The metaverse is being talked about everywhere, and it seems as though every Big Tech company wants to put down stakes in it, from Facebook to Microsoft, Google, and Apple. But what is the metaverse, really? An often-used online definition is “the sum of all virtual worlds, augmented reality (AR), and the Internet,” which is rather broad. Whatever it is, the consensus is that the metaverse is the next big thing in technology.
Examples of things labeled “metaverse” are the immersive online games your kids (or you—no judgment here) might be playing, such as Roblox, Fortnite, or Minecraft. Or you may be into virtual spaces such as Sandbox or Decentraland (pssst…want to buy some virtual property?).
While these games and yes, worlds, are largely designed for entertainment, the metaverse is destined to touch a much larger part of our business lives as well. Mark Zuckerberg, along with renaming Facebook to Meta last year, is positioning the company to provide tools for people to work together better without actually being together. Other leading companies are pioneering AR and virtual reality (VR) in education, engineering/construction (the physical kind), and trade shows.
Early metaverse applications for everyday life already include experiential, virtual visits to museums and concerts, and 3D images on our smartphones that enable a better look at items we might purchase – whether a hamburger at a diner, a new couch, or a luxury automobile. The potential uses are, pardon the pun, virtually limitless.
I’m a B2B Marketer. How Does the Metaverse Pertain to Me?
Consumer brands targeting early adopters—names as diverse as Chipotle, Pepsi, Gucci, and JPMorgan—are diving in, and in big, bold ways. Even esteemed auction house Sotheby’s has opened a virtual gallery in Decentraland. These companies utilize the nascent metaverse as just one more, albeit more innovative, channel for reaching their audiences where they are, or hope they soon will be.
Of course, the metaverse also has potential within the B2B world that goes beyond concepts of virtual offices, meeting rooms, and your avatar co-workers. For instance, consider the ability to create training videos, marketing segments, or product demos using interactive AR and 3D modeling. Or imagine a hologram of a salesperson cast from a smartphone to help answer a prospect’s questions and deliver product spec sheets right to their desktop.
Accelerated by the pandemic, virtual events such as trade shows and conferences are already taking place with the ability to “walk” the show floors, visit vendor booths, and engage with attendees in real time who are using icons or avatars to represent themselves. Such events are relying on metaverse-style technologies to create a more authentic, immersive experience.
And, just as in the B2C world, B2B marketers that choose to leverage the metaverse are only limited by their imaginations. The companies that find innovative, authentic ways to engage audiences will reap the market and mind share.
If you think about it, since the early days, our ways of reaching audiences have been evolving constantly, starting with the horse-and-buggy salesperson, and advancing sequentially to newspapers, radio, television, and finally the Internet. If modems that plugged into the phone jack (remember those?) were representative of Internet 1.0, social media and mobile could be considered Internet 2.0, when we first began to interact with prospects digitally. The key advances in Internet 3.0, or Web3, is how an interconnected metaverse will further enhance our ability to engage with audiences.
To be certain, the metaverse is amorphous, and for marketers especially, a bit of the Wild, Wild West right now. Much has yet to be developed, like proper tracking metrics and ROI measurements, and many (most?) early campaigns simply won’t be successful. But, like panning for gold, there are riches to be found for those willing to explore.