The Metaverse as Influencer Marketing Platform: Influencer-Brand Collaborations of Parıs Hilton with ‘Superplastic’, ‘Bohoo’, and ‘Levi’s’

Abstract

With the opportunities offered by Metaverse, brands operate in a market area that tends to expand and become more interactive. In such a market, the interaction between influencers and their followers takes place within the framework of a new business model. In this study, in order to evaluate the influencer marketing activities in Metaverse, the brand and influencer collaborations of Paris Hilton with Superplastic, Boohoo, and Levi’s, were examined with the case study and the semiotic analysis method of Roland Barthes. The analysis results showed that influencer marketing in Metaverse seems to be more creative and flexible with higher interaction due to the vast opportunities offered as a consequence of using the virtual worlds and avatars on different platforms. When it comes to users, it is observed that followers are given a real-time interaction opportunity in online virtual environments, that content forms are created in a way which is experienced through gamification; and that further opportunities are offered to develop a closer interaction between the user and the influencer avatars, and other possibilities such as purchasing digital assets and winning awards. In the Metaverse, brands appear to benefit from such opportunities as developing parallel marketing strategies between the physical world and the virtual world, preparing effective advertising campaigns with the creative potential of the virtual world, coming up with solutions to difficulties such as payment problems and counterfeiting in influencer marketing by relying on blockchain technology on the basis of Web 3.0 infrastructure, apart from selling digital products and NFTs.