Is Yves Saint Laurent Parfums developing products for Web3 enthusiasts? According to its trademark registration, the French company is interested in non-fungible tokens (NFT) and metaverses. We take stock of its ambitions
Yves Saint Laurent Parfums dives into Web3
While the European economic situation is causing fears of a recession, the luxury sector is not experiencing a crisis. While the stock market share of the LVMH group has just reached a new high, the Yves Saint Laurent Parfums firm has just registered a trademark to start its Web3 adventure.
According to an official document, the subsidiary of the L’Oréal group, which markets Yves Saint Laurent products, is interested in non-fungible tokens (NFT) and their use in virtual worlds such as metaverses with a view to increasing customer engagement through new communication channels.
The company’s most detailed theme concerns the production of computer programmes, the implementation of which will allow the creation of:
- of virtual items such as cosmetics, perfume and skin care “to be used in the metaverse”;
- multimedia files including videos in NFT format with content related to the brand’s business sector;
- downloadable software dedicated to “the creation, production, and modification of digital skins and make-up”;
- and a mobile application for the purchase and sale of cosmetics and wellness products.
For the company, its presence in the metaverse must go beyond a simple virtual showcase of its products. Yves Saint Laurent Parfums has the ambition to create retail shops that will allow the trade of its virtual products.
In fact, its parent company Yves Saint Laurent Beauté, currently owned by the L’Oréal group, carried out a first experiment in Web3 in June 2022 by unveiling an NFT collection thanks to a partnership with the French company Arianee.
More and more companies in the Web3
In 2022, luxury brands have stepped up their Web3 game: while Swiss watchmaker Bretling and Italian fashion house Gucci have begun accepting some cryptocurrencies for purchases, jeweller Tiffany & Co. has launched its first auction platform based on blockchain technology.
The growing interest in Web3 among companies is primarily for business reasons. By using the tools available in this ecosystem, brands can increase their influence through communication operations in the metaverse. To take the luxury sector, in 2022 Gucci designed a virtual field accessible to everyone for a fortnight on the metaverse The Sandbox.
The Gucci Vault Land, a virtual terrain developed by Gucci in the metaverse The Sandbox
Operations like this allow a company to generate interest in its brand and to federate a community of passionate people as a potential economic pool. As soon as a new product related to the Web3 ecosystem is revealed by the company, prospects from this community can become customers, allowing the company to diversify its revenue streams while offering new experiences to its customers.
To take the case of Tiffany & Co. one of their strategies was to market a new product to an audience with an interest in blockchain technology. To do this, the firm tapped into the world of non-fungible tokens by selling pendants featuring the NFT collection of CryptoPunks.
