Branding in metaverses: the first steps for business
How much does entry really cost — and where does the money go
The entry threshold depends not on the company's budget, but on the format of presence chosen. Building your own location from scratch on Roblox is from $30 000, on Decentraland — from $20 000, on Fortnite — from $50 000. For regional businesses, these are inadequate figures, and most articles about this honestly remain silent, showing only cases of Nike or Gucci, whose budgets are measured in millions of dollars.
But there is a third path — to integrate into someone else's world. The Russian brand Unicorn (dry breakfasts) spent only 3 million rubles on a campaign in Roblox, placing branded activities in already popular games, rather than creating its own. Result: 211,5 thousand visits, vCPM 230 rubles, average time of interaction with the brand — 4,4 minutes. This is comparable in efficiency to major cases, but costs dozens of times less.
| Level of entry | Budget | What you get | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Integration into a ready-made world | 150 thousand – 3 million rubles | Branded objects, quests, integrations into foreign games | Unicorn in Roblox |
| Rental of space / event | 1–10 million rubles | Temporary event, partner activation, pop-up location | Local retail activations on Roblox |
| Own world | from 2,5–4 million rub. and above | Full-fledged brand location with a permanent audience | Auchan City, Adidas Ozworld |
A practical rule for budget calculation: allocate 5% of the annual marketing budget for experiments in metaverses — usually this is $2 500–12 500 for small business. This amount is sufficient for the first test via integration, but will definitely not be enough to build your own world.
Roblox, Decentraland or Fortnite: the comparison is not in favor of the 'trendy' platform
Choosing a platform is not a question of hype, but a question of matching the audience with the brand's target group. Decentraland often appears in articles as the flagship Web3-branding, but the real traffic there is low, and the audience is narrow crypto-community, not mass consumer.
| Platform | Entry threshold | Audience | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roblox | from $30 000 (own world), from 150 thousand rubles — integration | Mass, teenagers and youth 9–25 years | Retail, FMCG, family products — Auchan City reached 5,14 million visits |
| Fortnite | from $50 000 | Gamers 13–34, high engagement | Sports, lifestyle brands with a large budget — Adidas Ozworld delivered 642 million impressions and ROI 303% |
| Decentraland | from $20 000 | Narrow crypto and NFT audience | Luxury and collectible brands focused on Web3-community, not mass reach |
If a brand is not ready to build a world, Decentraland is almost always a wrong choice, regardless of how many times this platform is mentioned in cases of Western agencies.
What to do if you're not ready to build a world: five formats without construction
A full location is not the only way to be present. There are five working approaches, and they combine well with each other.
- Broadcast — branded event or conference within someone else's world, without a permanent location. One-time activation with a limited lifespan.
- Engage — working with an existing game community: quests, collaborations with UGC content created by players themselves.
- Advocate — exclusive offers for the metaverse audience, for example, a virtual item that provides a discount in a real store.
- Inform — educational content in a game format: mini-games, training mechanics, product tests.
- Sale — direct sale of virtual goods with the possibility of converting to a real purchase, as KFC did.
KFC Re:Store on the Chinese QQ platform — a good example of the Sale approach without building a 'world' in the classical sense: 19 million visits in five weeks, 4,3 billion interactions, and 180 million virtual items sold, each of which was linked to a real purchase. No massive 3D-island — just a well-integrated store with game mechanics.
Metrics that will convince management, not just 'reach'
The main mistake of beginners is to report to management the number of visits and beautiful screenshots. This is not enough to prove ROI, and the first question from the financial director will crush such a report.
- CPM and cost per visit — the basic unit of comparison with other channels (for Unicorn, CPM was 230 rubles).
- Average interaction time — in metaverses, a session lasts 8–45 minutes compared to 2–3 minutes on a regular website, but this is not a reason to relax: conversion here is 2–4 times lower, and this gap needs to be explained to management in advance, not after the report.
- Brand lift — the change in brand recognition and attitude after contact (with Adidas Ozworld — an increase of 11 points).
