From roadside hoardings announcing their wares to ads popping up on personal devices on our very wakening, brands have come a long way in how they engage with us, and the media they use are always evolving.
And while hyper-personalization is the current name of the game, nowhere is that more evident than in the metaverse, and more specifically, in the way we’re supposed to interact within it, via avatars.
Evolution in engagement
Mithun Mukherjee, ECD, Kinnect, muses that first there was the internet, then there was social media, and now, there’s the metaverse. “As online social experiences evolve, younger generations will take to it like fish to water. However, with the metaverse, the pace hasn’t been up to expectations. While brands have been increasingly investing in creating experiences, consumers haven’t been engaging with them at the same pace. The reason is not too hard to decipher; fewer avenues to experience it and even lesser awareness among the populace.”
Vivek Kumar Anand, Director, Business & Innovation, DViO Digital, says that a person’s avatar represents the person’s identity and characteristics, and is the third dimension of a user. The first is how users behave and get perceived in the real world, and the second is the kind of reality they create in the digital world, like on Instagram and Snapchat. And then this third one is in the Metaverse.
“It gives the users another chance to be what they want to be, and precisely this is what brands should keep in mind while advertising and marketing to these audiences/avatars. Sometimes, it’s not about reinventing the wheel. Fundamentals of business and marketing are very much applicable here. All the products companies create for physical/digital consumption can also be created for Metaverse. An example is Gucci’s digital version of the bag on the Roblox marketplace. Similarly, other services like events, concerts, support, training, and courses marketers create today can be in the Metaverse.”
Amer Ahmad, Director of Technology at Blink Digital points out that the metaverse allows for experiences that would not be possible or those that can be amplified far more than is possible in the real world. “Brands can create custom wearables for users’ avatars that are memorable and unique – for example – Australian Open wearables in the metaverse changed a user’s avatar into a giant tennis ball!”
Speaking of the metaverse…
Robert Godinho, Managing Director, Media.Monks India, asserts that conversations are key in an aggressively diminishing consumer attention span. Interactivity, therefore, is the only way to further hold consumer attention. The media company has already created a slew of avatars for brands and personalities, melding together real and virtual aspects of a person into a marketable individual.
“Open forum spaces like the metaverse are ideal for brands to engage in such conversations, rather than having one-sided communications fed down consumers’ throats. For a brand to truly be a part of a conversation in the metaverse, it needs to be an integral part of the journey and experience of the ecosystem. To suddenly pop up in one’s ecosystem would only repel the participants on the platform,” notes Godinho.
That being said, the metaverse is providing an environment which enables brands and audiences to engage in an interactive and immersive experience. According to Aashutosh Katre, Director, Yellow Seed, digital avatars humanise the brands and allow them to offer their savvy audiences a closer look and feel through various formats such as virtual stores, events, activities, and more.
Mitesh Kothari, Co-founder and Chief Creative Officer, White Rivers Media, says that in the metaverse, “…Direct-to-Avatar (D2A) is developing and is focused on selling new goods to customers’ digital twins. Companies are now efficiently reaching a global consumer base for gaming, real-time product testing, and purchases.”
“So from a brand perspective, they can explore innovative and fun ways to interact with their audiences. I don’t think it’s different from normal digital advertising per se, it’s just another leg, on a more immersive medium, that can be leveraged to create differentiated experiences,” says Ahmad.
“The global yet targeted reach of such virtual environments allows brands to enhance the efficacy of communication campaigns and drive richer and quicker conversations. Brands also are able to build trust and nurture loyalty amongst its audience who effectively turn into communities, further cascading their influence into their personal networks,” says Katre.
“While digital advertising was also an intriguing topic at one point, it has become as common as reading the newspaper. Metaverse stands out, by its ability to customise individual experiences, compared to other social networking counterparts,” says Mukherjee, adding, “Once both individuals and brands start seeking more personalised branded experiences, the real boom in metaverse can be expected. One doling out the experience, while the other queuing up to get it.”
Godinho also cautions that brands must remember that their evolution in the metaverse needs to be with the adoption of such technology and not a force feed, concluding, “In my opinion, to enter the metaverse brands need to further develop build out and make popular their avatars on existing platforms (Instagram, Facebook, etc). Only once your avatar is accepted in the social media ecosystem will it be accepted into the new web 3.0 world.”
