How beauty brands and retailers can take advantage of the metaverse

While the metaverse is seeing an influx of fashion brands take to its digital sphere, the beauty sector is arguably a little behind on adopting the innovative, emerging tech, with only few daring to venture into this relatively unknown space.

In an attempt to alleviate some of the hesitancy surrounding entry into the metaverse, digital brand experience company Revieve has published a detailed report that hopes to elaborate on how companies can navigate this unfolding world and what opportunities lie in wait for those willing to explore it.

Entitled ‘The Complete Metaverse Playbook for Beauty Brands and Retailers’, Revieve’s report has provided various insights to help brands prepare the foundations needed to be established for the metaverse and its future.

It comes as big name beauty conglomerates, like L’Oréal and Estée Lauder, begin to make their mark on the space, with the latter taking part in various metaverse fashion weeks while the former has pre-saved its spot through trademark filings that it may likely act upon in the near future.

Nyx Professional Makeup is also among those dabbling in the virtual realm. In May, the beauty label worked together with metaverse platform The Sandbox to develop an inclusivity hub alongside the release of non-binary non-fungible tokens (NFTs), each aiming to display the brand’s message that makeup has no gender.

In its report, Revieve noted that much of the drive behind this big digital switch-up is due to the importance Millennials and Gen Z have placed on building communities through online avenues.

Prepare, protect, produce, position

The company highlighted a ‘6P’s phase-process’ designed to help brands determine what foundations need to be set before their entry. The first, ‘Prepare’, revolves around developing a necessary plan of action, including considerations for the budget and business models.

‘Protect’, as noted by Revieve, is an important part of consideration for this new landscape, with the report emphasising the need for legality, patents and protection over a business’ venture. The third, ‘Product’, touches on what a company is looking to digitally produce, and is followed by ‘Position’, in which a business must address where it wishes these products to be situated in the digital world. The final more self-explanatory steps are ‘Promote’ and ‘Personalisation’, both covering what message is being portrayed.

In order for an offer to appeal to consumers, Revieve suggested providing completely new forms of contact with them that are established after research on what their needs are.

The report highlighted a number of methods for forming new avenues of contact, all of which aim to be meaningful and long-lasting for a consumer-brand relationship. This could be the use of NFTs to build trust and loyalty, offering a cost-effective way to achieve member engagement and a personalised experience.

“Metaverse and NFTs present a new opportunity for beauty brands to reformulate what data, loyalty, and community mean to their customers,” said Kim Oguilve, communications lead at Revieve, in the report. “Let’s face it; this goes beyond the actual asset in play – it’s about making their brand salient to new consumer groups and consumer behaviours. But only time will tell what all the possibilities are, but we know they can be endless.”

Another form of communication could be developing a virtual store strategy, a method already in place with Nars Cosmetics and Clinique, which have both launched in-game opportunities that allow consumers to purchase products for digital use.

Revieve noted that the expanse of advancements and innovations present in the digital store concept gives incentives for consumers to interact with brands and displays the metaverse’s potential for beauty.