Metaverse: will it serve brands with greater CX - or worse?

Young man wearing a virtual reality headset

Looking past the excitement of what it might become, we consider opportunities and deficits for customer experiences.

The Trend

What is the Metaverse? The word describes a fully immersive, digital world beyond where we live. Coined in 1992 by Neal Stephenson’s novel “Snow Crash.” Looking for a guide? My agency, Razorfish has a great starter article on the metaverse.

Within internet tech chatter, there seems to be nothing more talked about right now than the emergence of the metaverse. Yes, it’s actually been developing since the early 2000’s with such games like Second Life. Some would argue that the Metaverse is gaming 2.0. Others might argue it’s a far off dream found in books such as Ernest Cline’s “Ready Player One” which later became a movie. Some might even discuss it’s just one large marketing playland like Lauren Jackson of the New York Times argued. One thing is for sure, it’s not going away, and continues to grow. Citibank recently projected it will be worth between 8 to 13 Trillion in value by 2030 and five billion users. It’s clearly not going away. As a bit of a futurist and marketing professional, I believe there is great potential both for brands and customers alike. Yet I was skeptical at first, which I talk about next. I’m rather proud of my talented co-workers who worked on Samsung’s 837x project that was stood up in an insane, four weeks time.

“The total addressable market for the Metaverse could be between $8 trillion and $13 trillion by 2030, with total Metaverse users numbering around five billion.”

— Citi GPS: Global Perspectives & Solutions Team

There are certainly a great deal of challenges, from standards to accessibility. Here we are focusing only on the customer experience. What your brand needs to consider when pulling the trigger, as well targets for ensuring CX success.

Another Take

Honestly, when I first began exploring the metaverse a few years ago, I was rather skeptical of any wide adoption. When I tried it, I found it at first, fascinating to know what the potential was. Soon, I could easily see how it could be rather disorienting and challenging to interact with objects and people. You can easily bruise your hand, as I painfully did, with low level ceilings. My marked up basement ceiling still has a christening of this painful learning lesson. As I began to see the evolution and improvements, it certainly became a stronger tool. Accenture, who I used to work at, now gives all of its employees VR goggles and gear in their onboarding to have metaverse training sessions. I spoke to a former colleague I worked with recently who indeed raised how more of their leadership conferences and group meetings are happening in the metaverse. It was especially was elevated in utilization when the pandemic hit as human resource teams needed to use these tools as a supplement to in-person meetings. He mentioned that while it is rather exciting to see this happen, it still creates experiences that are a struggle to navigate. I certainly hope to see more discussions on how to apply the metaverse successfully. We have seen gaming companies like Epic Games, create amazing community experiences and concerts in collaboration with artists using their popular Fortnite gaming platform during the pandemic that drew record crowds. Having attended these concerts, I have seen how immersive and well done they are. It is important to note that they served a specific purpose, and once the crowds subsided, you were left with a shell that seemed empty and unused. Just as in real life, an empty theme park such as six flags can be rather boring if you don’t have friends and family around. Imagine having your customers navigate a long, empty queue lines and a near empty amphitheater with inability to taste of popcorn when your brand expectations were to have more of an intimate experience on a first date. Design these experiences for what they are intended to serve and know their limitations.

Travis Scott performed in Fortnite, drawing over 27.7 million unique players in-game participated live 45.8 million times across the five events that connected with Travis Scott’s Astronomical branding.

To clarify some greater recommendations, I'll summarize some finer points here for greater success.

Define your metaverse goals, and then see how - or if - they align right now to your brand vision (or what we at CX Ops refer to as Brand Foresight). Does the experience match how the brand purpose serves your existing or new customers? I would imagine a company such as Patagonia would be conscious of the amount of energy to sustain a metaverse or NFT token before they considered transporting customers to a virtual Patagonia or Galapagos Islands to see wildlife conservation efforts. Although their customers may welcome these educational experiences, they would also want to know what Patagonia is doing with carbon credits or solar arrays that power these experiences.
Do some customer research and prototype these experiences. What do you know about your customers and who would be willing to explore these experiences? Not all of your customers are going to be looking for the metaverse. This is good news! From here you can begin testing out your experiences on a strategy. Once you know your customers and how your brand serves them, you can begin prototyping these experiences and even conduct some qualitative research with that identified customer base. Understand what the experience needs to serve. You may even start by piggyback on such experiences as a starting point. Last year, the brand Gucci sold a virtual Gucci bag in the metaverse Roblox for $4,115, which was more than the actual purse it represented, retailing for $3,400 in an actual retail store. Brands are quickly realizing the potential as customers are moving their expectations and lifestyles in real life, to the metaverse. Agencies, such as my own, can help with this research and prototyping.
Make sure you are creating great experiences, not shiny objects. If don’t have a clear vision of what great CX is with your customers in real life (IRL), the metaverse could easily be a shiny object that quickly oxidizes when executed. An example would be an airline brand that that offers to experience remote locations virtually but the queue requires painful wait times consistent with airport delays.
Insure you have enough customer equity, or currency with your brand. Before you begin experimenting, realize that experiments actually take patience from trials of success and errors. From solid customer research, you should have an honest understand of what your customers love about you. This is a currency that you can use, but be careful as you cash it in with new experiences in the metaverse. Some may be a hit, others may fall flat depending on expectations. If you’re an airline with major delay perceptions attributed to your brand, be wary of experiences that may compound those delays. Companies like Samsung likely have enough brand equity with certain customers who are eager to get into anything new, known as early adopters. They are the ones who buy the first folding phone from them. The company also knows that as it builds out these experiences for more visitors who would experience the metaverse, it must also respond. They are testing and learning what is working - or not work currently, to optimize and improve before those customers join the party. Those lagging adopters will not carry as much brand equity as the early innovators do.
Consider starting small. If you’re not sure where to start, consider what you might have done to date with augmented or IoT experiences. Have to tried augmenting some experiences in limited capacities such as product or service? Have you played with RFID or QR codes that expand on certain experiences? What have the reactions been that worked - and fell short? You can learn a great deal from how people have already augmented with your brand - both their passions and patience. Remember, Gucci didn’t have to build an entire Roman colosseum metaverse experience to reap the rewards, they just had to design a few desirable products virtually.
Measure everything you possibly can. This has become a challenge right now given that these metaverse platforms are still young in their metrics, or unwilling to share them. They may be citing privacy concerns, rightly so, but there is always opportunities to anonymize this data. If you’ve been reading any marketing articles, or have strong leadership within your agency partners, you’ll know that customer data is king. Knowing how your customers gravitate towards, interact, and get excited with these experiences is worth more than gold as you continue to optimize them with products and services. When Nike recently acquired a studio who builds NFT sneakers for the metaverse, it wasn’t to cut off access to competitors, it was to measure how people are customizing them as improve their products including their existing Nike ID retail experiences. To quote their news release “Our plan is to invest in the RTFKT brand, serve and grow their innovative and creative community and extend Nike’s digital footprint and capabilities.”

What It Means

There is so much opportunity out there today. The metaverse is moving faster in technology and adoption than the internet. Know who your customers are and connect them to your brand vision. Create experiences that are as good or greater than they are having right now with your brand, given certain recognizable sensory limitations (such as smell or feel). Make sure you have enough brand equity as you roll out these experiences knowing they may fall short, and consider starting small. Lastly, measure everything you can about how your customers are experiencing this. Are they enjoying these experiences? What else do you need to do to meet their demands? Where do you go next? How do we apply this to real-life experiences?

These are all exciting times to be in. Just make sure you have enough ceiling height when you jump in.

Sources

What are your thoughts about how the metaverse can impact customer experiences? Feel free to start a conversation below and join our community here.