The metaverse is still very much on the agenda, although the initial hype and novelty have subsided a little. I think that’s a good thing - now we can get on with creating some awesome work.
Here at Blend Media we work with brands and businesses to help them understand the potential of XR, NFT’s and the metaverse and we thought it was a good time to note down some of our learnings over the last 6 months.
The metaverse is still being built and defined. However, it is evolving at pace and there have been some interesting companies diving into this space, from financial institutions like JP Morgan & HSBC through to brands such as Samsung and Heineken.
Whilst the term 'metaverse' appears to be evolving into an all encompassing term for any 3D interface, it's still an exciting opportunity and furthermore, with Goldman Sachs predicting that it is an $8bn dollar opportunity, we will spend a lot of time and money in it, so worth understanding its potential.
Why? Without going all Simon Sinek on you, thinking about why you are doing this is probably THE most important thing. Are you doing this to appeal to a new demographic? Is it a PR stunt? Is it to test and learn? All perfectly valid reasons, it's just helpful to understand your ‘why’ before thinking about your metaverse strategy.
Who? Think about your audience, the people who you want to engage with, whether it is the employees in your organisation, or new and existing customers. It's important to consider the customer experience and, as you would with any new platform or digital channel, what value can you bring to them?
What? Think specifically about how you would measure the success of this experience in the metaverse, what are you looking to achieve and how are you going to measure that? An understanding of the data points available is helpful as well as thinking about softer metrics and how you might measure these. For example, how does it make you feel? Or more operational metrics such as time taken to build, launch, effort versus reward.
Where? This relates back to your audience and who you are trying to communicate or engage with will help determine the best platform to use. As with many digital activations, it's important to consider a wider strategy in terms of awareness and accessibility. Also worth noting here, one of the key attributes of the metaverse is that it's persistent, so as with your social channels, if this is a brand experience it needs to be moderated because it is always live.
When? No time like the present, we are working with a number of brands and businesses whose awareness and understanding of the potential of XR and the metaverse varies from complete novices to knowing exactly what they want and just need some support in delivering it. It's a great time to start exploring and thinking about how you could potentially use XR and metaverse experiences for your brand or business. Explore, learn and more importantly, ask questions!
We are happy to help answer any of those questions so if you’d like to have a chat, please get in touch Hello@blend.media or book a call.