Top 5 metaverse moments you need to know about right now

This month: Metaverse Fashion Week and major disinvestment. No. 5: Starburst announces virtual “Juicyverse” Starburst made a splash at SXSW last month with the announcement of “Juicyverse,” a branded virtual world. “Juicyverse” opens April 16 and will be themed to the vibrant color palette of Starburst’s various flavors. Guests can create 3D sculptures and will be able to enter them into a contest, the winner of which will see their creation minted into an NFT. Irrespective of the contest, guests will be able to sport NFT T-shirts on their avatars when inhabiting the world. “Juicyverse” will live inside The Mall, a platform built by MetaVRse that is billed as the world’s largest virtual mall. Loyalty platform BambuMeta also collaborated on the activation, as did the Hedera blockchain, which will house “Juicyverse” NFTs. No. 4: Havas Play teams up with The Sandbox Havas Play inked a deal with The Sandbox to help bring its clients into the virtual platform. The partnership is a bit like a training program, wherein hundreds of Havas Play creatives will learn how to leverage The Sandbox’s tools, such as VoxEdit and GameMaker, to help create engaging brand experiences. Separate learning tracks will be provided for executives, creative practitioners and media experts and strategists Havas Play is a France-based subsidiary of Havas Group, which as a media company has shown serious interest in the metaverse. The group spent $130,000 last year to build an office in The Sandbox, which was intended to be a place to launch exclusive content and hold conferences. Through its subsidiaries, Havas Group has also created client experiences in Fortnite and Decentraland. No. 3: Roblox unveils new ad policies amid watchdog criticism Roblox rolled out new policies for advertisers, some of which seem to be in response to criticism that has been levied on the platform. An explicit reinstatement of its ban on advertising users under 13, for example, comes after the FTC and Truth in Advertising (TINA), a watchdog organization, filed a joint complaint last August, accusing the platform of deceptively marketing to children. According to TINA, after the complaint was filed, Roblox removed the prohibition from its rule book. It has now returned, loud and clear. Roblox’s new policies also provide clearer guidelines to advertisers on how gamers should identify ad content. Emphasis is placed on using simple and understandable language, such as “ad” or “sponsored.” Additional clarification is provided for Roblox’s new Immersive Ad units, which the platform rolled out last September. Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs No. 2: Metaverse Fashion Week returns The second annual Metaverse Fashion Week was hosted inside Decentraland, bringing together a host of well-known traditional marketers, from Adidas to Balenciaga and Coach, as well as upstart Web3 brands. In total, around 60 different brands made an appearance at the four-day event, many of which exhibited virtual booths selling NFT wearables. Despite the high corporate turnout, consumers were apparently lacking. Roughly 26,000 unique users attended this year, as compared to over 100,000 last year, according to MarketWatch. These spectators only spent a total of $26,000. However, these users also claimed around 76,000 free wearables during the event. What this means is that an event like Metaverse Fashion Week may still be worthwhile for brands as long as they aren’t depending on large numbers of sales. If, instead, brands treat the event as an opportunity to engage with young consumers in a burgeoning space, such as through giving away free items, success may be more achievable. No. 1: Disney, Meta ease off metaverse The biggest news out of the metaverse this month is not good news. Meta announced it would be winding down NFT functionality on Instagram and Facebook, ending an experiment that barely lasted one year. Two weeks later, Disney shuttered its entire metaverse team. The two reversals do not bode well for continued metaverse investment. Meta, of course, has rebranded its entire company behind the virtual vision, but that it couldn’t find a way to fit in basic Web3 tools such as NFTs is a sign that mass adoption is still quite far away. The decision comes amid greater issues at Meta, which recently laid off 11,000 employees, or roughly 13% of its workforce, as well as terminated underperforming projects. “[We're] going to focus on areas where we can make impact at scale, such as messaging and monetization opportunities for Reels,” wrote Stephane Kasriel, Meta’s commerce and financial technology lead, in a Twitter thread. As for Disney, the elimination of its metaverse plans is perhaps more surprising. The media company, according to industry watchers, stood to benefit greatly from the metaverse due to its large pool of IP, which could be translated into all kinds of NFTs and virtual experiences. But the reversal shows that despite these potential boons, Disney views the metaverse as expendable investment, especially now that times are tough. More: What Disney's metaverse exit means for Web3 marketing

Top 5 metaverse moments you need to know about right now

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