Wagner James Au / New World Notes

Nissan seems to be the biggest real world brand to deploy a virtual marketing campaign in VRChat, the would-be Metaverse:

Nissan Crossing, in Tokyo’s Ginza district… has been recreated in stunning virtual reality showcasing the all-new Ariya electric crossover. The virtual gallery can be found under the name “NISSAN CROSSING”^* on the social VR platform VRChat in the “Worlds” category. The VR venue provides a new means of digital communication and offers a variety of content and experiences, including new announcements and briefings. An inaugural tour will be held by year-end to highlight the risks of climate change and how a future with electric vehicles could look.

Development of the virtual gallery was made possible thanks to the support of leading VR creators. 

[Update, November 11: Hyundai has a prior world in VRChat.]

"I think this is very clever because it is like an influencer marketing [campaign]," says Sanny, my indispensable Japanese translator. "Nissan credit all names of creators." A VRChat reporter name @OculusTan on Twitter has a video of the launch party:

バーチャルギャラリー「NISSAN CROSSING」
お披露目会の様子です🚗✨ コミュニティを大事にする取り組み方、本当うれしい！ みなさん #VRChat で気軽に遊びに行ってみてね！ ハッシュタグ #NissanCrossing でシェアもぜひ⭐️#日産 https://t.co/MDOGJ49Gan pic.twitter.com/lYr6VSef8S

— おきゅたんbot🏝️VR&メタバースガイド (@OculusTan) November 4, 2021

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Really great that Nissan worked with grassroots creators to deploy this experience. At the same time (I took the screengrab above at 4:30pm PT), one thing it doesn't have is grassroots visitors.

This is, as @PatchouliW put it to me when he passed along this scoop, "It's Second Life all over again in VRChat." Because as it happens, in 2006, Nissan deployed a marketing site in Second Life… which also had negligible visits.

Update, 9:20PM: Thanks to Sanny, corrected OculusTan as being a reporter at the Nissan launch, not a creator of the launch itself: "@sobatang1 built the world, @SUSABI_VRC made music for the cafe, @T8oNana worked as an event companion at the event for press." By the way, I once again checked concurrency at the time of this update and it is, as before during time of posting, only one.