- Campaign ROI — calculated using the formula (revenue from the campaign – costs) / costs; for Adidas, this indicator reached 303%.
- Indirect financial effects — growth in the value of associated NFTs or collectible items (with Adidas, the price of an adult NFT grew 2,62 times (increase of 162%)), share of positive reviews (with Auchan City — high level of audience acceptance).
First three months: step-by-step plan without unnecessary risk
- Weeks 1–3. Define the target audience and choose a platform based on demographic match, not hype. Set a test budget — no more than 5% of the annual marketing budget.
- Weeks 4–6. Choose a format without building — Engage or Inform usually provide a fast and cheap test. Agree on integration into a ready-made game or community instead of developing a location.
- Weeks 7–9. Launch a pilot for 2–4 weeks with clear KPIs: visits, interaction time, CPM, initial brand lift through survey.
- Weeks 10–12. Gather data, compare with planned indicators and decide whether to scale the format, change the platform or exit the experiment without losses.
Such a plan consciously excludes building your own world from the start — this decision is made only after a successful pilot, not before it.
Why projects like Nike RTFKT and Starbucks Odyssey are being closed
Both projects closed not due to metaverses as a concept, but due to specific management mistakes that are easy to repeat in small business on a smaller scale.
- Nike RTFKT was built around the NFT hype that passed — when the market for collectible digital assets crashed, the product's value for the audience collapsed with it.
- Starbucks Odyssey failed to maintain engagement after the first wave of interest: the mechanics were interesting for the early enthusiast, but did not provide a reason to return for the mass customer.
- Both projects were built to own — a proprietary closed ecosystem without integration into existing worlds with a ready audience, which sharply increased the cost of maintenance when interest declined.
The conclusion is simple: if the audience retention mechanics are not thought through before launch, and the entire project relies on the novelty of the format — closure within 12–18 months is almost guaranteed, regardless of budget size. For small business, this means one rule: do not build permanent infrastructure until regular value for the audience is proven on a cheap pilot.
How much does entry really cost — and where does the money go
The entry threshold depends not on the company's budget, but on the format of presence chosen. Building your own location from scratch on Roblox is from $30 000, on Decentraland — from $20 000, on Fortnite — from $50 000. For regional businesses, these are inadequate figures, and most articles about this honestly remain silent, showing only cases of Nike or Gucci, whose budgets are measured in millions of dollars.
But there is a third path — to integrate into someone else's world. The Russian brand Unicorn (dry breakfasts) spent only 3 million rubles on a campaign in Roblox, placing branded activities in already popular games, rather than creating its own. Result: 211,5 thousand visits, vCPM 230 rubles, average time of interaction with the brand — 4,4 minutes. This is comparable in efficiency to major cases, but costs dozens of times less.
| Level of entry | Budget | What you get | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Integration into a ready-made world | 150 thousand – 3 million rubles | Branded objects, quests, integrations into foreign games | Unicorn in Roblox |
| Rental of space / event | 1–10 million rubles | Temporary event, partner activation, pop-up location | Local retail activations on Roblox |
| Own world | from 2,5–4 million rub. and above | Full-fledged brand location with a permanent audience | Auchan City, Adidas Ozworld |
A practical rule for budget calculation: allocate 5% of the annual marketing budget for experiments in metaverses — usually this is $2 500–12 500 for small business. This amount is sufficient for the first test via integration, but will definitely not be enough to build your own world.
Roblox, Decentraland or Fortnite: the comparison is not in favor of the 'trendy' platform
Choosing a platform is not a question of hype, but a question of matching the audience with the brand's target group. Decentraland often appears in articles as the flagship Web3-branding, but the real traffic there is low, and the audience is narrow crypto-community, not mass consumer.
| Platform | Entry threshold | Audience | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roblox | from $30 000 (own world), from 150 thousand rubles — integration | Mass, teenagers and youth 9–25 years | Retail, FMCG, family products — Auchan City reached 5,14 million visits |
| Fortnite | from $50 000 | Gamers 13–34, high engagement | Sports, lifestyle brands with a large budget — Adidas Ozworld delivered 642 million impressions and ROI 303% |
| Decentraland | from $20 000 | Narrow crypto and NFT audience | Luxury and collectible brands focused on Web3-community, not mass reach |
If a brand is not ready to build a world, Decentraland is almost always a wrong choice, regardless of how many times this platform is mentioned in cases of Western agencies.
