As the metaverse continues to evolve, what strategies or trends should marketers consider to effectively leverage this dynamic platform and stay ahead of the curve in engaging with audiences?
In the ever-shifting landscape of digital realms, the metaverse has emerged as the next frontier for marketers seeking to captivate audiences in innovative ways. As this dynamic platform continues to evolve, staying ahead of the curve requires a strategic approach that embraces emerging trends. Here are key strategies marketers should consider to effectively leverage the metaverse and redefine audience engagement:
- Immersive experiences beyond boundaries:
Virtual Events and Experiences: Brands can capitalise on the immersive nature of the metaverse by hosting virtual events, product launches, or branded experiences. Create spaces that go beyond physical limitations, offering audiences an unparalleled sense of presence.
- Personalisation in virtual realms:
Tailored Avatars and Interactions: Embrace the personalization capabilities of the metaverse. Allow users to create customized avatars and curate their virtual experiences, fostering a sense of individuality and connection.
- Interactive storytelling:
Narratives in 3D: Move beyond traditional storytelling. Craft narratives that unfold in three-dimensional spaces, encouraging users to actively engage and participate in the storyline. This interactive approach enhances user immersion and brand recall.
- Social commerce:
Seamless Shopping Experiences: Integrate social commerce into the metaverse, enabling users to discover, try on, and purchase products within virtual spaces. The metaverse becomes a new marketplace for brands to showcase and sell their offerings.
- Collaborative workspaces:
Virtual Collaboration Platforms: Explore the metaverse as a collaborative workspace. Use virtual environments for team meetings, brainstorming sessions, and project collaborations, fostering a sense of teamwork and innovation.
- Integration with social media:
Cross-Platform Engagement: Extend metaverse experiences to existing social media platforms. Create synergies between virtual interactions and traditional social channels to reach a broader audience and maintain continuity across platforms.
- NFTs and digital assets:
Tokenised Brand Assets: Leverage the popularity of NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) to tokenize and showcase unique brand assets within the metaverse. This can create exclusive and collectible elements, driving user engagement and brand loyalty.
- Gamification strategies:
Interactive Brand Games: Develop gamified experiences within the metaverse that align with your brand. Gamification enhances user engagement and provides a fun and memorable way for users to interact with your products or services.
- Accessibility and inclusivity:
Design for All Audiences: Ensure that metaverse experiences are accessible to diverse audiences, including those with disabilities. Prioritize inclusivity in design, making virtual spaces welcoming and accommodating to everyone.
- Continuous adaptation:
Agile Marketing Practices: Stay agile and be ready to adapt. The metaverse is still evolving, and being flexible in your marketing strategies allows you to incorporate emerging trends and technologies seamlessly.
Also read:
Metaverse marketing – Part 1: A rollercoaster ride of interest and revival story
A rulebook is yet to come
In the metaverse, the rulebook is still being written. Marketers who embrace innovation, prioritise user experience, and stay attuned to evolving trends will position themselves as pioneers in this transformative landscape, forging connections with audiences in ways previously unimagined. The metaverse is not just a platform; it’s a canvas for redefining the future of marketing engagement.
The best strategy to ensure staying ahead of the curve is to stay informed, states Lumos Labs founder Kaavya Prasad. “Business awareness is highly necessary to ensure a company is able to market its products in a way that is current and trendy. Another key factor unique to the emerging tech industry is that a majority of its target audience is millennials and GenZ. Therefore, implementing various strategies that hook the young user base will definitely lead to a rise in adoption,” she adds.
According to her, marketers can use creative techniques such as in-game marketing, pop-up ads, making virtual products available, using networking and collaboration as a means to increase their user base. She cites the example of collaboration is Deliveroo in 2020, who made virtual deliveries to players to their islands in the Animal Crossing game, which contained discount code that could be used in real life.
“While these may lead to temporary boosts, sustained activities and more engaging campaigns can lead to long term adoption. Immersive experiences using AR/VR and metaverse can also create long term relationships with the brand and the consumer. Providing immersive classroom experiences, shopping experiences, working, gaming, entertainment, and more, can ensure sustained adoption,” Prasad says.
