My Little Pony Moves Into the Metaverse

When attempting to achieve children, you have to go the place the youngsters are. So, My Little Pony has ventured into the metaverse. 

“We want to be everywhere that kids are, and we know they’re gaming in the metaverse and are starting to expect interactions with their favorite brands there,” stated Jessica Murphy, senior vice chairman of leisure model advertising and marketing for Leisure One.

The venerable toy and leisure model has launched a brand new sport, “Visit Maretime Bay,” on the Roblox platform. The sport recreates a location within the Netflix collection “My Little Pony: Make Your Mark,” the place “everyone is welcome, and self-expression is free.”

“This new generation of ponies is only a year old, and this series is the first drop of significant content [around them],” Murphy stated. “There is a lot of fan-generated content, and this gives us an official platform to control our story.”

As a solution to give gamers an immersive expertise, the sport gives a twist during which gamers, upon getting into Maretime Bay, routinely rework right into a customizable pony avatar. As soon as within the digital world, gamers can gather crystals, take footage with the “Mane 5” ponies of the present, and play a collection of minigames the place they will earn badges developed alongside the strains of the ponies’ “cutie marks.”

“We wanted to make sure we’re promoting our brand purpose of self-expression,” Murphy stated of the customizable avatars. “By putting the self-expression element in, we are reinforcing that and our value of friendship.”

As a result of the audience is basically kids, the model has carried out additional safety measures, corresponding to eliminating the chat function for non-connected customers, in addition to monetization by the Robux foreign money. As a substitute, the model developed a crystal-based economic system that can be utilized to redeem avatar customizations. 

“We made our own digital currency within the game that you can gain by interacting with the characters,” Murphy says. “We felt this was appropriate for our target audience.”

The Roblox activation is a part of an general “Visit Maretime Bay” marketing campaign, developed with company Media.Monks. The marketing campaign positions the fictional location as a scorching new trip spot for households. The hassle features a partnership with TripAdvisor (marking the primary time the corporate has labored with a kids’s leisure model).