Walking Into The Metaverse: Marketing Club Webinar Review
Exploring The Future Of Marketing
Kickstarting 2023 with the first CIM Marketing Club webinar of the year ‘Walking Into The Metaverse – Exploring The Future Of Marketing’ streamed on Wednesday 8th February. The webinar was led by Virginia Bray, Senior Director and Co-Founder of Marketing Fusion and Ben Fryer Metaverse specialist and Co-Founder of Diverse Interactive. Virginia also led a webinar last year on metahumans, you can go back and watch this here.
The webinar begins with a brief introduction of both speakers, Bray started by explaining about having more of a ‘traditional’ marketing background working for a content marketing agency and consultancy working with B2B, tech and SAS clients. Fryer mentions his business is part of a modern and up and coming outlook on marketing, specialising in helping brands and enterprises using transformative technologies such as AR, VR etc. Bray then included a QR code for listeners to engage with and answer a poll to understand where listeners are in their marketing journey to make sure that things in the webinar would be being addressed at the correct level. Interestingly 48% of people were senior level marketers, closely followed by 23% students and 21% junior level markers.
Fryer begins his Q&A by defining the Metaverse as a convergence of technologies, it is becoming the next generation of the internet, spatial content, and new ways of consuming that. Some examples of platforms where people can use VR today such as Roblox, Facebook horizons. This is only the beginning of entering this space and Fryer moves on to explain that this technology is getting ‘better and better’ every day.
Many people may be wondering about whether the hype around the metaverse is justified. Bray asks Fryer if we are still at the ‘early adopter’ stage of the cycle where he goes on to explain that most people understand or have a concept of what AR or VR means. He suggests that the metaverse is valuable and it can make a difference as it is entering our lives. Over the next 10 years the journey into the spatial internet is going to become the norm, Fryer claims.
Nike is a company which are doing a really good job utilising the metaverse creating ‘Nikeland’ on Roblox. Finding out where their customers are and utilising this to target that audience. Fryer says you need to build enough of an experience to make it worthwhile, by building a great virtual experience showroom. It is perfect for creating brand awareness, millions of Roblox users walking around in Nike trainers.
Conclusion and Application
Overall, it was helpful to see how industries outside of gaming can utilise VR and the metaverse. Working in the double-glazing industry there is hesitance surrounding the metaverse and whether it is worth investing in. An example that I think could work well in my industry would be the idea that was shared about ‘digital twins’. Creating a realistic virtual environment which can be customised depending on the customer the sales team are visiting. Showing customers different products and allow them to interact with them. Allowing them to get a life size example of the product and how this may work in their space, it could revolutionise the sales process. However, I don’t think the metaverse is there yet for companies with an older audience to invest. It will be interesting to see where we are in a few years.
A recording of this webinar will be made available on the CIM YouTube channel, you can watch this here.
About the Author:
Dan Bratton ACIM is a Marketing Assistant at Tradeglaze (Lincoln) Ltd, an award-winning manufacturer of glass and glazing products based in Lincoln. Dan is BA Photography graduate of Nottingham Trent University achieving upper-second class honours. Graduating with my MSc in Digital Marketing from Nottingham Trent University with Distinction.
Dan attended Sichuan University’s International Summer School to study Journalism in 2018 and also received a Santander travel scholarship to fund his studies in China.