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- [00:00]
A
This series on virtual worlds is brought to you by Geek. If you're trying to reach Gen Z or Gen Alpha, you need to know where they're actually spending their time. It's not social media and it's not where most marketing budgets are still going. They're in gaming Roadblocks Fortnite these massive virtual worlds where millions are hanging out each day. But gaming is complex and fast moving and most brands are flying blind or avoiding the opportunity altogether. That's where Geek comes in. Geek is the data platform backed by a team of gaming experts that gives brands and agencies the intelligence to navigate, measure and grow in virtual worlds. So if you're not thinking about gaming yet, maybe you should check out Geek at G E E I Q dot com. That's G E E I Q. Now back to the show. Welcome to this week's episode of OnStrategy Showcase. Hope you had a good week. Last week we were in Kansas City at Barkley OKRP for our live show from that great city. It'll be out in a couple of weeks and it includes actually a separate in depth show on the Kansas City Chiefs and their CMO Laura Krug. So we did two shows while we were in Kansas City, so look out for that. The episode on the Kansas City Chiefs is great because they're really thinking beyond the game and thinking beyond the franchise in state and really have very ambitious plans for that brand. So excited for you guys to hear that. Our next live show comes up in a couple of weeks. We are going to be in the famous city of Minneapolis. If you're in that area, you gotta come hang with us. It is going to be Thursday, June 18th at 5:30. We're going to be at Carmichael lynch lynch and we're going to be talking about how Minneapolis continues to punch above its weight. If you're new to the industry, you may not recognize the incredible history of creativity that comes out of the city of Minneapolis and the storied agencies that have been there and continue to be there. For example, we have joining us on the evening the CEO of Carmichael Lynch, Stacy Janicki. We have the CEO of Fallon, Nikki Baker, who was formerly their Chief Creative officer. We have Jessica Henrich who is the CEO of Cole McVoy and they just merged up with Donor. So there's some new name on that that I haven't figured out yet. And Lachlan Badenoch who's been on the show before. He is Chief Strategy Officer at Carmichael Lynch. So they're going to be joining us at the roundtable on Thursday, June 18th. The show is at 5:30. You can get tickets on our website at onstrategyshowcase.com under the Live tour tab. It'll be a great one because I think there's at least 40 to 50 years, maybe just 40 of history of brilliance that has come out of Minneapolis as a city. So let's talk about tonight or today's episode, which is our first in a three part series on virtual worlds and gaming. This is a space that I think in some people's minds is sort of out of favor, when in reality it is still a massive booming space. And I think a big part of that was when Meta pulled out of the Metaverse. I think people thought about that as sort of like pulling the rug out from underneath the entire category. But that is not at all what has happened. The audiences in terms of Gen Z and Gen Alpha that are in gaming and virtual worlds is extraordinary, as you're about to hear. And there is massive opportunities for brands small, I don't know about small, but medium and large. We're going to be talking today with Walmart. Walmart is joining us to talk about their initiatives in virtual worlds. So we're going to be joined by Justin Breton, who is a brand experience and strategic partnerships lead for Walmart in New York City. And Charles Hambro is the CEO and co founder of Geek in London. They're an extraordinary consulting group that provides data and insights and direction to brands and marketers who want to be in agencies who want to be in that space. This is episode one. In the second and third episode, we'll explore different aspects of gaming and virtual worlds with different major brands who are living in that space. But today we start with Walmart and with Justin and Charles. Enjoy. I thought we could start Charles with a little background on Geek. Tell us for those not familiar, what is Geek and where are you based?
- [05:09]
B
Thanks Fergus. Pleasure to be here. And well, I suppose starting with what is Geek? It's the intelligence platform for brands that want to reach audiences in virtual worlds. It's kind of a mouthful in even more simple terms. It's not an agency where we kind of create production or are building virtual worlds. It's really providing brands with the data to be able to make the right decisions for their objective when they're reaching these audiences in what is essentially a new or what we see at Giga, a new marketing channel.
- [05:49]
A
So is it similar to what Nielsen will be doing in other channels? You guys are doing the tracking of data, but also layering on Strategic services on top of that.
- [05:59]
B
Yeah, exactly. I suppose you can make that comparison. What Nielsen does for broadcast television, we would do for things like Roblox or Fortnite. What Meltwater and brandwatch do for social media, we do for these new channels.
