KFC Re:Store: Branded Metaverse Commerce

What happened

KFC China and Merkle opened Re:Store, a virtual store inside QQ's metaverse built in Unreal Engine. Visitors wander, play and order food in-world that arrives in the real world. In the first five weeks it drew 19 million visitors and 4.3 billion interactions.

Why it worked

• The virtual store connected to a real outcome (an actual order), which gave people a reason to visit.
• It launched inside an existing platform with an audience, instead of asking people to install something new.
• Play and commerce were combined, so the visit was worth it even without buying.

What we'd take into a client project

• Tie a branded virtual space to one concrete real-world action, and make that action the main metric.
• Go where the audience already is; distribution decides most metaverse projects.
• If the experience must run in a browser on any device, consider Pixel Streaming and budget the streaming cost early.

Related

• Metaverse development
• Metaverse arch viz case study
• Pixel Streaming cost traps

Note: Feative Studios was not involved in this project. This breakdown summarises what the developers have shared publicly; the takeaways are our own.