How Metaverse & NFTs are shaping the world of Marketing
What is Metaverse?
Metaverse might sound like a random comic book term, but in reality, it’s a place where your digital self can reside. Your digital self is what is known as an avatar, and it is able to move around and interact with other people who also have their own avatars in the virtual world. Both Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality will no doubt be key elements of the metaverse. At this point, you can already attend virtual events with your avatar and interact with other people in a VR setting. The metaverse is likely going to expand this to a much more interactive and massively promoted alternate reality.
Most brands haven’t realized that we are in the 3rd era of social — the creator economy. In brief, the creator economy is made of creatives, designers, artists, musicians, and writers who leverage technology to create an audience and therefore their own influential brand. Metaverse just helps brands do this but in a better way. Recent reports predict the metaverse market will grow to over $1,544 billion in less than ten years.
What’s the connection between Metaverse and NFTs?
Are these two connected? The answer is yes. The metaverse and NFTs are related to digital assets and how they are given value. The metaverse will allow people to showcase digital forms of art and property, and NFTs will allow them to put a price on that content with proof of ownership.
It’s generally built using the same kind of programming as cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin or Ethereum, but that’s where the similarity ends. Each NFT is attached to a specific item. That item could be a painting, video game content, music, or anything else that can be attached to that specific token. This is ideal for digital assets, and NFTs have turned into a great way for artists and creators in general to monetize their work. Again, a plus point for creator economy.
The metaverse-NFT interplay is undoubtedly a prominent highlight because it could end up becoming the optimal currency to enter Metaverse. This will allow people to show proof of ownership, something like a deed to a property that only exists in a virtual world. Another possibility is that NFT could be treated as a token or a perfect access point for specific virtual events happening inside the metaverse. The possibilities are endless, that’s what makes the idea so attractive.
Why is it a big deal for brands?
Consumers crave experiences. Now that most businesses have had a taste of what Metaverse could be for their brand, they aren’t going to settle for anything less. And consumers are getting tired of static displays and video ads that crowd social media. With web 3.0 or the 3rd era of social, everyone expects a rich, interactive, immersive experiences. The Metaverse is built on such experiences. The replacement of the flat, two-dimensional world of the web with 3D (or in some cases 4D) is making brands flock around metaverse because that being a part of the momentum itself is a huge marketing success. Given that metaverse is a representation of the real world in a virtual setting, there’s no question that it will open a world of possibilities for brands to thrive. Brands can start to create virtual representations of their products now to ensure that they can be found by other people in this new universe. How-to guides and product pitches can also be done in a much more interactive way by marketers. The joy!
We are more likely to be living in two different realities, one is the offline world we’ve always known and the other is the virtual environment. Being able to be discovered by your customers in both of these worlds will be crucial for most brands.
The entire customer journey within the Metaverse
However, the metaverse contains opportunities to affect the entire customer journey in a streamlined, holistic way. The metaverse allows brands to reach new audiences in new and inventive ways while enabling them to dig deeper, learn more and ultimately make purchases, all in a single, cohesive experience.
Taking co-creation to the next level
Marketers spend their whole life cracking the Instagram, Facebook, and Google algorithms just to make sure they are at the top of their game when creating engaging content that cuts through the noise and millions of competitors. And as marketers, we strive to involve consumers in the co-creation of user-generated content for as long as I can remember. It’s a marketer’s dream to have end-customers create, publish and share content that features their brand, but the challenge has always been how to encourage co-creation that’s meaningful and authentic. And by the looks of it, with Metaverse, this will become less of a challenge.