- [06:15]
A
Let's talk about some of the foundational questions. For example, give us a sense of the size and the types of virtual worlds that exist out there.
- [06:29]
B
Sure. So I mean, I think virtual worlds is a funny word to be completely honest. So, and I'm going to talk about gaming broadly and then zero in on virtual worlds, which is a subcategory within the gaming landscape. Gaming is a huge, I think everyone knows what video games are. It's a huge space. It's people playing these games on PC, console, mobile. And there's roughly 3.2 billion people that do that globally and growing dramatically. Then you have gaming video content, that's people watching other people play games and that's one and a half billion people globally. And if we were to.
- [07:13]
A
And that's sort of the YouTube or the Twitch.
- [07:15]
B
Yeah, you could do YouTube, TikTok. You know, normally that that stuff happens on traditional social media channels. Virtual worlds is a subcategory of gaming where it is not like a sort of Call of Duty or a FIFA where a new game comes out every year and people buy that game and play it. But we're talking about platforms where it's the users creating the content. So Roblox would be considered a virtual world. Fortnite would be considered a virtual world. Minecraft technically would be considered a virtual world. It's user generated content in the gaming landscape. And the reason why that's quite interesting is because it mirrors what social media is. Instagram does not create any content, its users do. Roblox does not create any content its users do. And that's what's fascinating.
- [08:15]
A
So Justin, for Walmart, how are you using these worlds and are you using them in different ways than you might use social or you might use traditional gaming?
- [08:25]
C
Yeah, and I think gaming represents sort of like the future of social. I think if you think about like the evolution of the Internet and sort of like how people were discovering things through a traditional browser experience to the introduction of social media, be it Facebook and then Instagram and of course this broad assortment of social platforms that exist today. Gaming is what we believe to be the next frontier of social. It is where younger consumers are spending time, it is where they are meeting up with friends, it's where they're discovering brands. And so it was important for us to show up in gaming in a very intentional way. And that's really what led us to our partnership with Geek. And I don't mean for this to sound like an infomercial, but you know, they were great partners in terms of like really helping us identify like the opportunity for Walmart in terms of the platforms we show up on, the communities we engage with. And you'll actually hear me say communities a lot because that's how we talk about the people that we're engaging with on these platforms. It's not about audiences, it's about communities and the intentionality of how you're showing up so that it resonates with those communities. But, but really like for us, it's that new frontier and it's, it's a way to show our brand in an unexpected way, but in a way that feels hyper relevant to where we're showing up. Depending on the platform that we're on, be it Roblox or EA Sports fc, as Charles just mentioned, being a gaming platform.
- [09:52]
A
So are you creating content yourself? Are you creating worlds yourself or are you more involved now in sort of integrations?
- [10:03]
C
It's a mix of both. It's a little bit, it sort of like spans the gamut because as Charles was explaining, there's a spectrum as it relates to gaming. You've got sort of new GC platforms like a Roblox, but then you have proper gaming titles like EA Sports fc. And so the opportunities within each are different. And so on a platform like Roblox, we are creating a branded experience that allows for consumers to come in and experience Walmart in an unexpected, different way than they would in the real world. On platforms like EA Sport, EA Sports fc, we are integrating our brand through opportunities that exist within that specific platform. We're not creating a Walmart experience within EA Sports fc, but we are creating, for example, a custom objective. And an objective is a way for players to sort of unlock a new way to play for a limited time. So it gives them something new in the game, it's exciting, there's a reward at the end of it. And so like we've created something that was custom for Walmart or inspired by Walmart, that was for the community of EA Sports fc. And so that's more of an integration, but it's a custom integration, but it's not a world. So it's very different. But again there's a spectrum and we're kind of like testing all of them.
- [11:22]
A
Yeah, Charles, one of the things I read in preparing for the show was that you sort of saw, I see the evolution of virtual worlds in the same way that social media evolved. Tell us what you meant by that.
