This is your Guide To The Future Of Marketing On The Metaverse
Brought to you by a top Digital Marketing Agency in Toronto, Vancouver, and Los Angeles – Idea Rebel
10.7 million people attended Marshmello’s Fortnite concert in 2019.
45.8 million people watched the Travis Scott in Fortnite event in 2020. In addition, Travis’s own youtube channel views for the show have exceeded 77 million views. 12.3 million concurrent players participate.
The Gucci Dionysus, a logo enveloped bag with a distinctive tiger closure, was sold for 4,115 dollars compared to its store price of 3,400 dollars.
Balenciaga dropped a video game, Afterworld: The Age of Tomorrow, where the users enter a virtual Balenciaga store and experience Balenciaga’s fall collection.
An NFT called Everydays: the First 5000 Days was sold for $69.3m.
That list goes on and on day by day. The world is changing, and it is changing faster than we expected.
There is even an Earth 2.0 where you can own, buy and sell land!
In 2022, VR revenues are expected to climb to 6.71 billion U.S. dollars, and by 2024 it will double the amount and hit 12.19.
And if you wonder how many people play roblox, the number hit 202 MILLION in April 2021.
Marketers have been waiting for years for consumer VR and AR technology to take off, and now it’s finally here.
The future of marketing will be a wild ride as we adapt to new ways of reaching consumers through virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality.
These technologies will bring us closer to the consumer than ever before by putting them right in the middle of our message.
It’s going to change everything about how we think about marketing. Now, let’s proceed to the new world—the Metaverse.
What Is The Metaverse?
Do you know Van Gogh’s immersive experience in which you can physically experience the paintings with the help of augmented reality?
There are 360-degree projections and VR glasses that enable you to immerse yourself in those fantastic paintings fully.
Now, imagine you don’t even have to leave your house for this kind of experience. You don’t even have to move from your comfortable couch.
How? Via The Metaverse.
The word “Metaverse” was made up of the prefix “meta” ( beyond) and the “verse” (from “universe”). The term “metaverse” was coined by Neal Stephenson in his science fiction novel Snow Crash, published in 1992.
“The Metaverse is a hypothesized iteration of the internet, supporting persistent online 3-D virtual environments through conventional personal computing, as well as virtual and augmented reality headsets.”
The Metaverse will be a place where users can access and interact via virtual reality or augmented reality.
With this technology, people will be able to participate in social activities and entertainment like never before.
Metaverse is built upon the concepts of presence, immersion, and interactivity.
The Metaverse has been described as a collective virtual shared space, created by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical reality and physically persistent virtual space, including the sum of all virtual worlds, augmented reality, and the internet.
Characteristics Of The Metaverse
Take a look at the characteristics of the Metaverse to have a better understanding.
- Persistent: The Metaverse is an entirely immersive, shared experience. It will be a parallel reality that exists in real-time and never stops.
- Synch: In the Metaverse, users will interact with one another and their digital environment in real-time. Just like they would in the physical world, participants of the Metaverse will react to their virtual environment and each other.
- User-driven: In Metaverse, users can create their content, or they can enhance existing content.
- Efficient-Economy: Metaverse will have fully functioning economies based on non-fungible tokens, cryptocurrency, and more.
Decentralized Vs. Centralized Worlds
To better understand the Metaverse, let’s also take a look at the decentralized and centralized world concepts.
For instance, say you are using a social media platform like Facebook or Youtube. It means you are using a centralized system – in which central authority is in control of the data.
For example, if you want to share a post with your friend via Facebook, they will know that you are sending it, and the data will be verified and transferred by Facebook.
That means in a centralized world, centralized platforms like Facebook have the control.
What about a decentralized world?
The idea of the decentralized world came into our lives with the release of bitcoin in 2009.
With the help of blockchain technology, if you want to send bitcoin to your friend, it doesn’t have to go through the same steps in a centralized system.
Blockchain is a shared, immutable ledger that facilitates the process of recording transactions and tracking assets in a business network.
You know the difference between the decentralized and centralized worlds now. What about the Metaverse? Is it in the decentralized or centralized world?
Today, the Metaverse can be put in between these two worlds.
Let’s say you are a Roblox player. If you purchase a good in Roblox, you can not take that item to another virtual place.
Roblox or Fortnite still count as a part of the Metaverse since those virtual environments have Metaverse characteristics.
Don’t worry, though; we are so close to a fully decentralized world.
Fungible and Non-fungible Tokens
We know what blockchain and the decentralized world mean at this point. What else should we familiarize ourselves with?
Tokens. Tokens refer to the data stored on the blockchain ledger.
Consumers will engage with brands and each other in the Metaverse, so it is essential to understand tokens.
There are two types of tokens: Fungible and Non-fungible.
Fungible means something that can be exchanged for another item of the same kind.
For example, a dollar bill is fungible because it can be exchanged with any other dollar bill.
Digital items such as Bitcoin are also fungible because they can be interchanged with each other.
Non-Fungible means that the digital item is unique, one of a kind.
An excellent example of this is CryptoKitties, an Ethereum based game where users can buy and trade virtual cats.
