Entering the metaverse has become something that every company does whether or not doing so actually makes sense. It's like when one person in high school starts flipping his or her collar up and everyone else starts doing it whether they can pull off the look or not.
McDonald's (MCD) and Victoria's Secret, for example, recently entered the metaverse but it's hard to see where there will be actual demand for virtual Big Macs and lingerie. Sure, there's an obvious Grimace in a negligee crossover that might raise some eyebrows, but it's hard to explain what a fast-food chain and an underwear company gain from spending money entering the metaverse.
Walt Disney (DIS), on the other hand, owns arguably the world's best collection of intellectual property. It already monetizes those characters on television screens, in movie theaters, on smartphones, in video games, and basically on every other platform where you might license Mickey Mouse, Pixar, Star Wars, or Marvel's seemingly endless array of characters.
That's why Disney entering the metaverse makes sense. The company has leveraged its IP on every platform imaginable and bringing it to one more -- one that's ideal for storytelling -- makes a lot more sense than digital McNuggets and virtual underwear.
Meta's (FB) Facebook, whose CEO Mark Zuckerberg believes so heavily in the Metaverse that he changed his company's name, seems to not know that lacking any meaningful draw to the metaverse -- like Disney's IP -- it's just a tool and/or a gimmick. People might go to a meeting in Facebook's metaverse, but they won't be excited about it.
They will, however, happily flock to an interactive world where they can battle Darth Vader, hug Winnie the Pooh, and hang out with Goofy and Chewbacca.
Disney/TheStreet
Disney Understands the Metaverse
Disney CEO Bob Chapek has not said a lot about his company's plans for the metaverse, but he did talk about it during his company's first-quarter earnings call in response to an analyst's question.
"It is absolutely top of mind because we realize that in the future, you can call it what you want. You want to call it metaverse. You want to call it the blending of the physical and digital experiences, which I think Disney should excel at for all the reasons that you said in your opening," he said. "We realize that it's going to be less of a passive type experience where you just have playback, whether it's a sporting event or whether it's an entertainment offering and more of an interactive lean forward, actively engaged type experience."
Chapek also sees a metaverse opportunity in the sports world.
"While multiplatform television and streaming will continue to be the foundation of sports coverage for the immediate future, we believe the opportunity for The Walt Disney Company goes well beyond these channels," he said. "It extends to sports betting, gaming, and the metaverse. In fact, that's what excites us, the opportunity to build a sports machine akin to our franchise flywheel that enables audiences to experience, connect with and become actively engaged with their favorite sporting events, stories, teams, and players."
Disney understands entertainment and adapting it to different platforms. Chapek also knows that television, movie, and even videogame executives may not fully understand the virtual world, so he has tapped a top executive to lead the company's metaverse efforts.
Disney's CEO Makes a Metaverse Move
Chapek has named Mike White, an executive in the company's Media and Entertainment Distribution group to the new role of senior vice president of Next Generation Storytelling and Consumer Experiences, "where he will help define how consumers will experience Disney's coming metaverse. He will work alongside Disney's creative teams," Reuters reported.
The news organization also obtained an internal memo where Chapek explained his expectations for the new position.
"For nearly 100 years, our company has defined and re-defined entertainment by leveraging technology to bring stories to life in deeper, more impactful ways," Chapek wrote. "Today, we have an opportunity to connect those universes and create an entirely new paradigm for how audiences experience and engage with our stories."
This appointment comes not long after Disney received approval for a patent that "would create personalized interactive attractions for theme park visitors," Cointelegraph.com reported. "The technology would facilitate headset-free augmented reality (AR) attractions at Disney theme parks."
Disney flited with full virtual reality attractions based on Star Wars and other IP through its partnership with The Void, a now-defunct entertainment venue that had a location at the Disney Springs shopping area near the company's Florida theme parks. That attraction involved guests donning headsets and vest to take part in a fully-immersive virtual reality experience.
The new patent would "work by tracking visitors using their mobile phones and generating and projecting personalized 3D effects onto nearby physical spaces, walls, and objects in the park.," the website reported. Call it an effort to bring the metaverse off of headsets to more fully integrate it with the physical world of the company's theme parks.
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