Alcohol brand ABD India enters the metaverse with ABD MetaBar

Alcohol producer Allied Blenders & Distillers (ABD) has made its debut in the metaverse through a new virtual reality display space called ABD MetaBar.

The launch is aimed at providing information about the company’s brands and other initiatives from it, ABD said in a statement.    

With this announcement, ABD claimed that it has become the first alcohol beverage company to make a presence in metaverse.  To be sure, global alcohol brands, like Jose Cuervo, Heineken and Pernod Ricard (which owns brands like Jameson, Chivas and Ballantine's) have also explored the NFT and metaverse market.

“With its futuristic design, the ABD MetaBar, optimised for both mobile and desktop usage, taps into the growing interest in the metaverse amongst consumers and their willingness to experiment with novel digital activations,” the company said in a statement.

Shekhar Ramamurthy, Executive Deputy Chairman at ABD, said, “With the ABD MetaBar we have taken a decisive step into the virtual immersive world of our consumers. We will actively seek to co-create and partner in this exciting space.” 

Moving forward, the ABD MetaBar will allow interactions between users and serve as a gateway for curated online experiences across consumer interest areas, the company said. 

Though being in metaverse is becoming a trend these days with many apparel, shoes and fashion brands launched their virtual stores and celebrities introducing their non-fungible tokens (NFTs), only a few Indian brands in the food and beverages segment have opted for it.

In February this year, Indian conglomerate ITC’s luxury chocolate brand Fabelle joined the metaverse bandwagon becoming first such brand to be in the virtual world. Similarly, Indian start-up OneRare became the world’s first food metaverse brand in on 24 March by announcing its official launch in the US market.