- [11:37]
B
I think social media used to be called social networking and that was because it was actually more about catching up with your friends and content about your friends. It transitioned to social media where it's now more about content consumption. So I would probably say today social media has reverted back to what broadcast television was, to be completely honest. And the exciting thing and the reason why I think these UGC gaming platforms are the future of social media and even games more broadly with their communities are the future of social media is because the players are not just going into those games to play. They're predominantly going in to catch up with their friends and socialize. I think we saw this all age groups during the lockdown period, but certainly with younger audiences. They are not growing up on Facebook or Instagram. And if they're on TikTok or Snapchat, they are absolutely consuming content, but they're not necessarily having deep connections with their friends or catching up with their friends on those platforms. Roblox and Fortnite and Zepeto and these sorts of platforms are where they're having deep, enriched, engaging experiences with their friends. So that's why I believe that the real I would even go so far to say it's not even an evolution now, it just is the environments in which people are having meaningful time together are these gaming platforms now. So the importance for a brand to be part of that conversation and the opportunities to enrich their experiences there is very, very exciting. Also very, very difficult.
- [13:27]
A
It seemed to me in reading some of this information that the other lesson was that branded worlds were not getting the level of engagement that UGC content or other people's worlds were getting, which is sort of similar to social, where you don't really come in and just have your own site and expect everybody to go to P and G. You have to sort of be a part of worlds that are sticky with your audience. So you need to think about it in a kind of a different way. Justin?
- [13:58]
C
Yeah, I mean, I think like Charles, you mentioned like the word attention, right? Like we've always said, like, yeah, we live in this attention economy and we have to capture customers attention. Like I think it's like, that's true, but I also think it's about intention. Like how do you actually get somebody to intentionally consume your content on social to intentionally complete the branded objective in EA Sports fc? Like we've gone from this like, attention Economy to like how do you actually get somebody to intentionally spend time with you, to stop their scroll, to watch the reel that you've posted, to stop their scroll, to watch the TikTok you've posted to on Roblox, go into a branded world or in a experience on Roblox, engage with the branded work. It's very much about intention and to me that is very, that has value, that's very meaningful to a brand because it's easy to say like we're capturing someone's attention because they've liked to post. But to complete a 30 second video on a social platform, to spend more than six minutes in a branded environment or with a specific chat like that is very different. That is an intentional action and that's meaningful.
- [15:07]
B
We can talk about ad frequency and seeing a hundred different ads at half a second each over a consistent period of time and that having some sort of effect on brand love as or recall which is what everyone loves to talk about. The interesting part about the gaming aspect is you cannot, it's really, really difficult. No matter how engaging your content is on these other platforms like social media or tv, you cannot replicate the value exchange in gaming, sorry in social media that you can do in gaming because you simply have another element. It's like going from a two dimensional world to a three dimensional world. You actually have another element to play with which is game mechanics, which is digital goods, assets, value transfer, community, community engagement, all of that going where your friends are as opposed to just consuming content, doing scrolling on social media. All of these things has yes, there's value to recall but what is the difference between 100 ads at half a second each to six minutes? As Justin said, intentionally engaging with your brand, that is so that is trying to give you value where you already exist and that's really difficult. That's quite a. I mean Justin, I'd love to hear from you how, how what the challenges are with conveying that internally.
- [16:43]
C
Early on there was a lot of education like we had to educate our, our executive team around like the opportunity, the consumer and also like if we're not here, what are we missing out on? Like what's the, what is the biggest loss if we don't actually do this? And that I think helped them understand specifically around the notion of like this is where the next generation of consumers are spending their time. Like this is the growth customer for Walmart.
- [17:09]
A
Many people were sort of surprised when Meta stepped away from the metaverse. I think there was this big buzz about everything that was happening there And I'm just wondering, what do you guys think that signals. Does that. Does that make it feel like maybe these virtual worlds are just not as sexy and progressive as we thought they might have become?
- [17:29]
C
Oh, I had lots of thoughts,
- [17:32]
B
yeah.
- [17:33]
C
I mean, to be honest with you, I think, like, the Metaverse was, like, it was a term that turned into, like, a darling of the headlines. Like, it was something that, like, was new and shiny and nobody understood what it was. And so people just sort of, like, gravitated towards, we're showing up on these platforms, so we're in the Metaverse. And, like, to be honest, like, we talked about it as a Metaverse opportunity in the beginning, but we quickly learned that, like, that's actually not what this is like again. It is this spectrum of emerging experiences. And, like, Roblox, while they might have, like, took advantage of the wave, I don't think they ever explicitly said, like, we're a Metaverse platform. Like, they've always been a platform about experiences and about connectivity, and the way in which they talk about their platform is so different from what the Metaverse was ever sort of meant to be. And so we, we very quickly, internally at Walmart would start presentations and basically say, like, this is not a Metaverse opportunity. This is about connecting with the next generation of consumers. That is the opportunity. And where we show up is either an emerging platform or a gaming platform. And how this is going to drive the brand and business is X, Y and Z. But, like, we very quickly shifted away from calling the work that we are doing the Metaverse. While meta may have walked away from the Metaverse, they've not walked away from horizon worlds. They're just describing it differently.
