Kellogg’s and Pop Tarts Storm the Metaverse as Tasty Debuts on Horizon Worlds
The Big Food multinationals make metaverse moves as Kellogg’s targets Gen Z consumers with its metaverse push, while BuzzFeed takes Tasty into Meta’s Horizon Worlds.
For the first time, Kellogg’s and Pop Tarts have made a foray into the metaverse with a campaign targeted at younger consumers. The multinational food corporation has adopted this marketing strategy to open up its brand to young people and explore the possibilities that the metaverse holds for businesses. The campaign will feature a host of branded characters as non-fungible tokens, which users can collect and trade within the Blankos Block Party game, an open-world multiplayer game.
According to Kellogg’s, its entry into the virtual space through NFT characters and Pop-Tarts is the first for any Kellogg’s brand in Europe. The non-fungible token characters, Hip Pop, Glam Pop, and Punk Pop, represent the fun side of Pop Tarts and Kellogg’s and are the first step in the brand’s new approach towards engaging its customer base.
Blankos Block Party is a fun video game created by Mythical Games. The game is presently free to play on the Epic Games Store. Players in the Blankos Block Party ecosystem can pair with or play against their friends in several game modes and add custom levels with a no-code game builder tool.
Kellogg’s media agency in the UK, Carat, partnered with Dentsu Creative to bring the initiative to light. According to an executive at Dentsu, Alex Hamilton, the partnership between Pop Tarts and Mythical Games is perfect as both brands are vibrant and a good fit. Kellogg’s also announced the opening of its Food Innovation Center in Manchester on the same day.
In related news, another Big Food company BuzzFeed is taking its famous Tasty offering into the Metaverse as it opened the doors of the Mega Tasty outfit on Horizon Worlds. Presently, Mega Tasty is fitted with a Thanksgiving theme, which the company has promised to update over time to keep up with its latest culinary content.
Tasty has described its metaverse foray as a move to connect better with its audience, a reason similar to the one Pop Tarts gave for its initiative. As it opens up the Tasty universe, BuzzFeed hopes to attract customers and take them deeper into the product through the metaverse.
The Mega Tasty installation in Horizon Worlds is a tall building with glass walls and a burger crown. Users will be entertained with games within and without the building, with a recipe recreation game inside and a game involving turkeys outside the building. After the Thanksgiving season, Tasty will replace the turkey game with another activity.
Besides Mega Tasty, BuzzFeed is also planning to release a VR edition of the next season of its Making It Big series. Users who watch the VR edition will experience the full set like they were present during the shooting, and Tasty plans to name the VR edition ‘Making It VRy Big.’ With Kellogg’s and BuzzFeed making metaverse moves to expand their brands and products to the younger generation, other companies in the food and beverage industry may join the party as the metaverse wave continues to grow.
