Potentially THE most trending word for 2021, particularly since Facebook renamed themselves to META, “Metaverse” has been the talk of the town. We have heard top CEOs such as Mark Zuckerberg and Satya Nadella right to casual users talk about it. So, what exactly is the “Metaverse”?

According to the New York Times, “The metaverse is the convergence of two ideas that have been around for many years: virtual reality and a digital second life.”

For decades, technologists have dreamed of an era when our virtual lives play as important a role as our physical realities. In theory, we would spend lots of time interacting with our friends and colleagues in virtual space. As a result, we would spend money there, too, on outfits and objects for our digital avatars.” 

The Metaverse in Numbers & Interesting Facts

• The Metaverse market was worth $46 billion in 2020
• The science fiction novel ‘Snow Crash’ coined the “Metaverse” phrase in 1992
• The word ‘Metaverse’ means ‘beyond the universe’
• 38 % of gamers between the age of 10 to 20 in key video game markets have played a proto-metaverse game in 2021.
• Roblox had roughly 50 million daily users in the fourth quarter of 2021.
• The hardware segment dominates the Metaverse industry, with VR gear sales are set to hit $10 billion in 2022

The word is booming, and so is its value — according to a Bloomberg report from December 2021, the metaverse market will grow to nearly $800 billion by 2024, further reinstating the rising interest in shared worlds, 3D interactions, the convergence of digital and physical worlds. 

The report further goes to state that, Gaming, AR, VR create a $413 billion primary market. Within this primary market opportunity that may reach $412.9 billion in 2024 vs. $274.9 billion in 2020, software and services revenue as well as in-game advertising revenue accounts for about 70% of the total market size. Gaming hardware, including gaming PCs and peripherals and AR/VR hardware such as Facebook’s Oculus, accounts for the remainder of the primary market opportunity. 

Live events, social ads can double market. The ability to bring live events such as concerts, film showings and sports into 3D virtual worlds represent additional opportunities for game makers as they elevate online experiences into 3D social worlds to capitalize on the Metaverse opportunity. 

Looking good in the metaverse. 

Gamers already have a long history of using clothes and accessories to establish their virtual identities, and there’s every indication that metaverse users will do the same. Executives of luxury brands are taking the trend seriously and moving quickly to capitalize on the opportunity to sell virtual versions of their products to people in the metaverse. 

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg expects this niche to be big in the metaverse. Zuckerberg says, “Avatars will be as common as profile pictures today, but instead of a static image, they’re going to be living 3D representations of you, your expressions, your gestures that are going to make interactions much richer than anything that’s possible online today. You’ll probably have a photo realistic avatar for work, a stylized one for hanging out, and maybe even a fantasy one for gaming. You’re going to have a wardrobe of virtual clothes for different occasions designed by different creators and from different apps and experiences.”

Here’s a look at some of our favourite luxury brands that have stepped into the digital realm. 

GUCCI x ROBLOX

The Italian fashion house’s NFT experiment was launched in May 2021 when Gucci unveiled its first NFT-related product. Interestingly, it wasn’t really about fashion for its centenary celebrations. It is a four-minute film, Aria, co-created by Gucci’s creative director Alessandro Michele and director Floria Sigismondi to accompany a runway show by the former.

As part of the “Proof of Sovereignty” sale organised by Lady PheOnix, a digital artist, the film sold for USD 25,000 by art auction house Christie’s. All proceeds from the sale would go to UNICEF USA for COVID-19 vaccine initiatives.
This is not the first time Gucci stepped into the metaverse. It had unveiled one of its first ranges of digital fashion products, and it wasn’t even considered an NFT.

LOUIS VUITTON

Last year, Louis Vuitton celebrated its second centenary. To pay homage to its founder, an adventure-based game – Louis the Game – was released.

The mobile game follows the character of Vivienne through six worlds, collecting 200 candles to commemorate the birthday of Louis Vuitton.

The brand created its own story and world to explore, similar to a role-playing game (RPG) you’d find on the PlayStation. On starting the game, you enter a world where you can run around and collect items while customizing your character in Louis Vuitton fashion wear.

To add to all of that, 30 NFTs created by artist Beeple were placed around the game for players to find.

Like many other brands, Louis Vuitton is tapping into ways it can reach younger audiences without turning them off by having to purchase anything.

However, these NFTs, unlike other blockchain games, cannot be traded on any marketplaces, making them purely digital collectables.

BALENCIAGE X FORTNITE

Like many high-end fashion brands, Balenciaga has also ventured into the metaverse and near the end of 2021 was the first to take on Fortnite. Players of the open-world video game could purchase digital outfits inspired by real-life Balenciaga pieces from its virtual boutique.

While most of the merchandise had to be purchased, some items could be unlocked, like Balenciaga’s Triple S Sneakers.The hub was live for one week only and players could hang out with each other, try on outfits in changing booths and add the brand’s merch to their inventories.

And to tie this into the real world, a series of clothing would also be available in select Balenciaga stores and website. To top it all off, fans who would buy real-life apparel could also unlock the Balenciaga outfits in Fortnite.

