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How the Metaverse Affects Marketing
Imagine a huge mansion with a waterfall in front of a big driveway with plenty of rooms. Closets full of Gucci, Versace, and Louis Vuitton. Too bad none of it is real. What does real even mean? The metaverse is intangible, but it is still real. So, according to the metaverse, this house does exist it is just not tangible.
Everyone is talking about the metaverse. At first, it might sound confusing and overwhelming, but it has great potential. If the metaverse arises, our lives will change forever. Not only will our lives change, but the marketing world will change as well, and maybe for the better.
What is the metaverse everyone is talking about?
So let’s first start by explaining what the metaverse is-
A metaverse is a 3D virtual world (or worlds) comprised of a social connections network. Wired adds more:
“The technologies that make up the metaverse can include virtual reality—characterized by persistent virtual worlds that continue to exist even when you’re not playing—as well as augmented reality that combines aspects of the digital and physical worlds. However, it doesn’t require that those spaces be exclusively accessed via VR or AR.”
This means that there will be another world in an online dimension. Having an online dimension means that there is another way people can interact with the world. This online world can be as real as the actual physical world because it mixes real-life experiences in the online platform.
The metaverse doesn’t just boil down to VR and AR. Many other players make up the metaverse. Virtual games, Nonfungible Tokens (NFTs), businesses, and brain-computer interfaces (BCI) make up the metaverse.
So, let’s dive into what we can find in the metaverse and where marketers step in, in the different areas of the metaverse.
What is in the Metaverse?
NFTs – Trade in the 3D Digital World
First and foremost, what are NFTs? In short, NFTs are digital assets sold and traded using cryptocurrencies. The word nonfungible “more or less means that it’s unique and can’t be replaced with something else.”
You can think of it as a one-of-a-kind baseball card signed by a player. If you tried to get a duplicate of the same exact one, you couldn’t because there is only one of it in the world.
That is the way NFTs work. This can include digital music, art, gaming, virtual fashion, etc. To purchase an NFT, you need to buy the correct cryptocurrency (Ether) and transfer the currency to your crypto wallet.
Then, you can connect it to the NFT marketplace. Ether is a fungible coin that can be bought on Ethereum. It is fungible because each coin is identical to the other. So they can be exchanged because they all have the same value, just like a dollar bill exchanged with another dollar bill. The reason NFTs are not identical is that they each have their own unique code built in them that will never be remade.
Check out this famous Ape NFT:
“The Bored Ape Yacht Club is a collection of 10,000 unique Bored Ape NFTs.”
Believe it or not, the most expensive NFT sold to one person went for $69,346,250. It was a digital painting called “Every day’s: The first 5000 days” by Beeple. Consumers are willing to spend millions of dollars on digital assets they care for.
Lately, everyone has been talking about the Metaverse. So, how will the Metaverse change our world, and will it affect the marketing world as well?
How can NFTs affect brands?
NFTs are a huge deal for businesses because they can start creating their own NFTs and sell them for millions of dollars. For example, Nike can create an NFT of a super cool sneaker with wings and other features, and it could go for millions of dollars if there is a person interested in it. And apparently, there’s always someone who’s interested.
The good part is that if a person is super brand loyal to Nike, they might consider buying it. This is why companies should start getting into creating NFTs because it can be a new good they can market.
Marketers can then drive the sales of NFTs. Another reason why brands should get into NFTs is that they have the opportunity to create a digital brand identity, which is more exclusive because it is less accessible.
“Every day’s: The first 5000 days” digital painting
Avatars – Life in the 3D Digital World
Having a VR headset in the metaverse will take everything to a new level. The reason is that you can interact with a digital world with real-life movements and actions. People will create avatars that will represent themselves in digital life.
Most likely, people will make the avatar look like them. This is big for marketers because the target audiences will become more defined in this process when creating the avatar, home, and workspace.
With this technology, marketers can track consumers’ everyday moves. They will see what people like to do in their free time, how they choose to decorate their house, who their friends are etc. This type of data will allow marketers to target the correct individuals better.
Workspaces – Work in the 3D Digital World
Eventually, people won’t have to go to work physically because they can work in their office space at home with the VR headsets. This means that office space is endless, and desk arrangements can be flexible. You will be able to have five monitors if needed to work because it is all in the VR headsets.
How do you think this can affect a marketer’s life? The work will become much more efficient once you can control your work on multiple monitors at once to increase proficiency, especially these days when most marketers’ work is entirely based online.
Workspace can include plenty of screens.
Stores & Homes – Shopping in the 3D Digital World
Avatars will have an option to make a living space for themselves in digital life. This means that they can make their house like their real-life home. The metaverse will have shopping in both the digital and physical world.
Eventually, the metaverse can hold stores such as Zara, Nike, FootLocker, etc. This means that you can walk into the store as your avatar and try on different clothes, shoes, jewelry, etc. This is where marketers have the chance to place ads.
For example, the placement of the clothing in the digital store can take shape as the ads. So the front racks of the stores would be the paid ads that are geared towards something you might like based on your demographics in the metaverse.
How will the metaverse change the marketing world?
The best part of the Metaverse for Marketers is that 1st party data will be so easy to obtain because consumers are willingly giving their data. This data can include beliefs, values, ideas, incomes, genders, partner preferences, location, ethnicity, education, habits, etc.
With this new realm, the possibilities for marketers are limitless. The metaverse will become a new advertising channel. If people spend hours of their day in VR headsets, it might mean that we need to have advertisements all over.
Advertisers will be able to target avatars, but they will also be able to target the actual person behind the avatar. That leaves room for shopping for your real-life self or your digital avatar. This is why marketers should start testing their waters to see what people are interested in buying.
What should marketers do now?
The best thing we can do now is to become informed and learn about different aspects of the metaverse and not fall behind with the new technology. The reason is that there is great potential for growth here if done correctly.
In addition, marketers need to change their strategies to adapt to the future. In other words, they need to focus on the first-party data they will obtain to cater better to their audience in the metaverse.
Final Thoughts
To conclude, the metaverse has immense potential for marketers. It may sound intimidating, but people were also scared when the internet first came out.
However, it turned out to be the most successful tool. If marketers take advantage of this while it is still new, they can reach new limits. This is the time to do A/B testing with NFTs, create polls, listen to your audience’s wants, etc. If marketers take advantage of this time to adapt to new ways, they will yield the best results.
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