Metamorph Experience
- Brand
- Diesel
- Year
- 2023
- Objective
- Product Launch
- Industry
- Fashion & Beauty
- Mechanic
- Adventure & Quest
- Platform
- Web
- Agency
- Artificial Rome
Objective
Diesel launched the VERT watch collection — five models designed in VR by creative director Glenn Martens — and wanted the campaign to carry that virtual-to-real idea forward for the people who bought them. The brief was to give buyers something beyond the box itself, in the form of an evolving NFT avatar reserved for early purchasers, and to pull a younger audience into a branded digital world that fed back into traffic at Diesel's flagship stores.
Solution
Players open a link on phone or desktop — no download — and land inside Tempus, a shared world where people from around the globe move at once. Each controls an avatar called A:VERT:AR: watch owners get a personalized version with stronger abilities, while everyone else plays free with the standard one. The avatar makes its way through ancient ruins toward a pyramid at the center of the map, but stretches of the route only open when a Giant clears them — real shoppers inside Diesel's Paris, New York, Barcelona, Las Vegas, and Tokyo stores, playing gesture mini-games in front of an in-store camera to build the next bridge for everyone online. Once the chain of obstacles is cleared, the VERT watch is unveiled on screen, and the session closes with players gathering for a shared virtual concert and track premiere from Lil' Dre.
Results
The campaign drew over 4 million media impressions, players spent an average of 10 minutes per session, and the VERT watch collection sold out in its first release.
- 1
A buyer of the Diesel x Fossil VERT watch receives a unique code with their purchase and redeems it on the campaign site for a limited NFT tied to their specific watch model — both an access pass to the experience and the seed of a future avatar.
- 2
The NFT progresses through three metamorphosis phases, its artwork gradually turning from an image of the watch into a character; at each stage the owner can mint the updated version.
- 3
Completing the final metamorphosis unlocks a personalized A:VERT:AR avatar that the owner can further customize and that carries enhanced in-game abilities tied to owning the watch.
- 4
Players who did not buy a watch join the same experience for free, playing a base avatar with identical access to all quests.
- 5
At the experience's launch window, players open a link in a browser on phone or computer and are dropped straight into a high-fidelity 3D world with no install required.
- 6
The world is frozen in time; players guide their avatar through the ruins of an ancient civilization alongside other players from around the world, cooperatively working to "restart time."
- 7
Giants — massive figures controlled live by real visitors inside Diesel stores — appear along the route; when a Giant wins its mini-game, a bridge opens in the world that lets online players cross into otherwise unreachable areas.
- 8
The quest chain leads players through obstacles toward a central pyramid, culminating in the in-world reveal of the VERT watch.
- 9
The experience closes with a virtual concert by artist Lil' Dre, where players gather, interact, dance, and hear a track premiere together.
- 10
In parallel, a visitor to one of five flagship Diesel stores steps up to an in-store console, where a motion-sensing camera maps their body movements onto a Giant in real time for a gesture-based mini-game; winning it opens the path that lets unseen online players advance.
