By Alexander Lee • August 22, 2024 •
Ivy Liu
Roblox has quietly become one of the biggest games in the world, with nearly 400 million users logging into the metaverse platform on a monthly basis. This year, brands are taking full advantage.
The rise of Roblox as a marketing tool has been readily apparent this year at annual industry events such as IAB PlayFronts, where brands and agencies jockeyed to show off their deep knowledge of the platform. The feeding frenzy is not entirely unlike the hype that has surrounded more general tech trends such as Web3 and artificial intelligence in years past: Everyone wants to be part of Roblox, whether or not they really know what they’re doing there.
At the same time, Roblox has put considerable effort into wooing brands and their marketing budgets, including the creation of an official partner program and the development of a programmatic video ad network within the platform, in addition to numerous other tools intended to improve the advertiser and developer experience. Brands interested in reaching Roblox users now have more weapons at their disposal than ever before.
With Roblox’s ad network still in the growing stage, the majority of brands’ spending on the platform does not go directly to Roblox. Instead, marketers pay developer studios to help establish their presence on the platform, often through custom-branded in-game experiences or by integrating a brand into a popular pre-existing Roblox game — a tactic that has grown in popularity over the past year.
Here are some of the creative methods brands have used to work themselves more deeply into the culture of Roblox in 2024.
Real-life commerce
Possibly the biggest shake-up to the Roblox ecosystem in 2024 is the introduction of real-life commerce, which brands such as Walmart and Fandango have tested on the platform prior to the tool’s full release. For the first time, Roblox users can pay for a physical product to be shipped to their front doors without having to leave the platform.
One reason why Walmart was able to be the first mover in Roblox e-commerce was because the company’s branded Roblox experience, “Walmart Discovered,” was designed with commerce in mind from the very beginning.
“We’re often looking for opportunities to go right when everyone’s going left, and as we find that insight, we think about what is the opportunity, but also what is the future play,” said Walmart director of brand experiences and strategic partnerships Justin Breton during an interview prior to the launch of the company’s first e-commerce test in March. “And that future play being, what could commerce be? How could commerce make sense here?”
Working with creators
As brands become more experienced with the Roblox landscape, marketers have realized that simply building a branded experience and expecting users to show up does not guarantee success. Instead, experienced brands have started to partner with dedicated Roblox creators to help promote — and literally spend time inside — their virtual worlds. It’s a tactic that Walmart effectively used for the launch of its e-commerce test.
Another brand that has successfully partnered with Roblox creators to promote its presence on the platform is L’Oreal, which livestreamed its Paris Fashion Week showcase on Roblox last year.
“Co-creation with creators is key; this is something we really discuss with the brands that we push,” said L’Oreal global head of digital innovation Camille Kroely. “We’re very good at working with influencers and creators on social media, and this is something we have the opportunity to do much more on the Roblox platform.”
As marketers get more comfortable integrating into Roblox, developers working within the platform have created new and more efficient ways to get brands into their experiences. The creators of the experience “Outfit Shopping Mall,” for example, purposefully built a virtual mall that multiple brands could integrate into without stepping on each others’ toes by emulating the layout of shopping malls in the physical world. At the moment, brands such as DressX, Mango and the Spanish radio network LOS40 are all actively and simultaneously activating in the experience.
“The most success with brand integrations we’ve seen is integrations that feel authentic to the experience that they’re in,” said Elisha Trice, whose studio Sandbox Studios developed Fashion Famous, another Roblox fashion game that currently features a Coach brand activation. “It gives players a new way to express their personal style.”
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