A lot of the worlds we see around us have evolved over time. As such, this has given creatives more opportunities to explore different ways of thinking and making an impact with their work. This has also meant that with the quick-evolving nature of technology, creatives are tasked with constantly thinking about how they can best use new technologies to enhance their creativity.
Web 3.0, blockchain, metaverse, NFTs… these are all the kinds of new terms we are hearing in the evolving worlds around us. “It’s really just about this more fully immersive version of the internet,” Rolfe said. “The only limit is our imagination.”
In essence, the core qualities of the metaverse expand on the autonomy of the user. It integrates physical and digital worlds while being persistent and synchronous. The user is in control, bringing to life how they can be in charge of the metaverse.
The idea is that there isn’t one organisation that rules over the metaverse. “No one entity controls or owns it,” Rolfe said. “It’s meant to be interoperable and can be traversed in that these different entities, these different worlds that exist in it, you can actually move across them without having to log on to a different one.”
From a brand perspective, it is essential to think about this from the interoperability aspect and the experience the given brand wants to create for its customers. Where do they want to be, where do they want to go and how do they want to engage with your brand? These are the kinds of questions imperative to a successful brand relationship in the metaverse.
“It’s less about [panicking] about it,” McKechnie said. “But there is going to be a point where the metaverse truly unveils itself and all the capabilities.”
It is essential to remember that the metaverse is just starting, so being experimental is probably the best foot forward at this stage. ‘Because it’s so new, there’s definitely going to be some falters along the way,” McKechnie said. “Brands are showing up in many different ways. They’re trying to define what their footprint will be in this space and what is their role within it.”
Rolfe and McKechnie believe that it’s all going to be about understanding how to effectively bridge the physical and digital. For marketers, it will be helpful to figure out how to break through all the clutter that exists in this space, currently, to ultimately see where the metaverse will land and how they should be leveraging the technology.
The ideal thing about the metaverse being so new is that it is a rich platform for learning. “As technologies get better, it becomes more of that metaverse like experience,” Rolfe said. “We’ve had learnings - how do we do them differently? How do we think about things a bit more - like a programme versus a once-off activation? How do we not just throw away past tech and how do we keep leveraging that to make more and better things?”
Sometimes, when something doesn’t work, our immediate reaction is to throw it all away. Perhaps, though, this is not the way to do it when traversing something like the metaverse. Instead, we should be thinking about how we can reintroduce an idea that we return to in a way that works a little better this time.
“The idea of the metaverse is to really look at this through a community-first, not just a corporate-first approach,” Rolfe said. “How are we building, with that community in mind, the kinds of experiences that people want?”
At the end of the day, now is the time to invest in understanding how the community can be involved in the creative process, as well as making sure that brands onboard new talent and educational opportunities to expertly traverse the metaverse.
“Get your feet wet there,” Rolfe said. “You don’t really know and learn until you do it yourself.”
