Lovehoney opened a pop up in the Metaverse and here's what they learned

There's been a lot of buzz about the Metaverse and as we try to grasp what it's all about Lovehoney, the global sexual happiness experts, have decided to jump right in and take us along for the ride. In the pursuit of sexual happiness in another dimension Lovehoney opened a pop-up shop in Decentraland last month– marking the first sexual wellness brand to have a presence in the Metaverse. The experience opened to the public for shopping, sex education and more.

Johanna Rief, Director Public Relations & Head of Sexual Empowerment, Lovehoney Group, comments, “Even though we’ve made progress over the last twenty years, when it comes to sexuality and the way we treat the topic in society, there is still a long way to go. In a World where ‘Big Tech’ is silencing sexual wellness brands, with regulations on Instagram and Google becoming more and more tight, it’s exciting for us to launch an experience like this pop-up space. We put a lot of capacities and budget into our R&D efforts. We see ourselves as a (Sex)Tech company and have always been forward-thinking and keeping an eye on technological trends. Therefore, we were curious and the Metaverse store was close and a logical step.”

Why now? Rief explains, "the sexual wellness industry has benefited from technological advances for years, and the Metaverse offers new opportunities. Decentraland is a Metaverse that can be entered with any computer and no extra equipment, like VR googles, is needed. This makes it easily usable and accessible for a broad audience that so far may have shied away from the technology. Plus, the Metaverse space offers an anonymous place for people to explore sexual wellness products and content around the topic of sexuality."

“The Metaverse allows us to immerse ourselves in digital content rather than feeling like a separate viewer," said Bryony Cole, Lovehoney's global sextech expert. People naturally look at entertainment as the only possibility for sextech, but there is also a great potential for sex education, sexual happiness and sexual health support in the Metaverse. Plus, the combined anonymity and intimacy of this platform, allows people to engage with this topic further, where they perhaps don’t feel comfortable in real life, allowing more people to educate."

The space spanned four floors and offered a full immersive brand and product experience, educational videos, workshops, a dance floor showcasing the new music-activated product collection “Juno” and an erotic NFT art exhibition and auction with all proceeds going to the artists directly.

Of course, safety is always a priority. Consumer well-being and protection remains a priority for Lovehoney so with that in mind,they introduced, Betty the Bee, Lovehoney’s own security avatar. She greeted visitors at the front door of the pop-up with information on how they can report inappropriate behaviour and have the ability to block anyone who is making them feel uncomfortable.

So, being one of the first, what did they learn?

"We launched the World’s first sexual wellness pop-up space to explore the possibilities that the Metaverse offers for retailers as well as customers. Especially within our category many people still prefer an anonymous place to explore sexual wellness products and content around the topic of sexuality," said Rief. 

After the positive 2-week run, she could definitely say that consumers were curious and interested in experiencing Lovehoney products in the Metaverse, even though it was way more niche than classic e-commerce.  

"More generally we learned that it takes quite a bit of knowledge and coordination to create such a space and open it in the Metaverse. We luckily have our colleague Fabian who, for personal interest, is very versed in these topics and helped and taught us a lot," said Rief.  

While it was difficult to track how many people were in the space over the two weeks, Rief tells us they had over 150 visitors in the first six hours of the Metaverse space being open, as well as more than 70 people attending the launch event. These seem like small numbers, but according to experts in the field, they are very good results. 

Another successful point, the 8 NFT pieces that were shown in the erotic art exhibition were sold. They also generated sales in their online stores as people could click on products in the Metaverse pop-up store and were forwarded. But, as Rief mentioned, making sales was never a priority for that campaign.  

Would they jump into the Metaverse again? "Yes, there is a high probability, especially because we own the store itself," said Rief. " The only thing we didn’t buy is the land which is pretty expensive. As long as the Metaverse is where the future lies, Lovehoney will be involved."