Nascent stage
According to Samir Asher, Co-Founder and COO, Tonic Worldwide, metaverse is in its nascent stage, but all the hype pushed the expectations. “And if you talk about consumers and marketers, they were still experimenting with the medium and interoperability had also not matured yet. Hence there were also some barriers for consumers to move from one experience to another,” he adds.
According to him, there is a renewed interest in the metaverse as large platforms such as Meta and companies like Apple increase their investments. Additionally, the drop in hardware costs contributes to this growing enthusiasm.
AI and brands
In the evolving landscape of marketing, brands can capitalise on the resurgence of the AI and its capabilities to engage audiences innovatively. By seamlessly integrating virtual experiences and leveraging AI-driven personalization, brands have the opportunity to create meaningful connections, enhance customer interactions, and stay at the forefront of technological trends, ultimately fostering a more immersive and memorable brand experience.
Social media is a leading example of how user data collected over time can lead to a highly influential and personalised relationship, points out Kaavya Prasad.
With the advent of artificial intelligence, and its current popularity, we can expect it to create unique personalised online experiences, which can further have an additional impact with a user preferred virtual environment. Apart from this, generative AI has become a significant tool enabling companies to create content in seconds based on a few prompts. While this is a useful tool, it is still difficult to replicate a brand’s voice and tone through just AI and a human creative touch is always necessary to raise the content to another level. AI can also help in creating a virtual brand ambassador or a virtual influencer that is always aware and ready to help users on their journey. This can be a game-changer for brands in the virtual world where it replicates real-world interactions by providing an interactive and helpful face to the brand. Furthermore, AI can enable voice and chat bot integrations into the metaverse, enabling quick communication and conflict resolution.
‘We already see integration of AI in different online platforms, having AI smoothly integrated into a virtual world will further increase the immersive experiences enabled within the metaverse,” Prasad says.
AI is set to elevate creativity in virtual spaces and the metaverse by serving as a supportive tool rather than a replacement. It empowers creators with tools and insights, aiding in idea generation, design optimization, and trend prediction. Examples include AI-driven style transfer for unique artwork, content recommendation systems, and personalised experiences that adapt to individual preferences. AI complements and amplifies creative expression, fostering a collaborative synergy between technology and human imagination.
According to Kaavya Prasad, AI can increase the personalisation of a virtual experience and brands can leverage it to create unique relationships with each of their consumers without exhausting their resources.
With the real-time data acquired through AI, brands can stay updated on certain trends early on and can have automated campaigns that can be launched as soon as a trend or an online conversation starts to go viral. Furthermore, AI helps in predictive analysis of consumer behaviour, which can be highly useful for brands to curate attention-grabbing content in an efficient manner, with reduced cost, time, and effort. Other creative examples include using AI-generated art to assist an artist with their work, AI-assisted music tools, AI-powered virtual environments to make the creation of virtual worlds easier. Furthermore, AI can overall help with multiple areas of automation and efficiency in metaverses. While AI can ensure quick and efficient content creation, a human touch is necessary to elevate it and make it truly personalised, Prasad elaborates.
Thanks to AI, brands can personalise the experience for each consumer, points out Samir Asher. For instance, he adds, a fashion brand can identify individual preferences as consumers navigate through their store, showcasing collections dynamically. This experience can extend into the metaverse, allowing users to virtually explore the collection or witness it physically with their avatars modeling the outfits.
AI has probably taken a right turn into conversations with consumers and therefore brands, says Barin Mukherjee Co-Founder and CEO, Digital Refresh Networks.
“It piques the interest of brands to engage with AI in more than one way. Specifically talking about advertising, generative AI is being extensively used to create content. In fact, AI blurs the geographic lines in terms of content creation and therefore opens markets for content companies like us to cater to a larger set of brands and businesses. Also, Skill+AI betters value to clients by offering more options in a limited time-frame. The possibilities of AI-assisted creative content creation models are vast, and as a content company, we are beginning to realise the potential of this technology,” he adds.
AI is poised to augment creativity within virtual spaces and the metaverse, rather than replacing it entirely. By offering tools and insights, AI empowers creators to push the boundaries of their imagination.
AI can create content and experiences on its own for each individual, this opens huge possibilities to develop creative interventions in consumer’s lives, says Samir Ashar. He cites the example of cooking enthusiasts engaging with a celebrity chef in the metaverse, with AI and ML personalising the experience. Each user is presented with creative recipes tailored to their individual preferences.
