Go where your audience goes
You’re a brand marketeer. Your job is to bring your brand to its rightful audience. But what if you can’t find it anywhere? Your audience isn’t watching television, it’s ghosted Facebook and hasn’t read a magazine for ages. Well, times are changing and so is your audience. When everything moves, so do marketeers. So, how about we find your audience and do some reconnecting? I, for one, am pretty convinced Web3 and the metaverse are developments that will help you design new customer journeys to reach your audience, where they are.
Luckily the future doesn’t happen, it’s built by people. You are people.
I get it, all new technological developments give rise to question marks. Rightly so. But here’s a little message for the sceptics: your audience has turned off their television. For quite sometime now. So, time for you to set aside your hesitance and doubts. Facebook had to announce major layoffs, yes, but not in their Meta department. In fact, they are continuously increasing investments in the Metaverse. They’re even called Meta now. That’s some hardcore belief right there. With every generation, your audience has become more adept at gaming. By the time Gen A starts working, basically, everybody will be a gamer. Hence, Microsoft bought American video game holding company, Activision Blizzard, for 69 billion dollars, calling it ‘the building blocks of the Metaverse’.
It’s all about the kids
A virtual world is the most normal thing in the world for kids today. They navigate it like it's a playground. Effortless. Fearless. It’s their expectations that push the change we see all around us. Kids have a vote in deciding what is normal, and they vote virtually. This change is happening beyond the younger generation, though. The fashion industry has proven quick to adapt (or adopt). Many luxury brands are moving into the world of gaming, too. Because, well, you have to wear something in the world? Can’t be seen running around naked in the Metaverse. So, in come the fashionistas, with everything an avatar could need.
If you want to interact with the younger generations, you need to be where they are.
Vans, Nike and Gucci are extremely popular on Roblox. They help you express your own identity in this virtual realm. Closer to home, we saw household name JBC making its first moves on the virtual stage with great success. Over 55k people visited the JBC world to engage with the brand. Smart move: they asked Camille, world-famous in Belgium, to give a performance that made attendance skyrocket. On a side note: she only needed two hours to record that performance in the studio. Talk about scaling up! Camille had to perform in Antwerp’s Lotto Arena for five days to reach the same audience IRL.
It’s the story, stupid
Why would we need a game? We don’t want a virtual world. And that Metaverse business has nothing to do with ours. (Boomer alarm!) Did we need a television? Was the iPhone a necessary development? And were social media a complete waste of the marketing budget? No, no, and no. Is the metaverse the new place to meet your audience? Very likely. Your brand is a story, and it wants to be told. But where you tell that story is of immense importance. The medium makes or breaks the message. So get off that sinking ship called Facebook, pull away your troops from the television and regroup. Your future audience wants an experience. The boundaries between virtual and analogue are superfluous to them. A story, to them, doesn’t stick unless it's immersive.
A story doesn’t stick unless it’s immersive.
And that is exactly what the Metaverse makes possible. Instead of the usual one-directional broadcasting, you and your audience become one and write the story together. Interactivity is the default setting, turning, and your customers become your teammates. If you want them to, that is. You can also pass on the future and let them click ‘skip ad’ every time your commercial comes on. Ouch. In mildly dramatic terms: adapt or die.
