Roblox's Brands Experience: My Thoughts
A music exec's perspective on newly launched showcase for Roblox partnerships - 'The Brands Experience' - and a hella cool idea for music in Roblox.
Are you in the music industry and have you heard many people banging on about how they want to ‘get on Roblox’? Hopefully this Substack makes navigating that a little easier.
This Substack explores the latest launch of ‘The Brands Experience’ - Roblox’s very own digital manual for brand partnerships. I’ll give you my take on what they’re looking for, tips for winning, and then a cool way to use some of the features they have launched with a music experience.
The Brands Experience.
What Roblox is actually looking for.
Tips on winning.
A cool music idea.
Before I start this one, I’ll be speaking about ‘Brands’ but keep in mind ‘Brand’ also refers to the identity of an artist - I’ll get onto that towards the end.
1. The Brands Experience
Roblox in the last few weeks have launched The Brands Experience - The premise is that they have a collection of resources such as developer partners, inspiration and statistics all in one place so brands know where to start when it comes to activations inside of Roblox.
You can see their site here, and the Roblox experience here (by the incredible Sawhorse Productions).
Brands have been collaborating with Roblox for years to create immersive experiences, as well as many other 3rd party developers like Supersocial and Karta carving their own space inside this market.
Why would Roblox want to streamline an already existing process? My guess is that Roblox want to encourage partnerships from both large and smaller brands. Roblox’s current partnerships seems to be reserved for the larger brands that have the financial capacity to experiment in this world, but this could allow a more ergonomic process for those on the edge wishing to take the jump.
I want to focus on the creative in this Substack as execution will determine success and profit just is the result of good contextual work. So here is what they are showcasing.
Image ads - a digital billboard. Not much to say here (Left)
Video ads - a digital billboard…with a video playing (Left as well)
Portal ads - takes you to another experience using a ‘portal’ - which is hella cool (Right)
Podcasts - audio played in a set location, with a playlist at the bottom left of the screen (not shown but self explanatory)
The idea behind portal ads I think is the real game changer here as it allows for genuinely more immersive advertising. I loved thinking that all of these worlds can be linked and streamlined in this way, and especially for collaborative uses, this mechanic removes the clunkiness of logging in and out of experiences - this is where digital experiences truly come into their element.
After exploring the entire experience to see what it had to offer, I moved on from the tame and polished Brands Experience. A quick portal jump took me to H&M's experience, where I tried out custom clothing design and listened to podcasts. When I returned to the homepage, I was met with Roblox’s 'Today's Picks,' which looked like this:
I can see a real difference between what has been recommended for the top picks and the cleaner experiences that brands have historically offered on this platform. I’m curious to see if expanding brand partnerships to smaller brands would create more risky, less squeaky-clean experience - I think that’s a real opportunity for newcomers.
2. What Roblox is actually looking for.
So their opening statement on their site is:
“Immersive experiences encapsulate the best of what Roblox has to offer. Social connection, self-expression, imaginative exploration — however you activate, people will visit your experience for years to come on the world’s largest immersive platform.“
The way I read this statement is a giveaway for what they are trying to encourage on their platform: Originality and long-term success.
In this previous article I’d thought about the idea of being first or the best and how innovation linked with progression & narrative leads to longevity. You can read this one here:
3. Tips on winning
I checked out the ‘Why Roblox’ part of their site, and it mentioned the 2 below statistics:
80 million daily users on Roblox
400 brand activations on Roblox
Does this mean that there are only 400 brands that have created experiences inside of Roblox, when there are 80 million users using the Roblox platform? That sound’s like a real opportunity for an under-saturated market.
These two statistics have been put right next to each other for a reason - because they want you to compare them. A normal, average, run-of-the-mill person would pro-rate them and say ‘Oh that means there’s only 400 experiences between 80 million players per day which means my brand activation would potentially get 200,000 people’.
NO.
Firstly, there may be 400 brand experiences, but there are also 40 million other user generated experiences.
