Metaverse Marketing: Beyond The Universe

WHAT IS 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. Essentially the metaverse is a parallel world. It consists of multiple interoperable online spaces where people as digital avatars can shop, trade, socialize and interact with one another. The goal is to offer a hyper-real alternative world for the one that you currently live in. While its actualization can take a few years, you can already see aspects of it in online game universes like Fortnite, Roblox, Minecraft etc. Virtual reality, augmented reality, Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence are the technologies that are used in the metaverse.

 

HOW WILL THE LIFE IN METAVERSE BE LIKE?

Metaverse has the potential to transform livelihoods and businesses. The metaverse will without doubt change our society. In metaverse the people will be given different avatars and they can do all what can be done like in the real world.
Picture this: you put on a pair of glasses, and you’re transported to a sprawling golf course. You play a few rounds before your first meeting. You can attend the concert that’s happening 6,000 km away. All of this, and you haven’t ventured outside of your home. This is possible with the help of metaverse.  
Potentially, it has the power to bring us closer together. The metaverse is also likely to have a positive effect on sustainability. Physical goods are increasingly becoming virtualised. Fashion and art are also presented on a virtual stage. In addition, NFTs give creators the opportunity to earn money in the metaverse. It is also said that NFTs will do the same work in the metaverse that cash is doing in the real world. The life in metaverse will completely change the human attributes.

 

CAN YOU ADVERTISE METAVERSE?

Once every decade or so, something new comes to transform the marketing industry. The metaverse dubbed the "next development of the internet," has come now. But, before we discuss the metaverse's function in marketing, it's important to understand how the metaverse was marketed in the first place. The craze was fostered by pandemic-driven virtualization of life and technological breakthroughs. The metaverse has also received widespread attention in recent months as a result of the NFT boom and an endorsement from Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who changed his company's name from Facebook to Meta and embarked on a journey to transform his company from a social media one to a metaverse one. He predicted that one billion people will be on the Metaverse in the next decade. And now, when a well-known personality speaks about something, the topic receives a lot of attention and caters to a wider audience, which ultimately helped in the marketing of the metaverse. Influencers also played a significant role in advertising the metaverse, some of them are listed below.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR AN EXPERIENCED MARKETING AGENCY IN THE METAVERSE SEGMENT

Some aspects of traditional marketing may find their way into the metaverse, but there will also be entirely new dynamics in which the user experience will be imperative. For marketing agencies, metaverse will craft channels that will benefit their businesses. This channel- crafting will allow agencies to be more productive and creative at the same time. Also, focusing on some key characteristics such as making it accessible to everyone without any restrictions, and synchronization with the real world. With time, marketing agencies will launch platforms for a wide range of viewer subscriptions, and it is quite evident that people are paying serious money for virtual possessions, from virtual real estate to in-game accessories. Users crave experiences, so everything created by marketplaces, individual collectors, or artists, is necessary. As a result, brands can use the metaverse to create virtual venues, worlds, and spaces to hold events and experiences. Finally, as the metaverse evolves, brands will be forced to reconsider their products, services and marketing strategies.

 

INDUSTRY ALREADY USING METAVERSE GAINS THE FIRST MOVER ADVANTAGE

A first mover is a company that gains a competitive advantage by being the first to bring a new product or service to the market and they typically establish strong brand recognition and customer loyalty. If your first moves are thoughtful and well done, you’re able to raise the expectations that your consumers have of you. Also being first means you get to have more PR, make more ‘ownable’ moments, work out the kinks before everyone else tries it, get top partnerships locked-in and figure out the effects on your wider experience outside of the metaverse
Luxury brands have been the first to tap into this new opportunity. Gucci has released digital collections of its signature clothes and goods in Roblox, with avatar creator Zepeto, and Giphy. The brand has also integrated the SDK (Software Development Kit) of avatar creator Genies directly into its app so customers can dress their avatar while purchasing their own physical clothes. Gucci is one of several brands offering to cloth avatars in designer gear. 

IMPACT OF METAVERSE ON MARKETING SECTOR

· Branded Characters or Real Estate in Games- Several brands have recreated their services or built branded characters or arenas within games, natively inserting themselves within an experience rather than interrupting it. Two games in particular, Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Fortnite, have become fertile ground for brand insertions. Some have opted to replicate their real-world offering in the virtual environment. In the early months of the pandemic, Sentosa Development Corporation recreated Sentosa Island in Animal Crossing, inviting players to visit its attractions and do some virtual yoga while cooped up at home. In the same game, food delivery service Deliveroo last year sent a fleet of virtual riders to deliver virtual treats to players, which it paired with promo codes to order food in the real-world.

