The ‘Wendyverse’ Is Tasteless
In last week’s edition of Trend Mill, I discussed some of the brands who scrambled to join the Metaverse, many of whom are now scrambling to get the fuck out. One of those brands was Wendy's.
So, I thought I’d share something I wrote a year ago, which reflected on how brain-dead the whole thing was. (And still is).
Fast food brands are suckers to following trends, be it flat-design rebrands or jumping on the NFT boom of 2021. That was a fun one. Most quickly discovered a lack of use cases in the crossover between digital assets and fast food. The result has been a host of unnecessary NFT projects, like McDonald’s Big Mac Rubik’s Cube, Taco Bell's Taco GIFS, and Pizza Hut’s 1 Byte Favourites. I mean, who wouldn’t want to boast about owning a pixelated slice of pizza?
Then, the brands were at it again, falling over themselves in a frenzy to join the Metaverse. And, of course, many delivered equally unnecessary projects.
The standout was the ‘Wendyverse,’ which gave us a glimpse at what the digital fast-food world will look like. The company teamed up with Meta to launch the project, which featured a virtual restaurant located in a Wendy-branded virtual town square. Users could walk around (Read: float around), interacting with a virtual Fanta soda stream and a virtual basketball court, where users could shoot hoops with a virtual ‘Baconator.’ (At least this one is a far healthier version.)
The catch? There was nothing to eat in this fast food joint.
When you can’t order food, either for consumption in the real world or digitally, the whole concept appears to be a case of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.
Nonetheless, Wendy’s was confident that the project, described as the “first phase” of its Metaverse strategy, is a worthwhile endeavor. In a statement, chief marketing officer Carl Loredo said, “Truly a first of its kind, the Wendyverse bridges the best of today with tomorrow to show up for our fans across every world — with a Frosty and fries in hand.”
What the project will look like once finished is anyone’s guess; perhaps users can order through the virtual world and have it delivered to their homes? Or will the future avatars need the same necessities in the digital world that real humans need, like food, water and sleep? Will this pave the way for jobs as virtual workers, serving those within the Metaverse? Whatever form it takes, we won’t know for some time. Meta’s VP of Metaverse, Vishal Shah, believes the full vision may be “years away.”
McDonald’s has already applied for 10 metaverse-related patents, including exploring the possibility of delivering food online and in-person and selling more NFTs. It seems delivery drivers will have to get used to people answering the door in an Oculus headset. Panera filed a trademark the day before McDonald’s for similar services, including entertainment, NFTs, a Metaverse rewards program, and the ownership of the ‘Paneraverse’ name. Yum! Brands, which owns several fast-food brands, has submitted multiple trademark applications for NFT and metaverse products and services. Chipotle is already advertising in the Metaverse through the popular Roblox gaming platform. The rest will follow. Speaking to Forbes, trademark lawyer Josh Gerben noted, “I think you’re going to see every brand that you can think of making these filings within the next 12 months.”
But it still begs the question… why?
Of course, the brands will turn to the over-used trope of ‘community. ’ Nicky Bell, Meta’s vice president of creative shop, has already put it forward for the Wendyverse, saying, “building this world is a great example of how brands can show up in Horizon Worlds in intentional, meaningful ways with their communities.”
But step back and ask yourself, what’s meaningful about it?
It’s still the same basic Nintendo Wii floating avatar, interacting with a bland-looking landscape filled with things that offer little aside from a brief moment of “huh, cool.” More so, who wants to be part of a Wendy’s community? It’s not like it’s cool trainers, high-end brands, or a social statement: it’s a fast-food chain. It’s falling into the same trap most of Meta’s Horizon World concepts have so far: it fails to demonstrate why it’s necessary, what benefit it offers users and that it’s not just another project designed to suck up every last data point from those inside it.
I’d rather spend my time in a real Wendy’s — and that’s saying something.
Oogh. I’ve been interested in VR since the Gen 1 Oculus Quest back in 2016. One of the biggest problems with social spaces in VR is that they try to reproduce face-to-face social venues like bars and nightclubs. But there’s no blood sugar hit, and no satisfaction, to virtual drinks and virtual food. So the experience is starting out lacking a key driver of sociability: people socialize better then they have a little drink, and a little nosh in their hands. Add that to the other compromises already inherent in the medium (no valid expressions, no proper eye gaze, lack of body language hints from no feet or interpolated lower bodies, etc.) and socializing in VR still falls flat most of the time.
And I say that as someone who owns and uses a Quest Pro, because it (finally!) gives better facial expressions and realistic eye gaze.
So kudos to food brands who are at least trying to figure out how to fill that gap.
However, the estimated 10-20% proportion of the population that suffers from Misophonia - an unbearable aversion to chewing, lip smacking, and other mouth sounds, and peoples total inability to be aware of when they should mute themselves, means that this needs a lot more thought.
The current generation of VR headsets all have mics that point straight down, directly at the mouth. Imagine having misophonia (2 of my friends do), and the sounds of someone unwrapping a burger and eating it from the folded-back wrapper: *shhhhhwrip, scrape, crinkle, chomp, chew-chew-chew, *smack*, swallow, sniff. All being beamed straight into your ears. And in those Meta Horizon spaces with everyone-can-hear-you turned on, beamed *straight into the space between your ears in your head*.
Uh, yeah, NO.
VR headsets need a self-mute that kicks in automatically with no pfaffing in menus when you touch your mouth, or when a bite or sip of something approaches your mouth.
Quest Pro and Quest 3 have a wide enough field-of-view downwards to support that detection and it’d be a short enough step to progress to auto-self-mute when you take a bite.