Meta’s Nicola Mendelsohn is on Cloud Island at Cannes. Cloud Island is the name for Meta’s virtual Cannes, built as its major metaverse marketing showcase at the ad festival, where avatars can play volleyball or otherwise take in a digital version of the French Riviera.

Mendelsohn, the company's global head of business solutions, has been showcasing Meta’s turn to the metaverse for two years running while helping lead the company’s presence at Cannes. Last year, the festival was entirely virtual, so Meta had to meet with brands in Horizon Worlds, the VR gaming app that is accessible through Meta Quest goggles, and is soon to be an app on more platforms.

“We’re building some different areas for people to be able to have an immersive experience on the Croisette,” Mendelsohn said about Meta’s Cloud Island.

The Croisette is the promenade along the Cannes shore, which is lined with historic hotels and shops, one of the familiar settings of the town. Mendelsohn has been meeting with media, brands and agencies to explain Meta’s metaverse ambitions, which are still a puzzle to many advertisers. Brands are still finding their footing between Facebook and Instagram social media marketing to a virtual world. Cannes has been a place where most companies are doing their best to show practical applications of the metaverse. Meta, in particular, has been trying to show how it could go from eye-catching digital worlds in VR to commerce, giving advertisers some way to return on their investments in the metaverse.

“It’s really the place that people are coming together to push the boundaries on creativity,” Mendelsohn said.

At Cannes, Meta is also discussing augmented reality, a more subtle digital layer that people could access through cameras on phones and through new computing glasses, such as the ones Meta designed with Ray-Ban and revealed last year. AR is not just "doing a great job from a brand perspective," Mendelsohn told Ad Age, but it's also pushing lower-funnel goals, which are bottom-line sales and other results brands need to show their marketing is moving the needle. Snap came to Cannes as a pioneer in AR, and also has been showcasing how the artistic side of augmented reality integrates with commerce.

On Tuesday, Meta announced new partnerships with major brands, including guitar-maker Fender and Mini, the car company. Agency R/GA helped design the Fender Stratoverse, open in Horizon Worlds. The Fender world is a guitar-shaped island, and Fender CMO Evan Jones called it the company’s first foray into the metaverse. The island is dotted with hidden virtual guitar picks for avatars to hunt, creating a collaborative scavenger hunt, where the participants pick up chords to make music.

The agency R/GA has been one of the leading creative firms helping brands figure out what’s possible in metaverse environments. The agency also works with Meta’s in-house Creative Shop to get brands on board. Meta also is supporting a roster of VR creators who help the brands design their digital exhibits. Fender worked with Ashley Briley, Matt Torres and Sammy Nu of VRinReview, Meta said in its announcement.

Meanwhile, Mini developed the MINIverse, a virtual go-kart game. Players can customize their Mini vehicles for racing. Meta credited creators John Burnap, Jordan Marcotte and Malcolm Langille with helping on the racing game. The VR installations follow Wendy’s entry into Horizon Worlds earlier this year with what it called the Wendyverse.