Nissan Launches Community-Created Experience in VRChat -- Though Community Visits Seem Slow

Nissan seems to be the biggest real world brand to deploy a virtual marketing campaign in VRChat, the would-be Metaverse:

Nissan Crossing, in Tokyo’s Ginza district... has been recreated in stunning virtual reality showcasing the all-new Ariya electric crossover. The virtual gallery can be found under the name “NISSAN CROSSING”^* on the social VR platform VRChat in the “Worlds” category. The VR venue provides a new means of digital communication and offers a variety of content and experiences, including new announcements and briefings. An inaugural tour will be held by year-end to highlight the risks of climate change and how a future with electric vehicles could look.

Development of the virtual gallery was made possible thanks to the support of leading VR creators. 

[Update, November 11: Hyundai has a prior world in VRChat.]

"I think this is very clever because it is like an influencer marketing [campaign]," says Sanny, my indispensable Japanese translator. "Nissan credit all names of creators." A VRChat reporter name @OculusTan on Twitter has a video of the launch party:

バーチャルギャラリー「NISSAN CROSSING」
お披露目会の様子です🚗✨ コミュニティを大事にする取り組み方、本当うれしい！ みなさん #VRChat で気軽に遊びに行ってみてね！ ハッシュタグ #NissanCrossing でシェアもぜひ⭐️#日産 https://t.co/MDOGJ49Gan pic.twitter.com/lYr6VSef8S

— おきゅたんbot🏝️VR&メタバースガイド (@OculusTan) November 4, 2021

Really great that Nissan worked with grassroots creators to deploy this experience. At the same time (I took the screengrab above at 4:30pm PT), one thing it doesn't have is grassroots visitors.

This is, as @PatchouliW put it to me when he passed along this scoop, "It's Second Life all over again in VRChat." Because as it happens, in 2006, Nissan deployed a marketing site in Second Life... which also had negligible visits.

Update, 9:20PM: Thanks to Sanny, corrected OculusTan as being a reporter at the Nissan launch, not a creator of the launch itself: "@sobatang1 built the world, @SUSABI_VRC made music for the cafe, @T8oNana worked as an event companion at the event for press." By the way, I once again checked concurrency at the time of this update and it is, as before during time of posting, only one.

 

Comments

[Adeon Writer]

VRChat has much of the same discovery issues that's plagued Second Life - mainly, as there are more and more places to visit, it becomes harder and harder to become discovered and retain attention from so many other possible places you could be.

I don't think Second Life ever managed to solve this in a meaningful way.

VRChat hasn't yet either.

[Kaylee West]

A big company like Nissan needs to do some big events (live music, some free give-aways, some purchasable merch) that are well promoted via social media channels, with maybe a few key social media influencers involved. They also need to do / repeat these events for different time zones. Then they need to think about ongoing activities in their world to attract people back. Other than the cost of hiring acts, the costs to the company wouldn't necessarily add up to big money. What are the really popular worlds doing to attract and keep visitors that they can learn from?

[Kaylee West]

Make a series of professionally made modable avatars available for free so users will want to go to the world to get them. Have some limited edition ones available for sale as usable NFTs even.q1q