From Direct-to-Consumer to Direct-to-Avatar

As the COVID tides continue to move in the virtual realm’s favour, an important trend is being crystalized before us. Whilst it has long been in motion, it’s important to recognise the dramatic scale on which it is now happening. Just twenty years ago, most kids would save their pocket money to spend on Yu-Gi-Oh, Beyblades, or Tamagotchis. Today however, an increasingly large portion of that spend is destined for Fortnite’s V-Bucks, Roblox’s Robux, or other native video game currencies. These things are no longer niche. Kitting out your avatar is now of grave importance.

The mind-bending reach of these digital experiences remains unknown to some. Just last Friday The Weekend performed an interactive live event through TikTok, in partnership with WaveXR. It reached 1.4 billion people. Whilst this particular event wasn’t game-related, an increasing number of them are such as the Travis Scott and Marshmello Fortnite concerts. With each of these, there comes limited-edition cosmetics which fans appear to find irresistible.

(Yes, his avatar licked the frog in the end…)

The buck for digital collaboration doesn’t stop with games though. Snapchat has recently announced a brand partner