- [19:00]
A
Which is their virtual worlds platform.
- [19:03]
C
That's right.
- [19:04]
B
So I'd love to jump off the back of that. And I'll start with a story of how geeks started in 2018 with me speaking with, what was Facebook now Meta, back then, and they were creating content for gaming. They came out with something called Facebook Gaming in 2018 off the back of Twitch and Microsoft coming out with Mixer and these live streaming platforms said, why are you doing this? They said, the problem is people are going to these games to socialize, and they're not doing it on Facebook or Instagram. So we need to attack this gaming market. This is well before Facebook turned into Meta. Meta have got a challenge. Their challenge is that the next generation of social is not happening on the Meta platforms. What happened was lockdown, and I'm sure Mark Zuckerberg was very focused on Hardware with VR and the Metaverse sort of got confused with VR and that word was sort of difficult.
- [20:05]
A
So the VR headsets for those not watching.
- [20:07]
B
Yeah. And if you look at Meta, the VR part is what's really taken a hit really hard. Horizon's world, as Justin says. Is Meta's effort an answer to Roblox? Because we've just spoken about the future of social media here, and we haven't said it's Meta, we said it's Roblox, we said it's Fortnite, we've said it's UGC gaming platforms. So that's what they're working really hard on. And like, if I'm a betting man, I think it's impossible for them not to work on it. If you just Fast forward in 10 years, if the user base is aging up and they're not getting the user base from the ground up, they've got a problem. So they have to.
- [20:53]
A
It was really interesting to look at some of the numbers, though, because when you look at spending in 2025, it was down dramatically from spending in the prior year in virtual worlds. Why is that happening? Is it an indication of less interest in the category or is it a sort of a shifting of spending patterns within it?
- [21:16]
B
I'm happy to answer that one. So you will notice that absolutely spending dropped in 2025, but then the frequency of brands activating increased. So the number of brands that went in went down. Still growing, but it went down and the frequency per brand went up. And I think what that is is a hangover from lockdown 2023, subsequently 2024, where you had, as Justin mentioned, a lot of people ticking a metaverse box. And actually the people that are still investing are the ones who are taking Justin's view, which is, forget about Metaverse. This is just a channel that has, you know, a lot of consumers in there. And it's just a different way of communicating our brand to reach them and to engage with them. And actually a very effective way to engage with them is part of it.
- [22:15]
A
Also, the idea that it is spending now has shifted from building branded worlds to building integrated.
- [22:22]
B
It's also the thing. So, you know, instead of building your own Instagram channel, doing influencer marketing to access audiences, certainly in platforms like Roblox, has become more of a trend now for those brands that won't take on building your own channel, the rise of the number of brands that are integrating as opposed to building their own world is completely different. And the cost is very different. The cost to integrate versus the cost to build your own is massively different, which is contributing to the drop in spend. What I will finally say about that is those two things are two different activations, they're two different objectives. So it's not to say that one is better than the other.
- [23:09]
A
You mean brand world versus integrated into somebody else's content?
- [23:12]
B
You're doing it for two different reasons. So if you want pure reach and just I want to access audiences, then do an integration. If you want to control the experience and to have a long term relationship where people are coming, constantly coming to your world, that's not an integration, that's building your own world.
- [23:35]
A
Yeah. So let's spend a couple of minutes, Justin, talking about some of the highlights of what you guys have done in the space, share a couple of things that are, you know, things that you're proud of and things most importantly that have worked well for Walmart.
