Louis Vuitton Doubles Down on NFT Efforts Despite Dwindling Interest

Top international fashion brand Louis Vuitton is releasing new non-fungible token rewards tied to its mobile app game, Louis: The Game. Players who collect a certain number of free in-game NFTs will qualify for a raffle.

The raffle will run until Aug. 8, and players have a chance to win one of the ten new Vivienne NFTs that will be portable across multiple platforms.

Louis Vuitton among the first fashion brands to implement NFTs

The Louis Vuitton game was launched in August 2021. It revolves around an avatar named Vivienne, who runs around collecting postcards with information about Louis Vuitton inside the game. Beyond the NFT rewards, the brand has also added new quests as part of the game upgrade.

Beeple’s startup, Wenew Labs, collaborated on the NFTs, and the tokens were minted from the Louis Vuitton Ethereum wallet. For those who don’t know, Beeple is the best-selling digital artist and sold the most expensive NFT ever for $69 million in March 2021.

Fashion takes center stage in the Metaverse

Louis Vuitton’s foray into NFT isn’t surprising, given how several luxury and fashion brands are already taking advantage of these technologies. Like LV, Burberry also released an NFT character for its online multiplayer game, Blankos Block Party.

The character called Sharky B is decked out in Burberry TB monochrome and was released last August. The Chief Marketing Officer of Burberry, Rob Manley, said, “Pushing boundaries through experimentation sits at the heart of what we do at Burberry, and we are continually looking to connect with our communities in the spaces they love.”

With NFTs and other Web3 technologies, these brands seek to attract a younger audience. Last month, the metaverse fashion week was held in Decentraland. It featured several brands such as Forever21, Dolce & Gabbana, and Gucci.

Although these concepts have potential, their hype appears to exceed the current public interest. A recent study by Piper Sandler revealed that only half of the 7,100 teens surveyed in the US are interested in the Metaverse. In addition, 26% own a VR headset needed to access the Metaverse.

But these numbers don’t seem to be discouraging many of these big-name brands. Louis: The Game has had over two million downloads, and more than seven million people have used Nike’s Roblox store.