The breakdown is not proportionate. If you look at this site, you’ll see since 2019 the top experiences per month and the number of visitors:
(Does anyone know how to put spreadsheets in Substack? Here’s a screenshot. I don’t really care because you still get the picture *slaps knee*)
According to this site, Roblox in 2024 has 4 times as many monthly users as 2019. The number 10 spot has on average only 1/5th of the users of the number 1 spot - both of which have the same ratios.
Within the 40 million experiences, if you are in the top 500, you were likely earning at least $55,000. Now, development cost of experiences will vary greatly on the features included, so you can set your targets to break even / profit based on these positions.
So the question for you is: How can you stand out amongst 40 million experiences, ideally in the top 500? One top tip for brands & artists going into Roblox - Who is more you than you? No one is. This is my top-tip for originality and innovation, do something original that only you would do, or refine something that exists in your own way. Then work with (and trust) game developers to help you with genuinely fun mechanics, prioritising progression and narrative, and you’ll be off to a good start! Start small and enjoy the process.
4. Cool Music Ideas for Roblox
Let’s recap on the key points so far:
Roblox want to streamline partnerships, likely to encourage smaller-sized brands.
Portal ads enable people to visit an experience rather than see an ad, which is innovative in its nature.
Top experiences get disproportionately more engagement.
There are only 400ish brand activations so far, which isn’t so many to ‘compete’ with.
Originality and long-term success should be a focus for the experience.
With all this in mind, let’s discuss an idea.
My idea would rely on multiple brands being activated within the same space or mini-game. I don't think an experience within Roblox needs to be limited to one brand…
However, I’d still say creating an excellent experience comes at your top priority. Let’s say you got a big ol’ budget…
Take The H&M Experience as a good foundation—it used a fun fetch-quest strategy, where players collected design elements to make items. As you played, you unlocked more features, and people could upvote your creations. It had all the ingredients: dopamine-driven quests, progression, and social recognition. Nice!
Let’s do this in music.
I loved the idea that you could ‘visit’ a world/experience through a portal. The reason why is that you don’t need to make a huge experience through a portal - Imagine a ‘dungeon’ in a video game.
Start with a small world—maybe a record label office or a bar. Your avatar’s mission is to find artists out in the wild and bring them back for rewards, aiming to become the best Artist Scout in all of Roblox. One idea is a "secret show" portal. Like Destiny 2’s moving trader Xur, this portal could change locations inside of different already-existing experiences. Once found, you enter a venue where an artist is performing a short showcase. Complete the mini-game, acquire the ‘artist’ or ‘song’ (or their contact info to be less de-humanising), and return to the original venue to submit it.
This mini-game could be group-based and about the length of a song. Doesn’t have to be a music-based game, but music can be playing. The dialogue and aesthetic can all be tailored towards the artist or song that you’re able to acquire. The artists and songs that you can acquire would be random, so you can repeat it without seeing the same one twice. As you progress, you level up, raise your "Artist Scout" level, potentially discovering new artists with each secret show. Periodically, everyone votes for their favorite songs, keeping them in rotation while the rest changes. You could use scout points to buy digital artist merch or, with Shopify integration, gain early access to tickets, promo codes, and discounts.
This concept turns Roblox into a rogue-like artist scouting game. It’s fun, gives valuable data feedback, and can cross-pollinate audiences with new portal locations as they gain popularity. Also, any artist can get involved, so this doesn’t need to be a music company that does this.
TLDR
Roblox want to streamline partnerships, likely for smaller-sized brands. Portal ads are badass and enable people to visit an experience rather than see an ad. Top experiences get disproportionately more engagement. There are only 400ish brand activations so far, which isn’t so many to ‘compete’ with. Originality and long-term success should be a focus for the experience.
And I came up with a super rough idea for a Roblox artist-scout game which I’d happily help you build if you request my consultancy kenny.enrico.vaughan@gmail.com you’re welcome xoxo