What to do if you're not ready to build a world: five formats without construction
A full location is not the only way to be present. There are five working approaches, and they combine well with each other.
- Broadcast — branded event or conference within someone else's world, without a permanent location. One-time activation with a limited lifespan.
- Engage — working with an existing game community: quests, collaborations with UGC content created by players themselves.
- Advocate — exclusive offers for the metaverse audience, for example, a virtual item that provides a discount in a real store.
- Inform — educational content in a game format: mini-games, training mechanics, product tests.
- Sale — direct sale of virtual goods with the possibility of converting to a real purchase, as KFC did.
KFC Re:Store on the Chinese QQ platform — a good example of the Sale approach without building a 'world' in the classical sense: 19 million visits in five weeks, 4,3 billion interactions, and 180 million virtual items sold, each of which was linked to a real purchase. No massive 3D-island — just a well-integrated store with game mechanics.
Metrics that will convince management, not just 'reach'
The main mistake of beginners is to report to management the number of visits and beautiful screenshots. This is not enough to prove ROI, and the first question from the financial director will crush such a report.
- CPM and cost per visit — the basic unit of comparison with other channels (for Unicorn, CPM was 230 rubles).
- Average interaction time — in metaverses, a session lasts 8–45 minutes compared to 2–3 minutes on a regular website, but this is not a reason to relax: conversion here is 2–4 times lower, and this gap needs to be explained to management in advance, not after the report.
- Brand lift — the change in brand recognition and attitude after contact (with Adidas Ozworld — an increase of 11 points).
- Campaign ROI — calculated using the formula (revenue from the campaign – costs) / costs; for Adidas, this indicator reached 303%.
- Indirect financial effects — growth in the value of associated NFTs or collectible items (with Adidas, the price of an adult NFT grew 2,62 times (increase of 162%)), share of positive reviews (with Auchan City — high level of audience acceptance).
First three months: step-by-step plan without unnecessary risk
- Weeks 1–3. Define the target audience and choose a platform based on demographic match, not hype. Set a test budget — no more than 5% of the annual marketing budget.
- Weeks 4–6. Choose a format without building — Engage or Inform usually provide a fast and cheap test. Agree on integration into a ready-made game or community instead of developing a location.
- Weeks 7–9. Launch a pilot for 2–4 weeks with clear KPIs: visits, interaction time, CPM, initial brand lift through survey.
- Weeks 10–12. Gather data, compare with planned indicators and decide whether to scale the format, change the platform or exit the experiment without losses.
Such a plan consciously excludes building your own world from the start — this decision is made only after a successful pilot, not before it.
Why projects like Nike RTFKT and Starbucks Odyssey are being closed
Both projects closed not due to metaverses as a concept, but due to specific management mistakes that are easy to repeat in small business on a smaller scale.
- Nike RTFKT was built around the NFT hype that passed — when the market for collectible digital assets crashed, the product's value for the audience collapsed with it.
- Starbucks Odyssey failed to maintain engagement after the first wave of interest: the mechanics were interesting for the early enthusiast, but did not provide a reason to return for the mass customer.
- Both projects were built to own — a proprietary closed ecosystem without integration into existing worlds with a ready audience, which sharply increased the cost of maintenance when interest declined.
The conclusion is simple: if the audience retention mechanics are not thought through before launch, and the entire project relies on the novelty of the format — closure within 12–18 months is almost guaranteed, regardless of budget size. For small business, this means one rule: do not build permanent infrastructure until regular value for the audience is proven on a cheap pilot.
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