- [23:51]
C
Yeah, well, I think it's important to start with something that didn't work well because it laid the foundation. And it's not that like it wasn't great, it just, it didn't, it didn't resonate the way that we thought that it was going to resonate. And it was our first experience on Roblox, it was called Walmart Land. We had really big ambitions. As I mentioned, this was around the time of the Metaverse chatter. And so the way in which we were evaluating the opportunity was a little different. And again, it led to sort of that pretty quick shift to like, this isn't really about the metaverse, it's about the communities that we're able to connect with through these channels, through these emerging platforms. And so with our first experience we showed up and we had just had these grand ambitions and we really, this was actually before we worked with Geek, we, we've kind of tried to like bring all of the things that people loved on the Roblox platform into this Walmart experience. But when you try to be a little bit of everything, you're not doing anything well versus being one thing and doing that one thing exceptionally well. And so we launched Walmart Land and the community response wasn't great. It drove a lot of coverage for Walmart on the platform and sort of like the medium and the space. And so it certainly was not a complete failure, but it gave us a lot of learnings to inform how we go forward in these emerging platforms which
- [25:23]
A
led to what was at the heart of that failure, do you feel, or its lack of performance?
- [25:28]
C
I think it was, there were just a lot of People that were working on a project and we were all kind of like learning as we were going. And at the time there weren't that many brands on the platform. And so like we were kind of like charting new water. No one's fault. I can't point a finger at anybody specifically. Like, we just kind of were like learning as we were going. And again, it was like grand ambitions. I mean, it was like probably at the time, like the biggest branded experience on the platform. We did a virtual concert with like three very popular artists, Madison Beer, Youngblood, Kane Brown. They came into a studio and like we took their real world bodies and created virtual versions of them and like they performed on a virtual stage. And I mean like it was a whole weekend festival. I mean it was a huge success. But again, it just like, overall the full experience didn't resonate the way in which we wanted it to. And so it gave us an opportunity to sort of say, like to pause and let's take a step back, let's not rush to do our next thing, but like, let's figure out the opportunity go forward. Which led to things like working with a partner like Geek to really like, understand the platform, the community, to give us insights into sort of like what is resonating, where are their gaps, what is, what is, what is social chatter around a platform right now. But also because they're so involved in the broader space, they were great partners in helping us identify, like our developers, who are we going to work with for a specific platform because they had a roster of partners that have created great experiences and it allowed us to be the best of the best. And so again, we learned a lot. One was we needed a partner like Geek. Another was like creating these community boards. So like, every experience that we launched since that first experience has had community members helping inform the decisions we make before we launch. And that I think has helped us stand out and do things that are unexpected but also resonate with the broader community because there are people that they look to and trust giving us feedback and guidance on how to show up. And then the last thing was like really making sure that when we show up, like, we're using insights that are timely and relevant and allow us to create something that adds value. Which leads me to things that I'm proud of, I think Walmart discovered on Roblox, very proud of, because it came after Walmart Land and it was a big risk to reintroduce the brand on the platform. But Walmart discovered on Roblox is one of the highest Rated brand experiences on the platform. The last I checked it had a 96% approval rating. Very different from our first experience. Time spent in the experience was extremely high and it provided players with something that no brand had ever done. It was a utility, not a game, not an experience. And it was intended to make search and discovery on the platform immersive and fun. And so that felt like a really big win.
- [28:26]
A
So immersive are utility means what in
- [28:29]
C
this case, in this particular example, what we did is we built a branded experience that allowed for people to come in and discover other games experiences UGC that existed on the platform that maybe were getting buried in the existing at the time search experience on Roblox. So you know, Charles at the top of the call talked about how many people are playing Roblox daily. There are also millions of games and experiences and ugc, UGC being virtual items. And if you search like blue jeans, you're probably going to find the most popular blue jeans, but you're not going to find the blue jeans of a new creator. And so what we did is we created this experience that identified these up and coming emerging creators and we actually profiled their virtual items, their experiences, their games. It gave them a platform to be discovered and it was a great way for us to sort of like give back to the community. So we would partner with them in the context of like where they're most relevant. So like we would identify through our partnership with Geek, like emerging virtual item designers. Right. And the Geek platform helped us identify them because like they would have an item that would go viral and you'd see social content created around it, you'd see people wearing it and experiences. And so we would reach out to them and say like, hey, we'd love to showcase you in our experience. And then we would later partner with them to create Walmart virtual items that we would give away through game mechanics in the experience.
