One of the biggest new platforms for marketing became very clear during the pandemic: metaverse marketing. For those not familiar with the actual term, metaverse is defined as an immersive, digital environment populated by virtual avatars representing actual people.
What makes a metaverse a metaverse? Influencer Marketing Hub does a great job breaking down the components: a metaverse is always active, exists in real time, players have individual agency, it’s a self-contained and fully functioning universe and contains user-generated content.
Though other industries are creating and building metaverses, the gaming industry is the first to truly grasp, and take advantage of the potential. And the brands that are early adopters in realizing the potential of metaverses are the ones who will see the most return.
Why The Metaverse Is Marketing’s Next Big Thing
Why Brands Are Marketing in the Metaverse There are many reasons why marketers are flocking to the metaverse. It’s new, and faster connections finally exist to support growing environments. But maybe the most important reason is marketers want to target and keep Millennials and Gen X up-to-date and engaged with their products and technologies, and metaverses allow them to target these audiences in a new way. And from the engagement brands are already getting, it’s clear this marketing strategy is working, and here to stay.
The biggest metaverses, like Fortnight and Roblox, offer big brands previously unattainable opportunities because it’s in the digital world. Take Vans. The Wall Street Journal reports that the skateboarding brand launched a virtual skatepark in Roblox that lets players try new tricks, and can earn points to redeem in the virtual store to customize their avatar. Vans executive team says the online metaverse is the best place to build brand awareness among their core demographic of 13 to 35-year olds. The brand reveals their online park has seen upwards of 48 millions visitors to date. That is the type of engagement bigger brands with bigger budgets can see in the metaverse.
Gucci also got in the game. The Verge reports that the luxury brand released an exclusive digital pair of sneakers in March 2021 called The Gucci Virtual 25 that “can be ‘worn’ in augmented reality (AR) or used in partnered apps like Roblox and VRChat.” In May 2021, Gucci opened the Gucci Garden on Roblox, a virtual experience to complement a real-world installation called the Gucci Garden Archetypes, which took place in Florence, Italy. Vogue Business revealed that people could, “mingle with others exploring the space and can buy digital pieces created in collaboration with Roblox creator Rook Vanguard.” These two collaborations are two great examples of how brands can be much more creative in the digital space than in the real world. Not to mention, a bigger and much more engaged audience.
Why the Metaverse Matters to Marketers
When businesses and brands were starting to see the power behind social media marketing and the influence social media would have on people’s spending habits. A lot of brands and marketers are starting to see the same potential behind the Metaverse and that potential has reinvigorated the marketing industry.
It starts with what has been dubbed as Web 3.0.
Web 1.0 was the early days of the internet—the “information superhighway”—which connected users with information. This is where businesses went online to build online business cards. Web 2.0, then, is the era in which we live now: the rise of social media and people using the internet to connect with other people.
In Web 2.0, we heard a lot about brands creating communities to connect with their audiences and a lot about groups and relationships. But at the center of these connections, the platforms extract data about the people in these relationships and use that data to make money.
Therefore, those communities end up being on what we refer to as rented land: The founder of the community doesn’t necessarily own anything the community is built on. And so, in a lot of ways, the platform has more control over the community than even the founder has. In fact, in the Web 2.0 era, there really isn’t much that a brand can outright own, other than a domain.
Now, as we head into Web 3.0, we’re seeing how this is evolving from social media and establishing a community on rented land to connecting directly with your audience in a space you own: digital ownership of digital assets. Web 3.0, which makes up one piece of the Metaverse, is poised to connect people with places and things. This means if you own a retail store and currently get leads through the mobile web, you could soon build a world in which you get new leads through the use of virtual reality or augmented reality.
Another reason marketers should pay attention to the Metaverse is the sheer potential for small businesses and brands in particular.
For example, a young digital artist known as Fewocious recently partnered with a company called RTFKT Studios (itself a Metaverse brand), to create a collection of virtual sneakers with a starting price of $3,000 per pair. And while that might sound a little outlandish, when this collection of virtual sneakers was released, they sold out and Fewocious and RTFKT Studios made millions.
This is something that could only happen in Web 3.0 and the Metaverse.
How Marketers Can Prepare for the Metaverse
One of the easiest ways you can start learning about the Metaverse is to pay attention to the gaming community and even start playing games like Roblox with your kids. In many ways, the younger Gen Z and Gen Alpha already understand how their digital reality connects to their physical reality better than most of us do. And Roblox is a prime example of this. So if you get in there and start playing with your kids, you’ll be able to start making these connections as well.
You can also get onto Discord and join a server. Although sometimes overlooked, Discord resembles an interface similar to Slack. But the bots and automations available for you to use to augment your server can help you start to connect with different things that are available.
Additionally, a lot of the Web 3.0, blockchain, and NFT experts and communities are already built on Discord so you have a chance to listen and learn and connect with a lot of these early adopters before everything becomes mainstream.
When it comes to business and marketing, you can often learn a lot simply by going through the process.
Formulating a Longer-Term Business Strategy for the Metaverse
While we may not be able to predict everything that’s going to come with the Metaverse once it becomes mainstream, we can predict that it’s going to have an impact on businesses in general, marketing practices, and the marketers who pioneer the new strategies to propel business into the future. So you should start thinking about what your business’ role will be in the long run.
Some things to keep in mind as you contemplate your role in the Metaverse are things like:
- Should you or your brand create a virtual world?
- Should you look into sponsoring a virtual world?
- What intellectual property does your company own that you could mint as an NFT?
- Should you build a Metaverse team to help you develop an entire Metaverse strategy, and if so, what would such a team look like?