McDonald’s will soon allow you to order fast food from its virtual restaurants in the metaverse.
What is metaverse?
For starters metaverse allows you to live in a virtual digital universe where you can experience, connect, and interact with real as well as imaginary people, places, and things. From technical side, it is a combination of multiple elements of technology, including virtual reality, augmented reality and video.
McDonald’s Files Trademark Applications For Virtual Restaurants
The global fast food giant has filed over 10 different trademark applications relating to virtual food, virtual restaurants, and other virtual products and services.
One of the trademarks filed under MCCAFE™ describes – that it will cover the categories of virtual food and beverage products plus Downloadable multimedia files containing artwork, text, audio and video files and non-fungible tokens.
Another application describes that it will cover the category of online retail services featuring virtual goods.
The virtual restaurant will also feature home delivery facility. According to a related filing under trademark MCDONALD’S™ it is mentioned that it is planning to operate a virtual restaurant featuring actual and virtual goods, operating a virtual restaurant online featuring home delivery.
The food chain has bigger plans in the metaverse. As per another filing under MCDONALD’S™ it is also planning to offer entertainment services, namely, providing on-line actual and virtual concerts and other virtual events.
Josh Gerben, trademark attorney and owner of Gerben Intellectual Property, took to twitter to mention the trademarks. Josh tweeted:
“McDonald’s is headed to the metaverse.”
“The company has filed 10 (TEN!) trademark applications indicating it plans to offer “a virtual restaurant featuring actual and virtual goods” and “operating a virtual restaurant featuring home delivery.”
Why does it matter?
McDonald’s is the world’s largest restaurant chain by revenue, serving over 70 million customers daily in over 100 countries. The entry of McDonald’s with its virtual fast food stores along with planned virtual events will certainly be a huge push for metaverse going mainstream.
Competition in the virtual Food and Beverage segment is heating up
Competition in the virtual Food and Beverage segment is heating up. In November, OneRare raised $2 million in funding for building the world’s first Food Metaverse.
According to OneRare: “OneRare aims to celebrate global cuisines and bring the global F&B industry to the blockchain, in an immersive and engaging game format. Spanning across four areas — Farm, Farmer’s Market, Kitchen & Playground — foodies & gamers can discover ways to play, earn, collect and battle.”
OneRare is planning to add more new features to its Foodverse in the future. You’ll be able to meet your favorite chefs or purchase food from well-known companies and restaurants, for example. Of course, the number of NFTs will rise, which is something that everyone wants. Another great feature is the ability to exchange your own NFTs for restaurant discounts or even free meals.
McDonald’s trademark application follows Panera Bread’s February 3 filing for the “Paneraverse”. Panera Bread has filed a trademark application hinting the company will offer “virtual restaurants and cafes” under the PANERAVERSE brand.
Metaverse is soon going to be part of our daily lives
Metaverse is one of the hottest investment spaces of the last year. In fact, a recent report from market research firm Gartner projects that by 2026, 25% of population will spend at least an hour a day in the metaverse for work, shopping, education, social and/or entertainment.
Marty Resnick, research vice president at Gartner, said:
“Vendors are already building ways for users to replicate their lives in digital worlds. From attending virtual classrooms to buying digital land and constructing virtual homes, these activities are currently being conducted in separate environments. Eventually, they will take place in a single environment – the metaverse – with multiple destinations across technologies and experiences.”
“Enterprises will have the ability to expand and enhance their business models in unprecedented ways by moving from a digital business to a metaverse business. By 2026, 30% of the organizations in the world will have products and services ready for metaverse.”
Resnick
The findings of Gartner seems to be highly practical. The importance of the virtual universe for businesses are already being felt. Facebook, for example, was so bullish on the vision of a virtual world that it renamed its brand to Meta. Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, estimates it could take 5 to 10 years before the key features of the metaverse become mainstream. But aspects of the metaverse currently exist. Ultra-fast broadband speeds, virtual reality headsets and persistent always-on online worlds are already up and running, even though they may not be accessible to all.
McDonald’s and Panera Bread have joined big brands like Walmart, Nike, and Sketchers in filing trademark applications to prepare for a future revolution.
The adoption in the metaverse is happening much faster than expected. If 2021 can be considered to be the year of DeFi and NFTs, it is now almost certain that 2022 will be the year of GameFi and the Metaverse. See you soon at a virtual McCafe store.
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