Fender Stratoverse work completed as Creative Director, XD while at R/GA with many other talented people
The Fender Stratoverse
A Wild and Wonderful Music Experience
Welcoming Aspiring Guitar Players to the World of Music
Fender, the world’s leading guitar manufacturer, has cultivated a loyal following of guitar enthusiasts by pioneering new and innovative ways to make music. During the pandemic they thrived with new players picking up a guitar to try a new hobby, but struggled to make them feel like they were truly part of the “club.”
Fender needed a way to level the playing field and inspire all players to explore, learn and play together.
Bringing Music to the Metaverse
In partnership with Meta, we set out to create an immersive guitar experience in Horizon Worlds that makes new players feel welcome while staying true to Fender’s heritage and roots.
We concepted The Fender Stratoverse™ where seasoned and aspiring players alike can experience Fender from a new perspective by exploring a world made of guitars, amps and effects pedals that bring to life a unique interactive sonic experience for each visitor.
Creating a Playful and Fantastical Guitar Experience
The Stratoverse is centered around Stratocaster Island, a larger-than-life playable guitar, where users can collaborate to create a custom guitar riff. To get started, they need to traverse the surrounding islands and amps to collect guitar chords to use in their musical creation. Along the way they can jump on the whammy bar, conquer the sonic parkour course and play musical catch with friends.
A Rise to Stardom
Once their guitar riff is complete, users can hop on a Pedal Ship to the sky and visit Playback Planet, where they can share their creation and hear riffs created by other players in the world.
Charting a Course to the Stratoverse
To promote the world, we developed a first-of-its-kind Facebook AR Ad experience. Users could strum a virtual guitar to unlock the Stratoverse directly from their feed. We targeted Facebook users with Oculus headsets so that they could link directly from the SparkAR experience to the Meta Quest app on their phone.
To the Moon!
Covered by 40+ publications worldwide including Ad Age, Guitar World and Gizmodo with 86.1M+ audience reach celebrating Fender Stratoverse as one of the first 3 brand Metaverse experience within Horizon Worlds
Featured during the Data, Tech and Innovation Keynote at the 2022 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity
Debuted at the Meta Beach Showcase during the 2022 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity