Metaverse is the hottest buzzword in tech. Facebook recently announced that it was changing its parent company name to Meta Platforms and shared his vision of the future of socialising. Microsoft announced its acquisition of Activision Blizzard and became the third largest gaming company. They have a service called Mesh, a mixed reality platform, that allows users to access augmented reality environments.
With the word metaverse gaining so much attention recently, many articles and opinions have been written by numerous industry publications on the future of digital advertising and predictions on how digital marketing strategy will evolve with Metaverse. As someone who has spent years in the digital advertising field, I was curious to understand how the digital marketing space will be impacted with the evolution of Metaverse.
So, Metaverse is still a concept as of now and it isn’t going to drastically impact any of the digital strategies in the near future, or at least the next few years. But as a digital marketer I am more enthusiastic and optimistic about the various possibilities it opens doors to. It will pave the way to build social communities and virtual social collaboration and hence, new ways and avenues to bring brands to the consumers.
There is so much focus on social VRs but in reality there is still so much novelty to this concept. Metaverse, in true sense, is an interconnected digital world, where your virtual avatar will freely move from one virtual world to another without having to leave the virtual universe you are in. This will evolve along with the evolution of the internet which is hailed as Web 3.0 and advancements in blockchain technology which is the underlying technology of metaverse. The Metaverse will not be created by a single company alone. Tech companies will collaborate to build the technology, infrastructure, softwares and tools to build an ecosystem for communities to come together.
When you think of virtual world or Augmented Reality, you instantly think about gaming companies as these companies provide the closest metaverse-like environment for users on their platform. We all are familiar with SecondLife, Roblox and Fortnite. But the non-gaming side of metaverse is also coming to prominence. Communities have already started coming together in the metaverse-like environment that depicts a stark shift in the mindset and willingness to adopt a virtual universe. As technology develops in this space, along with the adoption of digital currencies, creativity for brand advertising will see no bounds. A couple recently married in the metaverse. Music concerts have already started taking place virtually. Virtual conventions are now taking place in the metaverse where attendees can go to a bunch of booths without leaving their office or home.
Possibilities ahead:
A world outside our real world provides new opportunities for brands to talk to a completely different demographic, especially millennials and GenZ. An audience which behaves vastly differently on digital platforms and the metaverse platform is going to be an effective platform to build brand awareness.
Celebrities, luxury and sports brands have already started experimenting by introducing merchandise that can be traded in the virtual world. Investment in the Digital Real Estate is a real thing. These transactions are made using either each platform’s own token or other digital currencies. Since metaverse is proposing to change the way brands will interact with consumers, in the long run it will open possibilities for other industry verticals such as healthtech, edtech, retail to interact with their customers.
Native brand placements is already being done and NFTs are already being traded. Partnership with “Meta-fluencers” will play a huge part in early stage growth in this arena. The metrics to measure campaign success will be redefined, until then, engagements with the early tech adopters will continue to be measured to evaluate campaigns success.
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