Last summer, Walmart executives coined a term to describe retail’s new era: “Adaptive Retail.” Simply put, Adaptive Retail is any commerce experience that brings consumers what they want, wherever and whenever they want it. This next, more expansive version of “omnichannel” (as Walmart sees it) encompasses everything from hyper-personalized product recommendations, virtual shopping assistants and automated delivery to virtual try-on and in-platform buying (whether that platform be social media, television, a gaming environment or something else entirely).
Even prior to its 2024 declaration, Walmart has been doggedly pursuing this “adaptive” ideal across a dizzying array of forums and formats: standalone branded gaming environments; mobile games; view-in-home shopping functionality and other AR experiences; a whole host of Roblox activations; TV commerce partnerships with Roku and NBCUniversal; virtual products based on its real-world fashions; and even a shoppable rom-com series.
The retailer’s latest excursion into Adaptive Retail may be its most expansive yet — Walmart Unlimited, a three-part gaming series on the Spatial platform with integrated commerce functionality. The game series was developed over the past year with the help of more than 40 artists and draws inspiration from some of Walmart’s most interesting brand suppliers for the game play.
“We live in an attention economy,” said Justin Breton, Head of Brand Marketing Innovation at Walmart in an interview with Retail TouchPoints. “The next generation of consumers is scrolling on social platforms, they’re binge-watching on streaming platforms, they’re spending their time playing games — Minecraft, Roblox, Fortnite, Spatial. It is incredibly important for us to be creating experiences that allow for us to be a part of their attention span.”
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Gaming: An Untapped Forum for Brand Discovery, Consumer Engagement
When it comes to white spaces in this new era of retail, gaming ecosystems may be one of the biggest. With more than one-third of the world’s population already regularly playing, gaming is the fastest-growing segment of entertainment, and yet commerce activations in these environments — even non-endemic advertising plays — remain scarce.
It’s an anomaly that’s hard to account for given the level of interactivity and engagement built into these environments. “Capturing consumer attention in these immersive, engaging experiences offers a huge, tremendous opportunity for brands,” declared Jack Koch, SVP of Research and Insights at the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) at an event last year.
Walmart is not about to miss that boat. (Neither, by the way, is Amazon, which also is working on gaming integrations of its own.)
“What’s so exciting about this medium and why we’re continuing to invest in immersion platforms and new technologies is that these types of experiences allow us to meet the expectations of the next generation of consumers,” said Breton. “They no longer exclusively want to rely on a brand website. They want the opportunity to discover products where they are, and [this gaming experience on Spatial] is allowing us to drive product discovery with new brands, plus there’s a whole commerce component where you can actually buy the products.”
Tapping into Gamers’ Entrepreneurial Spirit with Immersive Storytelling
For its new three-part game series on Spatial, Walmart took inspiration from its suppliers and high-profile figures in the Spatial gaming community. The first episode, which is available to play now, centers on Milo, a character based on and voiced by artist and Spatial developer Michael Blackstone. The quest in this episode is based on the business of ready-to-eat food brand A Dozen Cousins; its Founder and CEO Ibraheem Basir also is featured in the game.
Milo is tasked with helping Ibraheem gather all the ingredients he needs to make his famous gumbo in order to save the day at the neighborhood block party. To do this, Milo must run, jump and blast his way across the rooftops of Brooklyn, gathering the necessary ingredients while fighting back “silencers,” jellyfish-like villains that attempt to thwart his progress by taking away his voice (meant to symbolize self-doubt). The characters that Milo meets along the way to gather ingredients are named after all of Basir’s real cousins.
The game kicks off with a stylized visual narrative directed by award-winning animation and creative studio Martian Blueberry (creator of The Boondocks). According to Breton, this intro highlights Walmart’s commitment to the art behind the game: “As a gamer, when you come into this, it will feel familiar to AAA titles [high-budget games from major publishers],” he said. “We created a game to tell the story of our suppliers and invite the community to be part of it, but we didn’t hold back in terms of making a true game. You have to defend your progression in the game [translation for non-gamers: it’s not too easy]. The whole thing is very thoughtful and intentional.”
“We decided that if we were going to use this medium [to tell a brand story], we should be trying to set the best standards in gameplay, in storytelling and in art,” added Gianna Valintina, Global Head of Strategic Partnerships at Spatial in an interview with Retail TouchPoints. “Some of the best games are built around storytelling, and that’s why the art is so important. Sometimes when we see advertising, it’s just copy and the ad treatment. But someone like Ibraheem is a leader in his community, and [through this game] you can fall in love with his values and the meaning behind the product.”
