Where Have All the Chief Metaverse Officers Disappeared To?
The leaders of industry who were set to guide us through emerging virtual realms are still present. They’re simply using a different name.
LAST SPRING, DURING an occasion in New York City, Robert Triefus, who was Gucci’s CEO of Vault—the label’s digital marketplace—contended that the recent decline in excitement surrounding the metaverse was merely a short interruption. “I view it more as a correction,” he said to the audience. “We’re now in a much more reasonable position, with individuals [and] companies … that are truly committed to their efforts.” When questioned about how acquiring real estate in The Sandbox fits with Gucci’s overall brand objectives, he replied in a somewhat mystical manner: “The metaverse presents a chance to welcome the digital self.”
The next month, Triefus departed from Gucci “suddenly,” as reported by Vogue Business. He was leaving “to explore different opportunities,” the brand stated at that time. A month later, Vogue Business announced that Triefus was set to become the new CEO of Stone Island. Right away, there was conjecture about whether Stone Island would join the metaverse. Up to now, it has not.
Triefus’ enthusiastic public engagement with all things digital and his brief role as the leader of Gucci’s metaverse strategy exemplify a larger trend that momentarily shook the private sector beginning in late 2021: the swiftly hired “chief metaverse officer.” In the wake of a surge of enthusiasm for the metaverse as a promising new frontier for business, a multitude of brands quickly moved to establish their own virtual shops. In a 2022 survey by Russell Reynolds, three out of four CEOs indicated they were recruiting specific talent to manage the area or broadening existing positions to include it. Although the specific titles differed, their primary function appeared to be assisting their brands in developing new strategies utilizing trendy technologies like NFTs and cryptocurrency. Nonetheless, the lack of agreement on the definition of the metaverse only contributed to greater inconsistency between job descriptions and the actual responsibilities of these roles.
Prosperity and Decline
This all began, naturally, in October 2021, when Facebook rebranded itself as Meta, indicating its renewed emphasis on the metaverse. CEO Mark Zuckerberg illustrated a vision of a sprawling and highly lucrative virtual realm, where upcoming generations would work, play, socialize, date, and (importantly) shop. Reality Labs, the virtual reality (VR) segment of the company, reinforced that conviction with substantial financial investment, allocating $13.7 billion in 2022 alone—a sum greater than Mongolia’s GDP.
Brands seized the chance to market an entirely new category of virtual products and experiences, enticed by the idea that consumers were eager to join VR concerts and purchase NFT footwear.
“Numerous brands swiftly sought to explore opportunities—there was an impression of a race for territory,” states Matthew Ball, a technology investor and the writer of The Metaverse. “They were eager to avoid finishing last and were thrilled at the chance to come in first … They also recognized the chance to participate in something quite rare for a brand, namely to engage in a social experience.”
Luxury brands showed a strong interest, having been sluggish to embrace the initial stages of ecommerce. It seemed like the ideal intersection, as the dual Web3 principles of exclusivity and authenticity harmonized well with the appeal of their sector. And for a brief period, it appeared to be effective.
Gucci, the inaugural luxury label to acquire digital property in the Sandbox, notably sold a virtual replica of its Dionysus handbag on Roblox for approximately $4,100—$800 over the cost of the actual product. Jeweler Tiffany & Co introduced virtual necklaces inspired by the CryptoPunks NFT series (“NFTiffs”), which originally retailed for approximately $50,000 each, generating over $12 million for the company. Burberry implemented a dual strategy, providing digital branded skins within Minecraft and introducing a capsule collection influenced by the game in reality, earning an estimated £5.2 million ($6.8 million) in advertising return on investment.
Law firms began establishing a presence in the space—likely prompted by Hermès suing an NFT creator for selling 100 “MetaBirkin” NFTs inspired by the brand’s iconic Birkin bag. Mirroring this surge of enthusiasm, McKinsey released a report in April 2022 predicting that the metaverse could be worth $5 trillion by 2030.
Then, just as swiftly as it had emerged, the excitement faded away. Similar to Dorothy looking behind the curtain only to discover that the Wizard of Oz was merely a small man operating levers, the world appeared to have examined the metaverse and found … very little indeed.
Horizon Worlds—Meta’s premier VR platform—resembled a virtual ghost town filled with legless avatars. In late 2022, data aggregator DappRadar discovered that Decentraland—a virtual “sandbox” for buying and selling virtual real estate—had only 38 active users during a 24-hour timeframe. Let’s repeat that: Only 38. At that time, the company’s market capitalization was approximately $1.3 billion.
Approximately at that moment, Meta—together with many other major companies in Silicon Valley—shifted a significant portion of its resources and public relations efforts to AI in a rush, after the unexpected launch of ChatGPT in November 2022. Brands that not too long ago fully embraced the metaverse soon started to take similar actions.
It would be astonishing if it weren’t all so unbelievably recognizable. In 2007, Second Life, a virtual online game where users engage as anonymous avatars, was undergoing rapid expansion, attracting the interest of businesses eager to take advantage of it. With minimal comprehension of the platform or awareness of its users, companies like IBM, Cisco, and Microsoft invested heavily in Second Life “islands” to establish a presence in this vibrant new realm. However, by 2010, brands had begun retracting, labeling it a “financial blunder.”
Philip Rosedale, the founder of Second Life, claims that companies mistakenly thought these virtual environments would appeal to a diverse portion of their target demographics, while today’s open-world online games like Fortnite and Roblox are predominantly enjoyed by children.