“Each cat is one-of-a-kind and 100% owned by you; it cannot be replicated, taken away, or destroyed.” So, an NFT is a Non-Fungible Token that is secured on the blockchain. It is important to know these terms to have a better understanding of metaverse marketing.
Marketing In The Metaverse
What about digital marketing in the Metaverse? “Metaverse Marketing” is the digital marketing of the future.
Metaverse is a new marketing ecosystem that works like the blockchain.
It’s decentralized, so it has no servers or administrators. It is a new marketing strategy that allows you to connect with your customer base in ways that have never been possible before.
Metaverse Marketing will change the way you think about digital marketing.
Is Your Brand Ready for the Metaverse?
If you’re reading this blog post, you are interested in learning more about metaverse and metaverse marketing opportunities.
And you probably heard that Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg introduced Meta, which brings together apps and technologies under one new company brand.
Adjust Brand Strategy:
Meta’s focus will be to bring the Metaverse to life and help people connect, find communities, and grow businesses.
However, as I mentioned before in the article, Facebook is a centralized platform, and they are not exactly planning to be fully decentralized.
If they want to be fully decentralized, they would need to adjust their centralized model.
But, again, the Metaverse does not necessarily be decentralized as in the Fortnite example.
Therefore, they would need to adapt their business models and goals parallel to Metaverse if you want a successful metaverse marketing strategy.
Change of Mindset:
Your company and people need a mindset that believes that Metaverse and virtual environments are places for consumer attention and commerce.
It is not something that will come and go away.
This mindset enables these companies to build highly relevant and long-term positions rather than short-term executions that offer less brand equity.
Hire Tech Hunters:
Your brand should also have people who determine what can be improved in their industry and incorporate new technology.
Then, those brands will shape the future with immersive technology.
Launch NFTs:
In 2021, the global gaming market was worth about $61 billion.
The in-game purchase market value is projected to be $74.4 billion by 2025. It is fair to say that as a society, we are spending a lot of money online, and we value digital assets more than ever.(Remember the Gucci Bag example mentioned above)
In the Metaverse, there are non-fungible tokens that enable virtual ownership of the asset.
Therefore, brands may also need to launch NFT editions – such as NBA Top Shot, where you can collect and trade officially licensed NBA and WNBA NFTs.
Create virtual shows /vStores:
Your brand can create virtual shows, showcases, events, and more. You can also partner with an existing virtual platform like Roblox example or Coca-Cola.
They launched virtual wearable NFTs- including a wearable jacket in the Decentraland metaverse. This was Coca-Cola’s first NFT collection.
Create 3D models:
3D models are fundamental to creating immersive content.
With the rise of VR, 3D models have become an essential tool for creating rich interactive experiences.
As more industries adopt VR as a standard, there will be an increasing demand for 3D models that can be used to create these immersive environments.
There are many ways to adapt your company and brand to the Metaverse.
And keep in mind that it is just a beginning; there will be more options to find your way in.
As a marketer, you will need to be prepared for the changes it brings.
Advertising and The Metaverse
Like the shift from tv, radio, and banner advertising to social media, search engines, and others, we are now shifting from digital advertising to metaverse marketing.
Today, businesses in display advertising that we can locate on google or other search engines use words and supporting graphics.
However, these graphics will become 3D with the industry’s shift, making the work a little tricky.
In addition, VR and AR will be prevalent methods, and they will require creative work even more than today.
However, this is going to give digital marketers more freedom in how they advertise and sell products.
Search Engine Optimization and the Metaverse
Search engine optimization might change substantially with the rise of Metaverse.
We are not quite sure what will happen to SEO, unfortunately.
Google might adopt a more immersive approach – they might offer a search engine where you can visit the website via VR.
“Brands will need to rethink their narratives in three dimensions, and marketers will need to embrace emerging technology at a faster speed.
In the Metaverse, everyone is a world builder, including brands.”- Cathy Hackl.
Social Media Marketing and The Metaverse
What will happen to social media in the Metaverse?
We can say the social media platforms may look like Roblox or Fortnite, where you would have a 3D character in AR and visit websites like visiting game rooms in a game.
The possibilities are endless. AR and VR will impact the customer journey from the first step to the last.
Content Marketing and The Metaverse
Only 3 percent of the content on the internet is “interactive” content.
This means that everything else on the web is passive- photos, videos, etc. In interactive graphics, the graphics change according to the user’s actions on it.
Interactive content allows for exploration and discovery, parallel to metaverse characteristics, such as user-driven characteristics.
Brand experiences that tie in with real-world experiences or parallel what your brand already does in real life can help you connect with consumers.
The Metaverse is still a new concept to all marketers, which enables experimentations and unique approaches.
The future of marketing is on the Metaverse. It’s essential to start planning your brand’s path to success on the Metaverse now.
A Metaverse is an exciting place where users can create, experience, and share new realities.
In this guide, we’ve provided you with some tips on how you can leverage the potential of virtual reality for your marketing efforts.
We hope they have been helpful! If you would like to talk more about what the future of marketing will look like, please let us know by liking or sharing 🙂
Idea Rebel is a top Digital Marketing Agency in Toronto, Vancouver, and Los Angeles. Focussed on Media buying and planning and Digital Experiences.
February 24, 2022