Walmart Series Highlights ‘Home-Grown’ Brands
The next two episodes of the game, which will be released in April and May, will feature completely new suppliers, new environments inspired by their personal stories, new game play and a new hero character based on a member of the Spatial community. While the names of the suppliers that will be featured next haven’t yet been shared, Valintina said the episodes will be focused on beauty and hair care.
When it came to selecting which suppliers to feature in each episode, Breton said Walmart looked for home-grown brands that aligned with the entrepreneurial spirit of the Spatial community, where most of the games and worlds are user-generated. In fact, Spatial currently hosts more than 2.5 million different worlds.
The accessibility and flexibility of the Spatial platform was part of the reason Walmart chose it to test out this new engagement format. “Spatial isn’t dependent on a console; it’s not dependent on having a specific gaming account,” said Breton. “My team also oversaw our foray onto Roblox, and often what we would hear from people internally is, ‘I’m not on Roblox’ — there’s a barrier to entry [on that platform].”
And as Valintina pointed out, unlike some other gaming environments, creators on Spatial aren’t “limited by retrofitting into a platform. We are able to bring these advanced mechanics so brands can create their own stories and their own visual identity to these games. They’re not retrofitting into the look and feel.”
A New Arena for Affiliate Marketing
Beyond the game, there also is an integrated commerce experience, the technological basis of which is Walmart’s previously announced partnership with gaming development platform Unity. And in fact, the wide-reaching nature of that partnership is the biggest signal that this Spatial gaming series is just the beginning of what Walmart has in store. The Walmart Unlimited game series in Spatial is the first test of the Unity software development kit (SDK), which will allow any Unity game developer to seamlessly integrate Walmart commerce functionality into their games. This summer, that SDK will become available to developers across the Unity platform.
The nature of these commerce integrations is critical to their success. While it’s true that gamers are an audience ripe for advertising, they also are incredibly sensitive to any disruption in their gameplay. “There’s this misconception that gamers are averse to advertising,” said Bill Young, Head of Games at Twitch at the 2024 IAB PlayFronts. “They’re not averse to advertising, but they are averse to tone-deaf, ham-fisted advertising that talks at them. They welcome brands that bring value to the content they enjoy, especially those that enhance that experience.”
“Historically in the gaming world, ads are all about the promotion of a [another] game,” said Alex Blum, COO at Unity in an interview with Retail TouchPoints. “The industry has tried to market other stuff to players within games, but it hasn’t worked for two fundamental reasons. First, we just took ad formats from the web and tried to force them into a game experience, which feels unnatural. Second, when there was a transactional opportunity, it required you to disrupt the game experience and leave to go shop somewhere else. That’s just too disruptive to work.”
The Unity SDK is key to solving this second problem, because it allows the transaction to happen within the Spatial platform with as little as one click for players that are already logged into their Walmart account. And as far as ad formats go, there’s not a display banner in sight in Walmart Unlimited.
Throughout the game itself, players “meet” Basir and learn about his brand and products, but at the moment the actual commerce integrations are relegated to a “Commerce Hub” that is separated from, but linked to, the game. However, in-game integrations could be in the cards as the partners get feedback from players and developers, said Breton.
A New Way to Drive Customer Education, Discovery
In the Commerce Hub, players also get a chance to learn more about the brands and products featured in the game, through “conversations” with characters and virtual product displays. If they want to buy the products, they can do that too, without ever leaving Spatial.
The Commerce Hub also has a dedicated space for community events, and Walmart is exploring having Blackstone (the inspiration for the character of Milo) host a virtual event where he invites his Spatial community and talks about the project. “The way we’re approaching everything we do within these emerging platforms is test and learn, leveraging the quantitative and qualitative feedback to help inform changes and improvements,” said Breton.
The economics of this commerce component are similar to an affiliate marketing arrangement, where the creator of the content gets a commission on all sales made in the platform. “Everyone talks about the affiliate marketing landscape as being inclusive of publishers, content creators, social media influencers, but what’s missing is gaming developers,” said Breton. “Gaming developers have millions of people that are part of their communities, playing their games daily. As we start to scale the Unity SDK, in partnership with Unity, we’ll start to reach millions more people.
“These types of experiences with emerging platforms really allow us to drive brand engagement at scale,” Breton added. “It allows us to facilitate product discovery and drive commerce — it’s a true full-funnel activation and it really can shift the hearts and minds of the next generation in some instances.”
