Metaverse advertising configurations: a study of the world’s leading brands

This study examines how the world’s leading brands integrate metaverse components as emerging spatial forms of brand communication, which we call metaverse advertising configurations. Drawing on embodied space theory, we conceptualize the virtual brand space (VBS) as a spatial integration mechanism that enables brands to organize metaverse technologies (NFTs, avatars, and branded games) and marketing techniques (virtual events and co-branding). VBS is a component of metaverse advertising configurations but is not required for a brand to deploy metaverse advertising. Using a modified web content analysis of Interbrand’s Global Top 100 brands, we identify brands that apply the metaverse for operational and advertising purposes and demonstrate that metaverse advertising configurations extend the logic of conventional advertising formats into virtual environments. Rather than functioning as fixed, placement-based units, these configurations represent forms of integration through which brands selectively arrange and combine metaverse components to materialize advertising as immersive, spatially organized brand experiences.