The metaverse, by most definitions, is a work in progress, a multi-part and multi-party digital mega-structure. And it is still unclear when, or if, it will be plugged together. But the makings of a metaverse, from VR headsets to AR filters to virtual merch, do exist, as do multi-player games and virtual environments that approximate or pre-figure a full-blown metaverse. 

Many brands are already working with this tool kit and parts and exploring their potential for virtual world-building and immersive storytelling. And, in a trial and test way, mapping new possibilities, commercial and otherwise, for mixed reality and virtual experiences.

The Japanese automotive giant Nissan is one brand exploring those possibilities, backing the launch of its new ARIYA electric vehicle in the UK with an interactive and multi-platform art experience. 

Nissan commissioned and worked with five young British artists to create virtual landscapes based on their home cities of Birmingham, London, Leeds, Manchester and—the standout—Neil Keating’s cartoon Liverpool, nodding to Japanese animation (and a certain yellow submarine).

Potential customers (and the simply curious) can scan a QR code to enter Nissan’s Electrified Lab and pop through crackling portals into these imagined cities. 

In the US, Nissan is offering VR ARIYA test drives for customers that can be experienced on mobiles, desktop, or VR headset. Nissan bought 1,200 Meta Quest 2 headsets so its dealers can offer potential customers the most immersive experience possible.

The campaign points at multi-platform possibilities now open to brands, and the way of “creative” can work in different spaces and reach different audiences. The campaign also has a game-ish energy and sense of fun. And gamification and mass-participant gaming are already established tactics and terrain for brand activity.

Other brands have taken advantage of the more immersive possibilities of VR headsets. The German airline Deutsche Lufthansa used ‘mixed reality’ technology to render full-scale cabins in the real world, developed in collaboration with agency MSM.Digital. The immersive experience gives people a first-hand simulation of their new generation of in-flight seats and experiences.

Elsewhere, Epic Games’ MPG Fortnite is often cited as a limited model for the metaverse, and major brands, including Moncler, Nike and Ferrari, have created and sold digital skins and offered virtual test drives to Fortniters. A more surprising, but possibly more inventive brand intervention in Fortnite world was last year’s partnership between ITV’s reality show I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! and the department store chain John Lewis. 

ITV and metaverse specialists Metavision used Fortnite’s open-source Creative mode to build a virtual version of the I’m a Celeb jungle, where players could take on some of the show’s challenges and visit a John Lewis store to stock up on supplies. John Lewis also simultaneously launched its Christmas advertising campaign “Unexpected Guest” during an episode of the show, on 4K outdoor screens in London and on Fortnite, with the ad’s festive flying saucer crash-landing at the castle. The multi-platform launch made the campaign even more of a national talking point and introduced it to younger consumers who rarely engage with terrestrial TV.

Boots, another stolid staple of the British high street, also took its Christmas campaign—built around the magical and very useful AR powers of Santa’s specs—into the emergent metaverse. Smartly picking up the theme of the ad, it created Instagram AR filter specs that could suggest potential gifts and launched itself into the feeds of younger consumers. And the campaign achieved an impressive 9-point uptick in ad recall compared to campaigns with no AR activation. 

Last year, Sony Music UK's Columbia Records, in partnership with 4th Floor Creative, backed the launch of George Ezra’s album Gold Rush Kid with the launch of a Gold Rush Kid Experience—a “contextual landscape” on the online game platform Roblox. A George Ezra avatar appeared in a series of gamified concerts and answered questions at a live Q&A. Visitors could also spend money at the virtual merch store. 

AR is another focus of artist activity and an Ezra avatar also appeared in an AR Instagram filter, available for mini-gigs in an IRL setting. The AR filter could also be used to animate the album’s artwork, if you had a copy to hand. 

For brands built around live IRL experiences these technologies offer the opportunity to create new kinds of hybrid happenings, AR-enhanced live-streamed concerts that could potentially pull in big (and paying) audiences. Last year, the California music festival Coachella collaborated with 14 different AR creators and Meta Spark studio to create a series of AR filters, some of them geo-tagged, only popping up in specific locationss. It also used Epic Games’ Unreal Engine to add AR effects to concerts live streamed on YouTube.

The appeal of these metaverse-in-the-making campaigns to brands are multiple, but essentially they are about meeting and engaging consumers where they are, digitally and physically. Brands can create themed campaigns and experiences across multiple platforms and using different technologies, exploring different ways to tell the same story to different kinds of consumers. They can use it for virtual travel and virtual test drives, they can engage the previously un-engaged—but they can also create new products.

For automotive brands, as seen with Nissan, these multi-platform campaigns are a recognition that the old engines of aspiration aren’t working in the way they did, and they need fresh ways to re-frame what they are offering. On the whole, these campaigns aren’t about creating branded virtual worlds, they’re playful attempts to land messaging and product in new spaces, working with the obvious limitations and potential of the technology at hand. 

If we are moving towards an “embodied internet”, a metaverse, these brands have a first-in advantage, they will have tried and tested and sharpened their tactics. The key, it seems, is to come to these new worlds as consumers do, with a sense of fun and wonder.

Learn more about marketing in the metaverse on meta.com.

This article was originally published by WIRED UK