Fashion And Gaming – Brand Value And Brand Safety

According to GEEIQ’s latest report, by the end of Q2 2024, there were over 700 brands in virtual worlds with over 1,200 activations across Roblox, Fortnite, Minecraft, and other platforms. This is a 58% increase from the same period last year. Brands have flocked to build immersive, gamified experiences, from Gucci to Forever21, luxury to high street, clothing to makeup. To reach the demographic that gaming captures, they will spend between $50 and $250,000 for a limited experience and up to $1.5 million for a more immersive world experience or deeper collaboration. There have been 347 new brand activations in the first half of 2024 alone, with 45% in Roblox and 33% on Fortnite.

Research has shown that fashion and gaming are growing closer together. Anzu found that when researching US gamers, 76% followed fashion brands and influencers, and 66% were consumers of luxury branded products (Anzu, 2022). The idea that people who play games are not target consumers for high-end fashion is proving to be outdated.

This summer I attended SEG3, a global meeting place for the sports, entertainment and gaming industries in London to get a feel for how far this data was manifesting itself in the conversations and the priorities of real marketers. On-site were a host of gaming developers, such as Sawhorse, Dubit, and Karta, who took to the stage alongside e-sports companies like Fnatic and brands like Hugo Boss to discuss current trends and insights.

One topic that became clear during this two-day event was that, despite a deepening crossover between these two industries, we may be just on the cusp of what could be possible when they converge further. Gen A is the first digitally native and largest generation in history, and despite a cost of living crisis their discretionary spending is up for grabs for brands that show up where those consumers already are. EMarketer predicts that by 2025, there will be 2 billion Alphas, representing 25% of the global population. There are also now 3.2 billion gamers worldwide, representing 36% of the population. The Venn diagram between those two cohorts has a lot of crossover, but it’s important to note that there are at least a billion older consumers who gaming crossovers can also reach.

To demonstrate: Gen Z spends 17% of their leisure time playing games, and Gen A spends a fraction more, at 21%. 92% of Gen A play games, compared to 88% of Gen Z, and both generations play more than 6 hours a week (Udonis, 2025). Again: if fashion and beauty brands want to really knock on consumers’ doors, they’re likely to find those doors in real-time worlds.

But finding a demographic is not the same as engaging it. So what should brands actually be aiming to achieve by using videogames as a channel?

The majority, the speakers and exhibitors at the event collectively agreed, are hoping to garner engagement through gamification to build brand awareness with this younger generation. They may not be aiming to convert exposure to transactional value today, but they are planning to acquire these new customers and to be top of mind for them once they have the spending power. Ultimately, brands want to make themselves more relevant by tapping into youth culture and community – both of which are more heavily shaped by real-time interactions in videogames than by traditional social media.

A great example is the collaboration between Hugoboss and Karta (a Metaverse studio that works across three UGC Gaming platforms—Roblox, Fortnite, and Zepeto). These companies also spoke at SEG3 about the benefits of creating interconnected spaces. Together, they designed two interlinked worlds, each targeting a specific audience, showcasing the diversity of the brand’s pillars, including style, self-expression, arts, culture, gaming, and music.

Hugo Blue World, a shop and immersive space, connects directly to Hugo Fashion Match. This social fashion game allows players to express their creativity by giving each other’s avatars’ makeovers. Once again, merging retail shopping and dressing up with gamification.

However, like any new marketing activations, there is an increased demand for gaming intelligence, statistics, and the talent able to interpret them to enable marketers to gauge in-game interest and engagement accurately. With most brands in the process of growing those capabilities and functions, how are they currently measuring ROI? How can marketing departments justify to senior management that an investment into building an immersive world – or reaching out via an existing one – is the best use of funds compared to spending on more tangible marketing strategies, where the direct link between marketing and physical sales is measurable?

Nic Hill, the co-founder of Sawhorse, a leading gaming development company responsible for developing worlds for Alo, Tommy, Fenty, Paris Hilton, and Walmart, addressed this during his presentation, “Mass adoption will happen when visual fidelity and immersion improve over time.” Although the brands are rushing into the space, the ROI metrics to the IRL (real-world fashion) will remain challenged as long as there remains a disconnect between stylised representations of purchasable products, and the products themselves.

One company that’s working to address at least the data gap is GEEIQ, a metaverse data specialist. It addresses the “metaverse market,” which it defines as virtual gaming and social environments such as Roblox, Decentraland, and Fortnite, to see how brands can measure success in gaming.

In their presentation, GEEIQ highlighted ten critical metrics for measuring gaming success. The number of active users, unique visitors, conversion rate, average revenue per consumer, average session time, sessions per user, item sale performance, retention, and audience demographics. These statistics, according to them, are fundamental to understanding key marketing stats for a new audience.

However, the underlying missing link is that brands profit from selling beauty and apparel worn in the real world. So, how can they measure the relationship between investment in these immersive worlds and physical goods?

One obvious KPI for brands moving from gaming to the physical world is from game direct to e-commerce. In June, Walmart pioneered this with Roblox, becoming the first retailer to sell real-world stock directly through the platform. Roblox is developing a strategic roadmap to open this to more brands and creators. However, until then, the correlation between digital and physical sales and actual customer transition and acquisition to physical sales is likely to remain vague.

