Although brands are overrunning the metaverse, gamers don't seem to care.
Remember when the Second Life craze was at its height and brands like Intel, BMW, and Coca-Cola scrambled to establish themselves in creator Linden Lab's virtual universe? There is scarcely a week that goes by without an announcement of a large brand opening up shop on a developing metaverse platform, suggesting that history is repeating itself with the metaverse.
Here are some unpaid tips for brands: Not at all. You will probably invest your money on a platform that won't exist if and when the metaverse starts to take off because it is still very much a notion rather than a physical location. In addition, if the history of Second Life has taught us anything, it's that people in the metaverse don't particularly care about brands.
Additionally, a recent poll conducted by Zipline this week on people's opinions of brands, NFT, and the metaverse came to the same conclusion. Gen Z respondents indicated that they "felt indifferent" about brands establishing a presence in the metaverse in the proportion of 85%. The generation's response to companies opening up shop in virtual worlds.
Most of the time, individuals are simply too busy to visit a virtual mall or land plot owned by Coca-Cola or Burberry: The main motivation for using metaverse-like platforms, according to 83 percent of respondents across generations, was gaming. NFT, on the other hand, doesn't cut when it comes to piquing interest in the metaverse. NFT was cited as the primary cause by less than 5% of respondents who participated in the metaverse.
NFTs also appear to be more popular among elderly people: In comparison to 63 percent of Gen Z respondents, 84 percent of Gen X respondents stated they would be at least somewhat interested in receiving an NFT from their preferred brand. Again, the metaverse doesn't exist yet, so any survey that asks individuals why they utilize it should be viewed with caution.
The metaverse, however, also doesn't exist. For at least some of the activities we may all engage in in the metaverse in the future, such as gaming, land ownership, and NFT trading, there are many proto-metaverse platforms in use. Brands have started dipping their toes in, typically by endorsing clothing lines and online communities.
Avatars, 3D environments, and games were already popular on Roblox, Minecraft, and Fortnite before Mark Zuckerberg created them. The popularity of immersive visual computing, such as AR and VR, also seems to be expanding, as some analysts currently estimate that Meta has sold close to 15 million Quest 2 headsets since its release in 2020.
So what can a brand do? It also doesn't seem like a winning strategy to ignore all of this new technology or to wait for others to succeed.
According to Zipline's survey, companies who decide to invest some of their marketing budgets in metaverse technology should start by identifying existing successful strategies and then find out how to improve them using immersive technology.
In a survey conducted by the company, 85% of Gen Z respondents, 75% of millennials, and 69% of Gen Xers said they would be interested in hybrid buying experiences, which include the use of mixed reality in both brick and mortar stores and online shopping.
According to Melissa Wong, co-founder, and CEO of Zipline, "the goal is to engage customers with interesting and accessible digital content that lowers the hurdles to entry and meets metaverse users where they are already present." That may be in a well-liked game or a physical business where actual people interact. Just remember that investing millions of dollars in the next remote island won't yield much.