Why Coca-Cola’s in-game flavor announcement validates Fortnite as both an advertising and metaverse platform

Gamers will be able to experience the next Coca-Cola flavor inside Fortnite before it hits real-world store shelves.

The beverage brand’s use of a custom-built Fortnite island to launch the limited-edition gaming-inspired flavor Zero Sugar Byte today is further proof of Fortnite’s maturation as an advertising platform — and shows Coca-Cola’s belief in Epic Games’ plans to build the metaverse.

Coca-Cola opened its Pixel Point Fortnite experience on March 28. The space is a neon-colored virtual world chock-full of references to Coca-Cola, including collaborative puzzles and mini-games inside giant glass bottles and Coke cans. It was designed by the Fortnite Creative arm of gaming company Team PWR, with creative input from Coke. “There were guardrails — we had to watch out from a brand perspective,” said Chase Abraham, a senior manager of creative strategy at Coca-Cola. “But we gave them a lot of freedom.”

Epic Games, the developer of Fortnite, was not directly involved in the activation. Instead, Coca-Cola collaborated exclusively with Team PWR to design the experience. As companies like PWR solidify their relationships with major brands like Coke, this kind of independent partnership is evidence that a robust creator economy is taking shape on Fortnite, similar to the rise of creator studios in Roblox.

“It just seems to be the elevation of Fortnite experiences — working with brands, bringing them to Fortnite alongside Fortnite’s official collaborations,” said Team PWR founder Lachlan Power.

As for low-calorie Zero Sugar Byte, it’s the latest iteration of Coca-Cola Creations, a series of limited-edition Coke flavors that kicked off with the release of Coca-Cola Starlight in February. Starlight was purportedly a space-inspired flavor; marketing materials for Zero Sugar Byte describe it as “pixel-flavored.”

Another phrase that stuck out in Coca-Cola’s messaging was its description of Zero Sugar Byte as a “beverage born in the metaverse” — the persistent and immersive successor to the internet that some experts believe will emerge from gaming. Though Epic Games has been open about its goal to build the metaverse for years, going as far as to offer workshops educating brands about how to use its three-dimensional creation tool Unreal Engine, the past few years have seen competitors emerge from both social media and the NFT/blockchain space. Ultimately, Coca-Cola’s choice to introduce its first Fortnite activation as a metaverse play is an endorsement of Epic’s longstanding claim to the virtual world.

“For us, the metaverse just meant a digital place where people could come together and experience this,” Abraham said.

“By activating within Fortnite, I think they are taking a safe route, in that Fortnite is a huge game that’s brand-safe,” said Tom Sweeney, head of creative strategy at the social media and influencer marketing agency Fanbytes. “But, critically, they are recognizing that gaming and the ecosystems that have evolved from gaming are the fundamental parts of what we will come to recognize as the metaverse.”

In addition to giving a thumbs up to Epic’s metaverse aspirations, Coca-Cola’s decision to activate in …read more

Source:: Digiday