The metaverse is one of beauty’s biggest buzzwords, but many brands and retailers are still grappling over whether or not they need to engage — and if so, how.

The answer is an unequivocal yes, said Karin Tracy, head of industry, beauty, fashion, luxury and retail, at Meta, who drew parallels between the early days of the internet and the present.

“It’s early days to talk about the metaverse, but this is the next big thing,” she said. “The metaverse is the disruptive successor to the mobile web that will combine everything we love about smartphones — all of the connectivity, the personalization. And we’ll take it to the next level.”

Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, calls this next generation “the embodied internet,” because rather than just looking at screens, users will be interacting with them.

“Instead of being passive consumers of media, we will now be active participants,” said Tracy, “and your consumers are going to have expectations of you both physically, digitally and now virtually.”

Already — data shows that beauty consumers are starting to engage in the metaverse. According to Tracy, 20 percent of luxury shoppers are engaging in VR and AR, not just for exploring, but also for purchasing, and it’s expected that soon 25 percent of all people will be spending at least an hour a day in the metaverse, for entertainment, gaming and social, but also shopping. “This is the piece we must think through,” Tracy said.

Meta calls its vision of future shopping “multidimensional discovery commerce,” and Tracy said channels, content and conversion will need to happen seamlessly. “The key is you can’t be thinking of it in silos,” she said.

As an example, she cited a campaign Adidas did to relaunch its Stan…