The Metaverse Unwrapped
The metaverse – a concept that many of us can’t quite comprehend. Many companies, including our own clients, such as adidas, are taking the plunge into the virtual world. So naturally, we wanted a crash course to try to understand what it all means.
Nick Tuckwood, VP of Marketing at Petaverse Network, graciously tried his best to give us first-timers an overview. He originally met Dave, Jessica and Nathan during his fifteen years of working on the agency side. Now, he sells digital pets for the metaverse… Pretty cool right?
How do you define the metaverse?
There are several opinions. But Nick argues that because everyone experiences it differently, it should be based on a set of principles, rather than a uniform definition or platform. These principles include:
Interaction: Any metaverse has to have a social element.
Spacial: There needs to be a way of feeling like you’re part of the same environment/universe.
Shared: You can’t experience the metaverse on your own, it wouldn’t be fulfilling the purpose of it.
Persistent: If you leave the metaverse, the game isn’t shut down for everyone – it is an omnipresent world.
So now knowing these main principles, where/how do we begin? Nick discussed Decentraland as a great place to start. Essentially, it is a platform that runs on Ethereum (which is blockchain currency in case you were wondering, cause we were). Those who login can generate their own avatar to interact with a network of users to explore, interact, play games, attend events, etc.
Since everyone is different, Nick believes that there will never be a single metaverse because at the end of the day, people want different digital experiences. He believes that this space will continue to expand when wearables improve to include augmented reality experiences, giving us the power to physically interact and be surrounded by these digital environments… My first VR stop will be the beach!
What does this mean for brands?
Nick emphasised that for brands to succeed in this space, they need to re-evaluate their outlook. They need to be less extractive in regards to getting value out of the customer to instead deliver value back to them.
He mentioned that fashion houses – which tend to have lots of disposable income – have been very keen to explore future trends. For example, platforms such as DRESSX are becoming ‘fashion flexes’ in the metaverse and real world. They allow users to represent themselves any way that they like. These virtual realities are also exploring the idea of digital/physical twinning, where a user can buy something on the blockchain and get both the wearable and physical/tangible twin.
There’s so much possibility, so to brands we say: the virtual world is your oyster.
Our main takeaway from Nick was that the metaverse is all about doing something you can’t do in the real world, while moving in a truly borderless space. Geographically speaking, it doesn’t matter where you are because we can see the same thing, share the experience and interact with each other, all at the same time.
In Nick’s words:
“The power of the metaverse is unshackling us from the universe”... So go take part and find your tribe.