Has the Metaverse a Strategic or Operative Role in Luxury Fashion Brands' Marketing?

Nowadays, the Metaverse is one the most discussed concepts as it could offer excellent opportunities to companies. Although the fully immersive and interoperable metaverse platforms have not been achieved yet. Therefore, this study aims to examine how the Metaverse can change the marketing activities in the luxury fashion industry by analysing the main characteristics and motivations of the brands that adopted a first mover approach. Furthermore, this research aims to explore the awareness of companies about the metaverse contributions to offering a unique customer experience which will create a competitive advantage. To that end, an exploratory design with an interpretivist approach is adopted in this research. Qualitative content analysis is utilised to infer meaning from interviews with the CEOs and representatives of well-known luxury fashion brands. The findings support that despite the high interest in the topic and the correlated hype, luxury fashion brands do not consider this tool central to their strategy. Instead, they plan to use it as an operational tool to reinforce their strategies.