• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, December 13, 2022

EOS, the beauty brand, is making its first move into the metaverse. It's partnering with Mariah Carey, the Queen of Christmas herself, who will host a series of musical performances in Roblox. CMO Soyoung Kang tells Marketing Daily what it wants to learn from the collaboration.

Marketing Daily: The activation is taking place on Livetopia, Roblox's second-largest role-playing game, with something like 30 million active users a month. How did you settle on this mix of music and games for your first foray into the metaverse?

Soyoung Kang: We wanted certain boundaries in place for the investment, but also ensuring that we're maximizing our ability to have a real test, with factors that could drive the success. For us, that meant going someplace with an active audience. And Roblox was the place that we wanted to start.

Years from now, that could be different as platforms become more populated. But knowing who our audience is, we wanted to be someplace where they already are, not some kind of "If you build it, they will come" situation. And we also wanted something to build buzz beyond the Roblox platform. So when the Roblox team said, "Hey, Mariah Carey is interested," we jumped on it immediately.

Marketing Daily: Some might say Mariah Carey, in her 50s now, might not resonate with younger fans.

Kang: We didn't worry about it at all. Her music is so viral on TikTok, the youngest platform. It's the perfect sweet spot for someone who is a megastar and has resonance with our particular audience.

Marketing Daily: You worked with Mekanism to create the experience, which will let users interact with products in a native way while enjoying the musical performance.What specifically are you hoping to learn?

Kang: We're trying to understand how much creating a virtual experience can translate into brand affinity and brand love with our core audience.

For us, social media is truly about engagement. This is not just about pushing a one-way message. It's about having a back-and-forth two-way dialogue with our consumers. And if social media is two-dimensional, then I think of the metaverse as three-dimensional. It's immersive, experiential, and a medium that allows us to level up our game. If this works -- and I'm fairly certain it will -- we will measure our brand lift through the activation.

It's unlike anything else we've done up until now, except in the actual physical world, through events.

Marketing Daily: Who is the core audience for your lip products?

Kang: While we have a larger customer base, we think of the core as Gen Z, crossing into young millennials. The center of our bullseye is pretty firmly in the 16- to 24-year-old age group.

Marketing Daily: Does that mean social media has to be your primary channel?

Kang: Yes, she's on social media. She's watching videos on YouTube. This group still does watch television, especially connected TV.

Our challenge is that we are a small brand. We have to make our dollars work harder and spend smarter. So we're hyper-focused, making sure we're reaching this very specific group of people in a very specific medium. That means working with partners that have sophisticated targeting capabilities. We've had a lot of success with Brat TV, for example.

Marketing Daily: What should else should brands consider when exploring the metaverse?

Kang: Music. Increasingly, it's becoming a place to play music. Artists can engage with and connect with their audiences in a new way. Lil Nas X and Lizzo have had such success, and it is wide-open territory. And younger audiences disproportionately spend their time in sound-on environments, where music plays a big part.