“Siri. Could you please request Alexa to update my avatar’s profile picture on the metaverse. I have a big date and want to look my sharpest.”
This is happening. Whether we like it or not.
Just when we started to think that the digital world is saturated and that there is nothing new that we can experience anymore, the metaverse came into play. But did it?
Metaverse, as a ‘place’ has existed since years. We’re only recognizing and realizing it now, thanks to billions of dollars and terabytes of data deployed by Big Tech globally. It is a universe unbound, cranking up excellent scope of growth for gaming, commerce, trading – in fact, everything under the Blockchain sun. It has no boundaries, walls and limits and is a space that is extremely difficult (read: impossible) to exhaust. A universe that extends as far as one’s imagination does.
Using technologies like VR, AR, AI, IoT, 5G and many more, the metaverse is our future, in our present. Anything that seemed to be unreachable can now be reached; and then experienced. In other words, fiction just got real. It is an ecosystem that uses software as well as hardware technologies and combines them and holds great potential for the birth of new technologies that result in helping brands create a true experience for their audiences. These experiences in turn, will influence consumer behavior and buying decisions that translate to sales, both in the real world as well as the ‘other’ one – the metaverse. It is no surprise that this alternate reality is gaining serious popularity, since the pandemic forced the world to go digital. Anyone and everyone, no matter how educated they are, is now experiencing and participating in the metaverse unintentionally or intentionally.
To answer whether brands and consumers are ready for this high-tech world, most of the biggest brands in the industry like JPMorgan, Facebook, Adidas, Nike, Gucci and Balenciaga have already entered the metaverse and started moulding it their way, while consumers are intrigued to see what they can do next. Thanks to decentralization in this new world that is not owned by anybody, brands can do what they wish to and the way they like it. The fashion giant Louis Vuitton launched their NFT game, Louis the Game, as a homage to their founder. In the game, the player must collect 200 candles while going through 6 different types of worlds. It also includes 30 collectible NFTs that one can find throughout their experience. The player is also dressed in LV inspired outfits. This experience for a consumer, is tough to create in the real world even for a luxury brand like Louis Vuitton but was made possible through the NFT game.
Why create a good consumer experience? A detailed study by the Journal of Consumer Psychology surveyed a set of 5,000 people over a period of four years. The results stated that investing in the experiences of consumers increases happiness. It mentioned that people were more satisfied with their lifestyle because of the experiences that they chose. People who thought about experiences and invested in them for a better social life, felt better about those experiences and found that they were more content with that aspect of their lives. This holds true, even in relation with fitness and satisfaction in terms of one’s own health. It was found that fitness and exercise made people feel more satisfied with their health and happiness. The same source suggests that making small, but frequent purchases is a better option than making huge purchases less frequently. This is also why the metaverse is beneficial, because virtual goods and services fall in the category of small purchases for consumers and may be purchased more frequently. These small investments made in the metaverse continue to grow in value, with time, given the significant development in fintech and other spaces.
Similarly, Adidas in an attempt at diving into Web3 and the metaverse, recently bought virtual property in the popular Sandbox metaverse and has already launched its first NFTs for sale. The brand’s collection, ‘Adidas Originals’ is inspired by and presented in association with NFT leaders such as Bored Ape Yacht Club, GMoney, and the team behind the Punks Comic. The buyers of their collections will also receive exclusive access to the brand’s experiences and products. This is a great strategy adopted by the brand to market both, its physical as well as digital products to the audiences, as the brand uses exclusivity to lure consumers in.
The metaverse has a mostly positive impact on brands, but there are still some loopholes that worry them. For instance, the French champagne Armand de Brignac has recently filed trademark applications to register the appearance of its gold bottle packaging in virtual reality, augmented reality, video, social media and the web. Like this, many brands have established identities when it comes to product and packaging. Since this alternate reality is a fairly new territory to brands, it is difficult for them to gauge if a product or its packaging has distinctiveness outside the metaverse. Even if it does, it is unclear whether those rights will be sufficient to claim infringement inside the metaverse. Among other concerns, the metaverse also brings issues regarding privacy and security risks to light. Being an online-enabled space, it is uncertain whether consumers and brands may face new and unknown privacy and authenticity issues.
The rise of the metaverse is just like that of the internet – former Amazon strategist Matthew Ball estimates that by 2027, every company will be a gaming company, implying that the metaverse will soon become a normal part of people’s lives. Even though it seems to be an unusual and abstract concept to some brands as well as people today, it is undeniable that it is an essential part of the future of the growth of brands across the world.
Bottomline: The metaverse is happening. AI is happening. The universes are going to melt more and fuse with one another. Brands and consumers have no option but to prepare for it because it is like breathing. No one ‘prepares’ for breathing. People just do.
