The biggest beer brand on Earth, AB-InBev blocked us from advertising in the Super Bowl. So we went to the one place their lawyers couldn’t stop us: The Metaverse. While there, we did some things no brand had done before. We custom-built the Metaverse’s first branded bar, and then used it to air the first ever Super Bowl ad from the Metaverse — a spot that poked fun at just about everything from Super Bowl tropes, to the absurdity of the Metaverse itself.

The response was astounding. Our virtual bar became the most attended branded event in Metaverse history. At peak, our traffic even crashed Decentraland’s servers. Although the activation took place in the Metaverse, the results delivered IRL — creating the highest growth of any light beer during the week of the Super Bowl, and making us the most talked about beer brand with 1.7 Billion earned media impressions.

By creating the first ever Super Bowl commercial aired from the Metaverse, we did something no brand had ever done, in a place no one had ever thought to do it before. There were many reasons we chose to go there. Mostly though, we found a way to have complete creative freedom outside the control of AB InBev's lawyers. They could stop us from advertising in the real world, but not the virtual one.

We brought the ad to life in an animated style reminiscent of the world it lived in: Decentraland, in a spot that made fun of the absurdity of the Metaverse and advertising along the way. The spot poses a philosophical question: “How can this be a Super Bowl ad if it’s not even in the same universe as the Super Bowl?” The answer leans into every Super Bowl trope we’ve ever seen: from “relatable farmers” and “culturally relevant pop stars” to our competitor’s famous Clydesdales, and finally a cavalcade of tropes like explosions, robots, puppies, “avocados from another country” and for good measure, even more talking animals. But ever self-aware, we take time to poke fun at ourselves too. Why did we make this first of its kind ad in the not-so-real world? Well, in a “not-so-subtle attempt to get press” of course. We end by making fun of the very place we chose to execute in, the Metaverse, explaining “it’s just like real life, but with worse graphics.”

The ad was aired exclusively on Super Bowl Sunday from our custom built Meta Lite Bar (open from 2/7-2/15) — the first ever branded bar in the Metaverse. Upon release of our spot, bar traffic more than doubled, not only crashing Decentraland, but making the event the most attended in Metaverse history.