Optimized Marketing with Metaverse

In today's article, I'll explore how the metaverse can potentially disrupt an industry that has traditionally been?a walled garden with access pass given to close friends?leaving very little scope for outsiders to enter - Advertisement, Media, and Communications. Also, we'll briefly explore the possible impact of tech slowdown globally. But more importantly, I'll address the elephant in the room.?Where is the money coming to recover Metaverse investments? It is a vast topic and hence will be covered over next few articles.

Let's start with slowdown rumors. It is almost impossible to miss the news of tech slowdown with news of firing spraying digital feeds across social media channels over the past many weeks. Professor G (Scott Galloway) called this the "Patagonia vest recession" and expects it to deepen in 2023.?In his recent article, Nick Routley?from Visual Capitalist captured the global meltdown in an easy-to-follow graphic. The pace of layoff is not unprecedented but alarmingly high to feel comfortable as we enter the new year. However, let us not forget the unimaginable tech hiring that we saw during pandemic period. The law of averages and natural equilibrium is going to play out over next few quarters.

The question is how this will impact?#metaverse?evolution as?Meta?announced a hiring freeze for Q1 in addition to laying off 13% of its workforce. Every impact can be understood from a financial angle. 2022 saw burgeoning asset classes melt almost 67% - 99% in value and saw the collapse of many tech-bolstered new-age financial avenues such as?#bitcoin?and?#FTX?as central banks across the globe resorted to monetary tightening to tame inflation unseen in almost a century. There is more to what meets the eye, as negative news garners more attention. Let's remember the unprecedented run these investments enjoyed during the free money period that started around the pandemic with quantitive easing. So, the lesson for us is,

"always trust god's currency, and all other coins are prone to manipulations that ultimately get called our sooner or later."

While 2023 appears to be a painful year, I expect the slowdown to play out over the next 4-6 quarters. It is a golden opportunity to build the winners of this decade as the focus will shift to cost optimizations and innovative solutions, vis-a-vis blind hot money chasing success, which was the case over the last 2-3 years. Thus, Metaverse is going to get more streamlined and mainstream media over the next few years and eventually come out in full potential in the 2025-2027 frame.

Let us return to my favorite topic - Marketing and Metaverse. We have seen green shoots growing into mainstream experiments by leading global companies in their quest to create a marketing edge for their products and services. Metaverse relies on a multi-sensory experience that will be enabled by the device revolution, which will see the new iPhone becoming mainstream in this decade. This device with reduce friction, create seamlessness, connect and help unlock unprecedented experiences.

Raja Rajamannar?has led this charge with multi-sensory marketing touchpoints boosting identity and accessibility for?the Mastercard?brand. His concept of the fifth paradigm of marketing will become the nucleus as the future of marketing evolves around this over the next few years. It encompasses everything from Robotics to AI and combines it with web 3.0 to define new-age marketing for tomorrow's outreach.

Next, let's look at the scale that Metaverse provides you.

Imaging reaching 600 sold-out Madison Square Gardens in a single shot

Epic Games and Travis Scott, a hip-hop superstar, partnered for a concert exclusively for Fortnite users, garnered?12 Million live views.

Would you believe in paying four grand for a virtual bag?

Gucci?partnered with?Roblox?to create a Gucci-themed garden that saw one user paying $4K for a virtual Gucci bag. While that number is small and could be a miss-hit, look at the potential. You are creating monetization opportunities for every square inch of screen space, or imagine this as creating multi-touchpoint everywhere your users go.

Raise your hand if you knew about?Hasbro. If you didn't raise your hand, raise your hand now if you know about the MONOPOLY game. You would have your hand raised if you played this little game with me. I just realized Hasbro created the iconic Monopoly. Technically not directly, but the acquired original maker Parker Bros. in the 1990s. What I also know is that Hasbro has created a Roblox version of Monopoly and?selling it for $19.99.

So, we have successfully busted one myth.?The company Meta (Earlier Facebook) is not Metaverse. Metaverse is the ultimate experience platform that brings all imaginable technologies together to provide immersive experiences unlike ever before. In fact, you might have read about?Microsoft's acquisition of Activision in its pursuit of creating building blocks. More than?$10 Billion?have found their way into Metaverse-related innovation. The childhood hero,?the LEGO Group, is reimagining children's games in Metaverse with EPIC Games.

Where would the money flow for recovering investments?

Let me return to the walled garden concept and simple financial vision for Metaverse-focused marketing. The first question is, what is the highest cost in the advertising food chain? The options are - concept creation with a reputed agency, pre-production setup, actual content creation with professional actors, post-production cost, advertising slots, or any other cost.

Well, if you ignore the exceptions, each of these areas has the potential to cost you a bomb, depending on which side you want to focus on the most. For example, if you sell a commodity, you need to focus on abstract concepts, just like what Nike does best when it talks about athletes and not their shoes. If you are selling a premium service, you can play on its feature, but you need to spend in reaching out to the right audience. There are umpteen examples of this.

Now imagine this situation in a Metaverse scenario. The good news is that you are no longer fighting for the eyeball. The bad news is that you are now fighting for multi-sensory attention in an already cluttered digital space. Hence, the creation would become cheaper, and outreach to the right audience at the right time is going to get costlier in the Meta world. How do you stay ahead? Buy your own Metaverse and put your brand weight behind this investment. It is easier said than done, as we have seen in the case of e-commerce. The brands needed to be faster to build their front-end, letting go of digital opportunity and creating technology giants such as?Amazon. Many leading brands have invested in this space, trying to undo the damage done in an earlier digital wave.?

Metaverse marketing can become path-breaking innovation and transform the media and marketing space inside out, just like television, smartphone, internet, etc. Is it too early, too much, or will they reverse the digital loss with Metaverse??We'll keep exploring as it unfolds over next few quarters. Until then, enjoy watching Metaverse get built in front of your eyes.

The future is exciting and life is fun.