This week’s FWD looks at NFL’s new partnership with their sponsor, Visa, to create the NFL Zone, a new activation in the gaming platform Fortnite. Launched this week, the NFL Zone is designed to attract both gaming and football fans, with features like ‘The Hub’ which offers a comprehensive fan experience with a virtual tailgate party, a Visa-sponsored virtual stadium and a tag-style game.

The partnership reflects NFL’s efforts to engage younger consumers and will enlist leading content creators in sports and gaming to drive awareness across Instagram, TikTok, Twitch, and YouTube. NFL players have also been called up to partner with these creators to promote and share the NFL Zone.

News:

• L’Oréal partners with Ready Player Me, a cross-game avatar platform, bringing gaming-inspired hair and makeup looks to avatars across 3,000 Metaverses.
• Elon Musk outlines Twitter‘s 2.0 Roadmap, including encrypted DMs, long-form tweets, more engaging ads and the Twitter Blue relaunch.

Start-up:

• NextMeet is a metaverse app for virtual work and collaboration. The app allows users to create multiple virtual meeting spaces/environments for colleagues to join with their personalized avatars.

Insights:

• TikTok launches an updated ‘Marketing Partners’ platform to help connect brands with promotional assistance.
• LinkedIn launches a new native posting scheduling feature within the app, available on desktop and Android.
• Twitter launches new ad targeting options, including advanced website conversion optimization e.g. add-to-cart purchases.
• YouTube launches two new tests for its Community Posts feature; quizzes and improves visual editing tools.