers Exclusible to create worlds in all three host platforms that it described as extensions of brands in the digital space.
Throughout the week, Lush held multiple live events on Spatial and Decentraland inside a giant melting bath bomb before hosting a rave wrap party at the end of the week.
Glossybox dropped parcels named ’Glossydrops’ as it engaged visitors on a hunt in Decentraland with a chance to win a box in real life. Flannels took its beauty bar to the metaverse where it recreated the season’s beauty looks as wearables and held masterclasses.
“The organisers said brands need to perceive the metaverse as another channel for marketing and digital storytelling, calling it the next generation’s Facebook”
Merging digital and physical experiences, day six of MBW at the Flannels X on Oxford Street was underwhelming. Guessing by the displays of artificial reality and all the references to being anything you wish to be through an AI filter, it’s safe to say the event was targeted at Gen Alpha and the younger end of Gen Z.
As someone who enjoys in-person shopping and isn’t very familiar with the workings of the metaverse, most of this sounds unfathomable.
British Beauty Council chief executive Millie Kendall says: “I think any event that shines a spotlight on future opportunities for beauty brands is a good thing. We have struggled with physical trade and a metaphysical presence is a fantastic option for product categories that are born from a fusion of nature and science.
“The metaverse allows us to be more sustainable and to look at beauty in a different way, capturing the imagination of future generations. I think beauty is fundamentally a natural fit for the metaverse.”
First-mover advantage
An industry whose foundations are rooted in self-expression, the world of beauty does seem to fit in with the metaverse where users can change avatars to be anything from an octopus to wearing lipstick in the shade of a unicorn. But it also raises the fundamental questions of can the metaverse ever be a viable sales channel in the future and whether there are any tangible returns on investment?
As panellists said throughout the event, there are no simple answers and it may be too early to think about the returns.
The goal is to engage with a community of consumers that are already present on the metaverse instead of entirely shifting online and doing so in the most innovative way. As with most events held in the metaverse, like the similar Metaverse Fashion Week, the hype only lasts as long as the event, but panelists reiterated that brands should stick with Web3 for the long term for greater benefits.
MBW’s biggest strength was the curiosity it generated and its first-mover advantage.
“Users spent a combined 29 hours and 45 minutes playing games developed by skincare brand Neutrogena”
The event hit the number-one trending Spatial experience worldwide within an hour of going live and visitors on Decentraland had a 150% higher dwell time in the MBW Beauty Plaza compared to the average dwell time on beauty brands’ websites, according to the post-event statistics released by Cult London.
With a 53-times higher click-through rate compared to Instagram ads, 49% of attendees claiming their Glossybox wearable subsequently clicked through to the Glossybox site. Users spent a combined 29 hours and 45 minutes playing games developed by skincare brand Neutrogena.
Cult London’s co-founder Bridey-Rae Lipscombe, said: “The inaugural MBW was full of first-of-their-kind experiences and fascinating learnings for us as we look to the future of beauty in Web3. One of the greatest triumphs for us was to successfully blend worlds and look at how we had as much interoperability as possible for consumers – not only between worlds but also from virtual to real experiences.”
With Nike launching its own Web3 platform Swoosh enabling customers to design and sell virtual products and luxury fashion and beauty gaming app Drest raising funding of £15m to develop a metaverse version of the app, the possibilities of the metaverse seem to be endless but its trajectory is hard to predict.
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