“You can’t determine if you can market items to individuals in a specific virtual realm unless you can assume they’re representative of everyday people,” Rosedale states. “You require everyday individuals to whom you are marketing products, and this is precisely what has completely, without a doubt, failed to occur in Second Life, Horizon Worlds, VR Chat, or any other platforms.” Ball mentions that the pace at which brands sought to engage, lacking a genuine strategy or comprehension of the environment, led to problems for its sustainability: “There was certainly a significant amount of, ‘We must do this because everyone else is,’ and ‘We have to do this because shareholders anticipate us doing it.’ Many individuals overvalued the significance of their brand in these 3D environments.
A Shift Towards AI
Currently, numerous chief metaverse officers, who were rapidly appointed, rushed to transform themselves—or else discovered they were completely unemployed. In August 2023, Coca-Cola’s Pratik Thakar quickly shifted from leading the brand’s metaverse initiatives to taking on the role of global generative AI lead for the company.
Around the same period, Michael White, assigned to spearhead Disney’s metaverse initiatives in 2022, departed following the closure of the brand’s specific metaverse division; shortly after, the company revealed it was establishing a new AI “task force.” Subsequently, following Triefus’ exit from Gucci, the brand announced a partnership with Christie’s for its inaugural generative AI initiative.
If any additional evidence were required to confirm the transition from the metaverse to AI was finalized, Bloomberg transcript data indicated only two references to the metaverse in earnings calls during the last quarter of 2022 among S&P 500 companies. During the initial quarter of 2023, AI accumulated a total of 1,073.
Cathy Hackl, who previously served as the chief metaverse officer at a consulting company named Journey, stated that the substantial marketing transition from virtual brand experiences to AI was both a clever business move and yet another instance of following tech trends. Today, Hackl contemplates the metaverse land rush as a phenomenon that rapidly spiraled beyond control. “She mentions that there was a frenzy among PR teams to launch anything related to the ‘metaverse.’” “I believe we’ll remember it as a fascinating period, though perhaps we all rushed into it a bit too eagerly.”
Avoid Bringing Up the “M” Word
Even Hackl, known as the “Godmother of the Metaverse,” has been distancing herself from the idea, founding “a spatial computing and AI solutions firm” earlier this year, with no reference to the metaverse evident.
The metaverse-oriented projects that previously appeared in every launch now seem unusually silent. Bulgari, which released an NFT jewelry collection on Polygon’s blockchain in 2022, stated that it has no intentions for additional collections moving forward.
UNXD, a “curated NFT marketplace,” in collaboration with partners such as Dolce & Gabbana, Jacob & Co., and Valentino, is continuing to promote a competition for Metaverse Fashion Week 2023, alongside several “to be announced” collections that were confirmed for release in 2022.
The excitement around collections that were once thriving has nearly vanished—Tiffany NFTiffs currently trade for about $2,300 on the NFT marketplace OpenSea, illustrating a decline of over 95 percent from their highest selling prices, whereas activity for Gucci’s “Superplastic” NFT series on OpenSea reveals a dramatic fall in sales interest since around September 2022, resulting in nearly no transactions.
The reasons for this occurrence are open to discussion. Due to the absence of users, the awkward, pricey, and cumbersome VR equipment, as well as the absence of interoperability, the metaverse’s potential from 2021 is simply not materializing in 2024. And Zuckerberg is aware of it: He referred to the term only three times during his hour-long keynote speech at his company’s developer conference, Meta Connect—even though it’s the name of his company.
However, not all have abandoned the concept. A brief look at LinkedIn reveals that chief metaverse officers are, surprisingly, still present at certain companies, although those positions are now typically grouped with various other new digital advancements. Nelly Mensah at LVMH is among them, as mentions of her role gradually change to “VP of Digital Innovation” as enthusiasm for the metaverse declines. In line with industry trends, the company’s latest digital experience relied significantly on Generative AI, with no reference to the “m” word present at all.
Matthew Ball foresaw this decline in a footnote at the conclusion of his book, suggesting that when the core idea eventually emerges, it will likely be referred to with a different term. And just in time, augmented reality came to continue from where the metaverse stopped.
Shifting the Position of an Idea
As the VR-oriented metaverse struggles to resonate with the general public, numerous tech companies are shifting their focus towards AR, hoping it gains traction. Up to now, it’s appearing encouraging. Last year, Meta revealed its Smart Glasses in collaboration with Ray-Ban, showcasing the initial prototype of its “true augmented reality glasses” at Meta Connect; Apple highlighted the Vision Pro’s feature that allows users to switch between pass-through AR and VR; Snap launched the newest version of its AI Spectacles in September, specifically for AR Lens developers; and everyone is eager to view the completed version of Google’s new AR glasses, which it teased back in May.
In the meantime, “phygital” has emerged as a fresh marketing buzzword, indicating an alleged increasing desire among consumers to merge physical and digital experiences. Thus, with what seems like an almost disheartening certainty, another LinkedIn search reveals this phrase increasingly surfacing in job titles where the M-word once held significant prominence.
Shara Senderoff, the founder of the virtual design studio Futureverse, suggests that the tech industry’s shift towards AR is a move to revert to a type of virtual experience that will be easier for the average consumer to embrace.
“We missed a step,” she states. “We progressed from no VR headsets to ones that weigh 6 lbs.” That will never be easy, both literally and figuratively. Now you’re observing Snapchat and Meta reducing barriers to bring users into a more accessible experience.
Maybe finally coming to understand that, similar to the less fortunate in Decentraland (and likely Apple’s Vision Pro team), nobody desires to exist inside a computer, Zuckerberg appears to have executed a marketing trick, shifting the metaverse from a completely immersive, virtual experience to one that can be accessed via the company’s AR-enhanced smart glasses. A venture that he wishes will become a popular success, unlike VR. He mentioned in the Meta Connect Keynote that the firm’s progress in AR “is nearing the realization of the dream of Reality Labs … This is our destination.” On the other hand, he has put in too much to consider saying anything different.