BURBERRY

The British luxury fashion house collaborated with Mythical Games to launch its first NFT in the latter’s game titled Blankos Block Party. If you are a passionate collector of toys in the real world, then be assured to be hooked on to this virtual world full of vinyl toys called Blankos.

The multiplayer game allows players to buy and trade NFT toys and has several gaming modes and levels where they can enjoy completing various quests and challenges. Burberry’s limited-edition and limited-quantity NFT in this Mythical Games gaming arena is called Shark B, which is a shark figurine bearing the TB Summer logo.
The fashion house has also launched many NFT accessories that can be bought for Shark B and used on any other Blanko in this game.

NIKE x RFTKT

Sneaker enthusiasts can try on the new pieces from the Nike range, but they cannot be worn in real life. Entering the virtual NFT world, the sneaker giant acquired the digital sneaker brand RTKFT on 14 December 2021.

Established in 2020, RTKFT was co-founded by Benoit Pagotto, Chris Le and Steven Vasilev and is dedicated to blurring the lines between sports, gaming and sportswear. In early 2021, RTFKT teamed up with “Fewocious”, a popular crypto artist, and sold around 600 pairs of shoes, fetching a whopping USD 3.1 million in under seven minutes.

RTKFT launched a virtual “try on” session of the sneakers on Snapchat, after which bidders could enter the digital auction. The winners were given the physical shoes, but the real coveted asset remains the digital ones.

Found this article interesting? Read more from my Blog SHARM’s TAKE

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Empowering Girls in The Gambia

Sponsor a Gambian Girl (SaGG) is a non-profit organization which seeks to sustainably empower girls and women in The Gambia through education. Convinced that a better future is built and maintained through education, and conscious of the fact that millions of girls around the world lack basic support to access quality education, SaGG intends to focus its intervention on linking schoolgirls in The Gambia  with potential sponsors in the United Kingdom, Germany and other countries.^[1]

The client SaGG is looking at enhancing their digital marketing tools and practices to grow their online presence and awareness. For this the WBS Social Media Clinic has conducted with a review and social media audit of SaGG four social platforms

A social media audit helps you understand what’s happening on each network. You’ll be able to spot at a glance ^[2]:

• what’s working and what’s not
• whether impostor accounts are stealing your fans
• which outdated profiles you need to revive, repurpose, or shut down
• new opportunities to grow and engage your audience.

Company Audit

While SaGG has a presence in all 4 major social media networks, the content is duplicated and not curated towards the individual platform target market. Audience consume content differently across the various platforms, thus the repetitiveness, lack of diversification and platform relevant content by SaGG is the reason for its low engagement rates across all channels.

Social listening allows you to track sentiment in real-time, so you can know right away if there’s a significant change in how much people are talking about you or the mood behind what they say. It’s like an early warning system that alerts you to positive and negative changes in how your brand is perceived online ^[3] Due to the lack of engagement in SaGG platforms, a detailed social listening exercise was challenging to complete and gain insight of the audiences’ sentiment.

Consumer Audit

The SaGG Foundation‘s primary target audience consists of women aged between 21 and 40, with a university background, and interested in gender equality, women’s education, and activism. The charity manages to reach this audience on Instagram, where the percentage of female users is much higher than that of male users (72.9% vs. 27.1%) [4]. However for Facebook, their male audience have a slighter greater presence (52.3% vs. 47.7%) . However, both platforms address the right audience in terms of age, as most followers are aged between 18 and 44 [4].

Competitor Audit

For a competitor analysis, Plan International UK was reviewed. This NGO was chosen for their style of communication. Referring to the image above, it is noticeable that, while the messaging on the content is same, the style of communication is differentiated based on the social media platform used. This is very important to note as followers consume these platforms very differently.

Recommendation

1. SaGG Foundation needs to align its brand content on all digital platforms. While the logo and website are predominately in a deep Maroon shade. All social media messaging is in pink. While it is understood that the main target are females and the pink might be more appealing, there is a lack of brand recognition and continuance from website to social platforms.
2. Content needs to be communicated differently by platforms.While the messaging can be the same, the tonality and structure needs to change. For example, LinkedIn talks to more business-minded individual and B2B communications. Messaging here should be based on how to attract more corporate sponsorship, with infographics. The chart below shows a comparison of the different social media platforms and how followers consume the content.

References

[1] SaGG Foundation (no date, a). Sponsor a Girl Child The Gambia. SaGG Foundation. Available from https://www.saggfoundation.org/about-us.html [Accessed 28 March 2022].

[2] How to Conduct a Social Media Audit. HootSuite. Available from https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-audit-template/  [Accessed 28 March 2022].

[3] What is Social Listening, Why it Matters, and 10 Tools to Make it Easier. HootSuite. Available fromhttps://blog.hootsuite.com/social-listening-business/ [Accessed 30 March 2022].

[4] SaGG Foundation (no date, c). SaGG Social Media Audience Report. Blackboard. Available from Blackboard (Social Media and Content Marketing module) [Accessed 30 March 2022].

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