- [30:05]
A
Is it, do you look at it, Justin, as being upper funnel or lower funnel for Walmart? Because we're talking about virtual goods, not physical goods. Is there a bridge or do you, or are you primarily looking at it as upper, lower. How do you think about it?
- [30:22]
C
Yeah, I mean, I think it depends on like what you're doing on the platform at any given time. So like with Roblox, I would say like primarily it was an upper funnel tactic. It is to create awareness of Walmart and the benefits that we provide or who we are as a brand, like our promise to our customers. But there were tactics that we, we tested that were more lower funnels. So for example, Roblox brought back a wildly popular event called the Hunt that they did annually for many years. And then it went away. I don't know why it went away, but it went away and they decided to bring it back. And of course people were like so excited. And we were their sort of exclusive retail partner where if you bought a Roblox gift card from Walmart.com during the hunt campaign, you unlocked an exclusive the Hunt backpack that was effectively like a rocket egg or an egg that was a rocket. I don't know the right way to say that, but you could only get that if you bought a Robux gift card From Walmart on Walmart.com so like that's lower funnel and that's getting the next generation of customers into our ecosystem onto Walmart.com but they're also getting something that like is coveted limited time and it's connected to something that's really important to them. So that was a lower funnel tactic. We also were the first brand to test real world commerce on Roblox where if you went into Walmart discovered we had a storefront where we had Roblox creators choose an item from Walmart. So they chose the item that resonated with them and then they designed the virtual twin of that item. And so if you bought the real world item and Walmart discovered you got the virtual twin for the Roblox platform, that's a lower funnel tactic.
- [32:21]
A
Are we on the way to transactional commerce within these games or will it. Will there be this distinction between, I mean, will there be a direct link, for example to a transaction within a Roblox game? And if not, why not?
- [32:38]
B
I think it's timely and in the hands of the platforms. Ultimately, if the platforms allow it, yes, you'll have it. If they don't, you won't. So I think anyone coming today to gaming virtual worlds for performance marketing, direct response stuff. Okay, we really need to think about this because there are ways that Justin has just given you as examples to kind of get close to it, but not like for like yeah, bridge, bridge the worlds. Yeah, sorry to be completely flat and answer your question, maybe, but it will be up to the platforms. And remember the difference between social media and gaming is social media make money directly from brands. Gaming, they have two customers they have to look at, one of which is the players where they make money directly from players. People buying Robux in Roblox and the economy there. And brands is this sort of new thing, a new customer that they're looking at where Roblox is having immersive media and media buying and you know, eafc, they make money not just from Walmart doing collaborations, they make the bulk of their money from players buying the game. So that's it, you know, that's a really. People need to think about that. What I can tell you is these are destinations with a huge amount of people spending time and the number of people is getting bigger and bigger and the time they're spending is getting longer and longer.
- [34:21]
A
88% of activations are on roadblocks in Fortnite brand integrations and activations. What does that say about what's happening? Is it that it's become a shrunken world? Do you see it expanding? And why is there only eight? Why are. Why is 88% playing on just two platforms?
- [34:42]
B
88% of all branded activations happen on Roblox and Fortnite and Most of that 88% is Roblox. That is, we are certainly living in a world where from a sort of brand activation standpoint, a bit of a monopoly slight, duopoly slight with Fortnite in there. I think platform diversification is incredibly important for the growth of the UGC gaming space. The reason why most of brand activations happen on those two platforms is purely for what I said earlier, which is their UGC platforms. And therefore you can go in very, very easily without the platform permission. If you want to go into eafc you have to go through what that is what I would call sort of more of an old school traditional gaming gated community. Yeah. And it's like EA has to accept you. You have to go through and an intense process if you get through it. As Justin has just pointed out, the payoff can be really great if you've done it really well. But in terms of the access for every brand to go in, it's not as scalable as something like that was. Which is why you're seeing more of the brands go into platforms like Roblox and Fortnite for the scale.
- [36:10]
A
So that's a good place to end. Gentlemen, thank you so much. It's Charles Hambro is CEO and co founder of Geek. He is in London. And Justin Breton is brand experience and strategic partnerships lead at Walmart in New York City. Thank you both for your time and hey great joining us for episode one, Justin and helping lay the groundwork for the series. We appreciate you.
- [36:33]
C
Thanks for having me.
- [36:34]
B
Thanks so much.
- [36:36]
A
And we'll see everyone on the next episode.