The metaverse and brands, a universe to explore
There’s a lot we don’t know about the metaverse. It’s a buzzword, as promising as it is nebulous, and more often than not it evokes some of the most wonderful fantasies in science fiction. Even specialists on the subject are waiting to see what form it will end up taking, and how it will develop in the years to come.
However, we must bear in mind that what many people normally imagine as the metaverse, a cyber world similar to Ready Player One where all our virtual lives converge, is far from being a reality. In December of last year, Raja Koduri, executive vice president of Intel, shared a statement explaining that to develop the metaverse as it is often imagined — with the simultaneous coexistence of avatars of hundreds of millions of users in the same space — it would take a thousand times the computational capacity that we have today.
Rather, what we find today is a multiplicity of platforms that coexist and share some fundamental characteristics, such as the fact that they are always active and do not pause when we leave them (think, for example, of World of Warcraft), and among which we can move freely.
Connect through gaming
In theory, the metaverse implies an unprecedented interconnectivity between the platforms that comprise it, since it would allow us to share digital assets from one to another without any difficulty. Whether for expendable or non-expendable assets, users can (or rather could) transfer items between platforms that are in principle very different: for example, use a League of Legends skin in Fornite, or enter Horizon Worlds with the avatar of your favorite game. Some companies are already developing services that go that way. Ready Player Me collaborates with brands (such as Pull&Bear, VR Chat and Dune) to provide users with virtual avatars that they can use on different pages. The company defines itself as a “multi game avatar platform for the meta-universe.”
Brands have the opportunity to grow big time in this new ecosystem, establishing a more personal and closer relationship with consumers than in the past. In fact, there are brands that are wasting no time in making their place in the metaverse: Gucci and Nike already offer personalized experiences in Roblox, Animal Crossing has a talk show in which celebrities enter with their game avatar and Fortnite hosted shows of Ariana Grande, Marshmello and Travis Scott.
What do these campaigns have in common? Gaming. Games are the spearhead of the metaverse: they are the platforms that most organically adopted a virtual logic that enables users to develop a “second life.” We all play and know how games work. In Latin America alone, the gamer market includes 289 million people, all avid consumers of video games, of the way they tell stories, of the challenges they propose and, of course, of the fun they bring us. The first experiments in the metaverse were born out of gaming, and the way we envision it (as Ready Player One) has a playful tinge to it.
Thus, games are the perfect medium for brands to transmit their culture. For example, Louis The Game, developed by Louis Vouitton, tells players the story of the brand as they gather collectible items.
How to avoid the ordinary?
In any case, it is important that advertisers do not fall into the temptation of traditional advertising. To give an example, although in-game billboards are very common and are extremely useful when it comes to giving visibility to a brand (as the case of Bidstack attests, which went from offering outdoor advertising to only doing it in “virtual billboards”), it is necessary to go beyond that. The metaverse is the perfect place to provide users with memorable experiences, and locking ourselves into the advertising we already know can bring several risks.
The old TV trick of putting a commercial’s volume louder than the rest of the content can backfire in a context where the user is wearing a virtual reality headset. The metaverse is, by design, an immersive experience, and breaking immersion comes at a much higher cost than other media: if the user takes off their VR headsets because of advertising that is too invasive, that’s a problem.
That is why today it is essential that advertising initiatives invite the user to be part of a new world and don’t interrupt with what the platform offers. At etermax Brand Gamification we help brands find players at the perfect time: when they are most relaxed. Without interrupting the normal flow of the game, advertisers can be part of a positive experience with users, and even get to know what audiences are like when they are immersed in the game. Native formats like Branded Trivia work especially well with these strategies.
The metaverse is still under construction and there is still a lot to discover about how it will work. But one thing is for sure: video games are defining it and brands must learn from them to find their place in the metaverse.