Another example of how brands can use videogame platforms to relate to real-world fashion is to conduct consumer testing with digital items – engaging directly with the real-time demographic to capture significant insight into trends and data.

A recent example of this: Coach opened up three experiences across Roblox and Zepeto to measure consumer appetite for digital Coach pieces (Vogue, 2024).

The large-scale project, called “Find Your Courage,” is a testing hub. And data plays a significant role here, said Giovanni Zaccariello, Coach’s SVP of global visual experience, who oversees both physical and digital projects and who also spoke at SEG3. “It is a test-and-learn agenda,” he told the audience. In the future, the team will be closely looking at how people behave and how much time they spend to inform future direction regarding gaming platforms, gameplay and items available. Dwell time will be a crucial success metric; they hope to learn if the community prefers direct digital twins of physical items or if Roblox-specific quirks like wings, headdresses, and other accessories will be most popular. (Vogue, 2024).

Then, we need to look at “Gaming for Good.” Nic Hill boldly stated at SEG3 that “Social UGC [user generated content] gaming platforms will replace our traditional social media,” which, according to recent research, is a positive development.

Discussing the effects of social media on our brains, Johann Hari, author of Stolen Focus, explained how social apps and sites are designed to train our minds to crave frequent social rewards, making us hungry for likes and hearts. We carry out endless scrolling in silos. We are taken down a plethora of rabbit holes bombarded by multiple images and random videos provided to us through algorithms that have figured out that we will watch things for longer if we see more outrageous, shocking, and extreme content.

The harsh reality is that all these social media apps and sites care about how long we spend on them; they have no concerns about the content they show us save for how it engages us and where it takes us next. As we have just explored, marketers benchmark the same metrics for gaming, but the fundamental difference is that gamers interact and enjoy a moment in real time; they have fun together.

A study carried out by Oxford University testifies to the benefits. “Gaming does not appear harmful to mental health unless the gamer cannot stop” (University of Oxford, 2022). However, the effects of social media on teenagers is far more damaging, causing them to grow up with anxiety and a lack of self-esteem (Childmind, 2024).

Gaming, although virtual, is a fun sport. Since COVID-19, it has boomed and is now a social hangout. Video games can be a refuge for people to find players with whom to connect positively. In our busy lives, games offer virtual playdates with real-life friends. Video games also allow cooperation with other players or friends towards a common goal.

Writing earlier this year, Yusuf Oc, associate professor in marketing at Bayes Business School, City, University of London, explains how we are all bombarded by thousands of advertisements and images daily. “Capturing attention is critical. Even though we are exposed to thousands of ads daily, we do not remember many. Advergames bypass these filters more effectively by integrating the brand message into the game”. (Guardian, 2024).

There is some sophisticated advertising going on within Roblox that could have a more significant effect on shaping customer preference. Something called meaning transfer can happen, where positive feelings towards the game are transposed onto the advertised brand or product.

According to Rebecca Evans, a postdoctoral research associate in psychology at the University of Liverpool, “The advertising is more integrated or subtle, so young people are less likely to recognise it as advertising, to think about it critically, and engage consumer defences”. (Guardian, 2024).

Konvoy Ventures further highlights the positive benefits of gaming over social media: “Like social media, video games are a powerful tool for social connectivity. However, excessive usage can be harmful to youths. The design of video games and virtual worlds allows these platforms to further improve social media’s benefits while limiting negative impacts.” (Konvoy, 2023).

Konvoy believes that gaming features around digital identity and expression are better positioned to combat self-dissatisfaction, limit the potential for bullying, and protect against doxing. In summary, the gaming industry offers a healthier (and safer) alternative to social media today. However, there is still plenty of room for improvement, which we are excited to see the industry undertake. (Konvoy, 2023).

In conclusion, while the ROI in gaming from digital to physical is still nascent, clear metrics should come when we can shop fluidly from digital to physical worlds, making it a much more viable, justifiable and tested marketing option. I hope, though, that commercial performance does not mean that these companies sacrifice the philosophy at the heart of gaming. Whatever the activation, to feel authentic and to deliver value, it must remain a fun place to explore, engage and socialise with friends, not an advertiser’s dream of endless distraction, showing us feeds we never asked for, and damaging mental health.

I also hope that it’s used as a testing ground to see what products are popular before producing millions of garments that, again, people do not want, and that end up in landfills. This alone will reduce waste significantly and increase brands’ profit margins. $163 billion is wasted every year due to overproduction and inventory waste (Bloomberg, 2022).

My last wish is that gaming becomes the new Instagram and e-commerce, a safe place where we can shop with our friends, try things on our avatars, get validation, and then purchase, with a direct link from the digital world to the physical world. Imagine a world where this was made for us, a unique piece sent to our house, a treasured piece we wait for, and enables us to express our authentic selves digitally and physically, sustainably whilst benefiting our mental health.

Having the future generation shaped by gaming companies rather than Google and Meta Platforms is undoubtedly positive; choosing what we want to see rather than what advertisers want us to see can only improve society’s culture and well-being. And if brands show up in those places in a way that resonates with those values, then they are more likely to find lasting success – rather than short-term flirtation – with new media.