     
There are brands that have chosen a stunt-based approach. Fast-food chain Wendy's sent a character resembling the brand's mascot into Fortnite to 'kill' all the freezers in the game's Food Fight mode, after noticing that the Durr Burger restaurant in the game stored its virtual beef in freezers. The brand saw this as an opportunity to advertise its "fresh, never frozen beef"- a stunt which grew social media mentions of the brand by 119% and picked up several awards.

· Digital Goods for Avatars - Avatars, a virtual embodiment of our physical selves that have been around as long as the internet, are viewed as the "first mega opportunity" for brands due to the seemingly endless opportunities to cloths, style and feed them. Almost every product that is marketed to humans can be sold to their virtual counterparts.

These are the several things indicating how fast the digital marketing is being reshaped after the introduction of metaverse.

 

HOW METAVERSE CAN REVOLUTIONIZE JOBS IN THE FIELD OF MARKETING

Metaverse will revolutionize jobs in the field of marketing in a very broad way in coming years. This technology has expanded into more general use where employees working in industries such as retail, logistics, and customer service are practicing with VR headsets. In less than 10-years, VR will be used in 23 million jobs worldwide thus, humanity’s entrance into the Metaverse. Metaverse style ideas might help people organize the way we work and more broadly society, in a more productive manner. In fact, soldiers, surgeons, and astronauts have trained for decades using VR

 

CAREERS IN METAVERSE

• Metaverse Planner - Once we have a working Metaverse, the ability to plan and implement all matters of functionalities into a fully virtual world will be absolutely key to most companies as it will help them in their exponential growth and will select the right things to do within this expanding digital world. To become a Metaverse Planner, person should have years of management experience, knowledge of integrated hardware, software system, platform as a service/software as a service marketing and business models and a great entrepreneurial mindset.
• Metaverse Research Scientist - The job of Metaverse Research Scientist won’t simply entail developing a few basic digital models of the real world within which corporations will be able to bring customers and partners. Metaverse Research Scientists will need to build is something relating to the theory of everything, wherein the entire world is visible and actionable digitally.
• Metaverse Safety Manager - Everyone wants their data to be safe and this is what people will expect from metaverse too so metaverse safety manager will be the most important job profile and they will need people who can provide guidance and oversight for all this during design, validation, and mass production stages, making sure our digital world is safe and meets or exceeds applicable regulatory safety requirements and a person can apply for safety manager post if he/she has an Engineering degree and consumer electronics/manufacturing experience.
• Metaverse Hardware Builder - A hardware builder will assemble all this complex hardware and help the world adapt to it. Knowledge in consumer electronics will be needed to enter and succeed in this career.

 

EXAMPLES OF METAVERSE

Applications

1. Snapchat - Snapchat released an Avatar lens AR filter today, which makes you look like a Sims character. Or, in more modern parlance, it makes you look like what you’d look like in the metaverse.
2. LOKA -. Loka is a Metaverse Multiplayer Gaming App based on real locations, populated by real players & experiences powered by hundreds of 3rd Party Apps. Loka is built on the pillars of Social Engagement, Gaming, E-commerce, Content & Entertainment.
3. Forma Closet - Forma Closet helps customers cultivate a more thoughtful capsule wardrobe, embrace technologies like AI to match customers to garments that suit their style.

Companies

1. GUCCI - Gucci is inching its way into making its own stake on the metaverse, launching an “experimental online space” with NFTs to match, of course. The space is called Vault, which the brand describes as an “online concept store.” Named to evoke “an air of magic,” its very existence serves as a “testament” that “past, present and future can co-exist through the power of the imagination.”
2. Nike - Nike has filed seven trademark applications as it prepares to enter the metaverse. As part of the application, the company indicated its intent to make and sell virtual branded sneakers and apparel.
3. Balenciaga - is rolling out a virtual division of its own, the latest in a string of metaverse-focused moves, including Diesel and Margiela. It is launching a new business unit “dedicated entirely to the development of products, projects and experiences” designed for the metaverse.

 

CONCLUSION

So the future is finally close to being the present and the possibilities are endless. One thing is for sure marketing would never be the same in the coming years.