The metaverse talk over the past year has unlocked the creativity of marketers in imagining how they will engage customers in the digital and virtual future. In the coming year, many of these ideas will be viable, depending on the maturity of the platforms and the efforts marketers make to meet customers where they are.

It’s not just talking. Big brands like Samsung, Under Armor and Walmart have implemented long-term commitments on multiple fronts in virtual worlds and with virtual goods. Metaverse-related activations are in about half of marketers’ immediate plans, or are being considered.

This is the shape some of those plans will take in the coming year.

Back to Marketing Basics

Virtual worlds and augmented reality experiences have the potential to reach customers in new and immersive ways. Marketers will focus on VR and AR experiences and, following recent crypto crashes, are likely to delay NFT activations tied to cryptocurrency value.

“I think there’s definitely a sense of reality check on the crypto side of the metaverse,” said Andrew Frank, Gartner vice president distinguished analyst. “I think we will see marketing organizations become much more practical and realistic about the value of these technologies. They will be looking at how they can use these technologies to improve loyalty and make reward coins more secure.”

This “return to marketing basics” means marketers will stick to long-term loyalty and data strategies that can be improved with new technology. For example, NFTs and other digital tokens can offer discounts, like a coupon, without being confused with cryptocurrency investments.

“You can have [brand] advocacy without getting involved in all this value of crypto as an investment vehicle,” Frank said.

“Another application of NFTs is the idea that you can selectively disclose your interests and intentions to a seller,” Frank added. “Instead of collecting permissions, you can use that [blockchain-based] loyalty card to express interest in products and general preferences.”

NFT in loyalty programs

“The recent FTX crash has created a lot of uncertainty and fear within the cryptocurrency/NFT market, but despite this situation, we are still seeing a lot of interest from brands to launch web3 activations,” said Laura Connell, Trend Manager at consumption for consumers. analysis and information company GWI. “Because the focus of the metaverse is on community, brands will find different and new ways for consumers to digitally engage with and with each other.”

For example, web3 users can purchase an NFT that unlocks certain privileges, just like traditional rewards programs. Because the NFT is backed by a decentralized blockchain ledger, data related to customer engagement is not a private asset held by a company or third party. It’s on the blockchain, not in a company’s database.

“We can expect to see brands start to get more involved with NFTs as they prepare for these digital activations in their loyalty and rewards programs,” Connell said. “As we’ve already seen with Nike, Swoosh and Starbucks, rewarding engaged community members is the new era of brand marketing and customer retention.”

He added: “Within web3, we see NFTs as a brand loyalty program that could identify and heal a closer group of consumers than ever before.”

Discover cues and social interactions

Virtual worlds and tokens are new to both consumers and marketers. As brands get bolder and the space matures, they will learn more about how users interact in this new environment.

“We are beginning to see ‘metaverse quotes’, RFPs and internal ‘metaverse teams’ as companies formally commit to the metaverse beyond simply ‘testing the waters,’” said Alex Howland, president and co-founder of virtual world platform Virbela. “These innovators will discover more about the social signals that enable complex interactions, and how they can scale well beyond what video conferencing accommodates.”

“A robust ecosystem of diverse social environments will be an exciting exploration for companies in the metaverse in 2023,” said Sheldon Brown, co-founder and vice president of product design and innovation at Virbella. “[These environments are] reflecting how we move between our real world environments and emphasizing aspects of ourselves in different ways, in different contexts.

The rise of gaming influencers

As game marketers already know, the gaming ecosphere has its own rising stars. Look for more brands to tap into these thriving communities in the coming year.

“[This] it will be the year marketers embrace partnerships with gaming influencers, even if there are no obvious direct ties to the gaming community,” said Alexander Frolov, co-founder and CEO of influencer marketing platform HypeAuditor. “While gamers’ primary platform may be Twitch or a similar streaming service, they often have a following on other social media platforms, such as Instagram and YouTube. For example, Samsung, Red Bull and even Hershey are some of the brands that already have partnerships with Ninja, the most followed game streamer on Twitch. We expect to see a surplus of non-gaming brands following in its wake.”

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About the Author

Chris Wood has over 15 years of journalistic experience as an editor and B2B journalist. At DMN, he served as Associate Editor and provided original analysis on the evolving marketing technology landscape. He has interviewed leaders in technology and policy, from Canva CEO Melanie Perkins to former Cisco CEO John Chambers to Vivek Kundra, appointed by Barack Obama as the country’s first federal CIO. He is especially interested in how new technologies, including voice and blockchain, are disrupting the world of marketing as we know it. In 2019, he moderated a panel on “innovation theatre” at the Fintech Inn in Vilnius. In addition to his marketing-focused reporting on industry trades such as Robotics Trends, Modern Brewery Age, and AdNation News, Wood has also written for KIRKUS and contributes fiction, criticism, and poetry to several leading book blogs. He studied English at Fairfield University and was born in Springfield, Massachusetts. He lives in New York.