The Met Replica transformed the halls of the largest museum in North America into an infinite metaverse gaming playground, inspiring and engaging kids to learn about art. Each artifact was designed to replicate from real to Roblox after the child had learned its unique story.

Every player created their own, personal avatar that became a walking piece of art history, living beyond the physical walls of The Met and into Roblox. There, kids could continue to play in the Roblox Met Museum world, as well as bring their avatar to other games in the metaverse.

Art museums aren’t known for being tech-forward. It’s typically an analog experience. Quiet, look-but-don’t-touch, not exactly kid friendly. So if you’re a parent, you’re accustomed to major resistance and a quick visit “expiration.” The Met’s primary goal was to bridge the art education gap that has occurred due to budget cuts in New York. In order to create an engaging educational experience outside of the classroom, one that kids chose to engage with, Verizon knew the status quo would not suffice. We needed to be honest about what engages kids by creating a tech education experience that could draw kids into the halls of the museum, and lean into what they’re really into: phones and gaming. Roblox is one of the most popular online games for kids 8-14 and, like Verizon and The Met, Roblox shares a brand goal of supporting education for today's youth. Today, with over 400 million users in the metaverse, 80% of whom are younger than 16, it presented us with an exciting, socially responsible and unique cultural opportunity.

It’s no secret that the arts have been consistently cut from our nation’s schools.

In fact, the New York Department of Education has decreased spending on the arts by over 47% over the past 7 years. If art is no longer in the classroom, then the Metropolitan Museum of Art wanted to give the youth of New York an unique opportunity to bridge the gap in art education. Verizon and The Met have an existing partnership and a shared goal to inspire learning. For years, Verizon has been at the forefront of the effort to provide tech education to schools across America, ensuring that kids expand their worldview using our technology. Together, Verizon and The Met looked to create an art experience that could inspire a generation of new art lovers through technology.

The New York Department of Education alone decreased spending on the arts by 47% over the past 7 years. Our strategy focused on bridging the gap for students in NY, giving them access to art education in their own backyard, at The Met. Verizon and The Met have an existing partnership and a shared goal of inspiring learning. Verizon has been at the forefront of the effort to provide tech education to schools across America, ensuring that kids expand their worldview using our technology. In order to draw kids to the museum, the status quo of analog educational platforms would not be enough. Verizon leaned into the network to reach tech-savvy Gen Z kids. Online games like Roblox are some of the most popular platforms for ages 8-14. Today, with over 400 million users in the metaverse, 80% younger than 16, it was a good place to start.

Visit The Met. Enter the metaverse.

The Met Replica. The first ever real-world Roblox art collection at The Met.

The Met Replica is an interactive metaverse learning experience using mobile gaming as an incentive for art education. Find the original artwork in IRL. And replicate it in AR. As the art transformed from real to Roblox, kids created their own personal avatars that became walking pieces of art history, mixing and matching with other virtual items to create something artfully one of a kind. Replicas moved beyond the physical walls of The Met and into Roblox, living on and inspiring art education throughout the infinite space of the metaverse.

The exhibit launched in early August, leading into back-to-school. Prior, we began PR plus advertising on The Met’s social handles, website comms, in-museum stanchions, marketing cards and digital displays with a QR code to download the app.

The app sent kids on an interactive, educational hunt turning 2 million sq ft of the largest museum in North America into an infinite metaverse playground.

Working with curators, we painstakingly replicated 40 artifacts into Roblox virtual items. With over 152 educational clues scattered around The Met, kids found the original in IRL, replicating it in AR. Like magic, 5,000 years of art transformed from real to Roblox virtual items. Kids created their own personal avatars that became walking pieces of art history, taking each Replica beyond the physical walls of The Met and into Roblox. There, they lived on and inspired art education in perpetuity throughout the Roblox gaming metaverse.

Families across the Tri-State area came to The Met to experience Replica and learn about art in a whole new way. Typical time spent for young museumgoers tripled, as kids raced to collect as many Replicas as they could within one visit. Many returned to collect them all. Children love the experience so much, The Met has chosen to continue the exhibit indefinitely.

With zero paid media:

Drove a 35% increase in foot traffic

Over 200,000 new Met visitors

426, 0000 Replica’s collected

1.4 billion impressions

We worked with curators across The Met’s collections to ensure that each artifact that was replicated looked with authenticity high fidelity for a premium look.This included carefully scanning the intricate details of artifacts that were thousands of years old.

Additionally, The Met was built in 1870, and like many art museums is built like a fortress with stone walls that make a consistent cell signal challenging. Our production partner, Unit 9, placed a series of Bluetooth beacons throughout the museum that worked as homing devices to guide children to artifacts that could replicate to Roblox items. This also helped overcome the challenge of image recognition in the app when scanning objects in AR, due to inconsistent natural lighting conditions. We tested this process repeatedly over the course of several months with children of varying ages and heights to ensure that the app scanned properly.