通过虚拟世界、NFTs和沉浸式体验，各品牌正在尝试接触新一代的消费者。

11月，NASCAR（美国纳斯卡车赛）将启动跨年度计划，希望通过广受欢迎的Roblox社区，将自己的品牌更好的打入广大年轻玩家群体。首先，NASCAR会在Roblox的越狱游戏中放入数字汽车，并售卖游戏服饰。作为粉丝竞赛的一部分，玩家可以设计属于他们的NASCAR服饰，同时游戏开发者还会借助他们的影响力，在自己的社交媒体上进行宣传。

NASCAR 这次针对用户的活跃行为，对于各品牌来说是一个很好的例子。它展现了如何在被称为“元宇宙”的空间中投放广告，以此来触达新用户，并且满足那些已经习惯数字场景的消费者的需求。

元宇宙首次出现在尼尔·斯蒂芬森 1991 年的小说《雪崩》中，对它的最初畅想是一个去中心化的开放互联网。在这里，用户可以使用虚拟形象在数字世界中移动和交互，还可以跨平台交易数字产品。

尽管互操作性还有很长一段路要走，但是“元宇宙”这一词已经成为了新数字、沉浸式和社交空间的统称，它不仅包含了Roblox、Fortnite、Zen Racing等游戏社区, 还有NFTs、VR、AR、加密货币以及类似 Decentraland的在线市场等，这些都在疫情期间在世界范围内迅速流行起来。

“每个品牌和公司都需要制定针对元宇宙的相关策略。” Futures Intelligence Group （专注于元宇宙的咨询机构）首席元宇宙官兼首席执行官 Cathy Hackl 告诉 The Current。Hackl 最近和倩碧合作开发了第一款品牌 NFTs，开启了品牌对这一爆火概念的尝试。他表示 NFTs 作为元宇宙的一部分，将会像现在的社交媒体资料和网站一样，变成品牌的名片。

元宇宙的力量

像Warner Bros.，Hyundai 和 Gucci 这些品牌已经创建了属于它们自己的虚拟世界。Coca-Cola，Anheuser-Busch 和 Crockpot 通过售卖NFTs（这是一种通过区块链技术买卖且不可替代的代币，让人们拥有对图像或视频等数字产品的所有权） ，正在悄悄进入这一领域。而Sephora，Nike 和 HBO 正在发展 AR 和 VR 体验。据 The Verge 表示，Facebook作为社交媒体的行业龙头，也在近期对外公布，将会在未来五年内斥资 100 亿美元转型成为一家元宇宙公司。针对这一计划，他们立即更改了公司名称，并在欧洲雇用了10,000 名员工来管理这个新公司。许多人预测Facebook、Instagram, WhatsApp和Oculus等都将隶属于这家新公司。

所以，品牌们选择这样做的原因是什么呢？

因为这里吸引了大量关注，也汇集了太多机遇。在 Roblox 上，每月有超过 2 亿的活跃用户，其中大约一半的用户小于 13 岁。这些用户在这里玩成千上百的虚拟游戏，其中许多都与知名品牌产生了联动。比如华纳兄弟的《神奇女侠 1984》在Roblox上的体验就已经有接近3000万次的访问量。

各品牌除了创造属于自己的数字世界和产品外，还可以通过数字广告出现在元宇宙世界。例如，Anzu 为 WarnerMedia 和 Paramount+ 等品牌做的广告服务，它帮助这些品牌在游戏移动端、主机端以及近来在 Roblox 上放置了实时跟踪可见度的广告。这些广告就和我们现实生活中看到的一样，同时里面还会融入游戏玩法，所以你能够在游戏里面看到和现实生活中一样的广告牌广告和品牌衣服。在 Roblox 上，你可以选择有计划的进行购买，也可以实时进行购买，通常跨平台的价格每千次展示费用会从6美元到12美元不等。

The Mill（该公司曾经为Riot Games，Electronic Arts 和 HBO 等品牌创造过3D体验）首席体验官 Alex Wills 说：“对于品牌来说，让粉丝使用统一的品牌产品或者广告，在多个平台上进行沟通互动，这件事是非常有前景的。”他还表示：“这些品牌从根本上了解元宇宙的构建块以及他们所依赖的游戏引擎。你也许会猛然发现，你不再是针对某一个平台上去创造，而是可以创造出突破原有阻碍和边界的体验。”Wills 预见未来有一天，如果顾客有上述的需求，类似Facebook’s Oculus 和 Fortnite 等产品将会变得更加开放。

发展的险阻

截止目前，元宇宙始终还处于起步阶段，市场人员也在不断探索。一方面，品牌首先需要实现数字化转型。Wills 告诉我们：“通常品牌体系都是以2D为主，而有前瞻意识的品牌会开始意识到，需要将它们转变成3D。所以当下需要做的大部分工作是去更新资产库。”

对于许多品牌来说，NFTs 是用来试验元宇宙产品的入门领域。Newel（Crockpot 的母公司）家用电器首席执行官 Chris Robbins 表示，随着NFTs 被越来越多人理解，“它成为了传统消费者和精通数码技术的买家之间的一座很好的桥梁。”

另一个问题是需要确定投资回报。构建完整的世界可能会花费昂贵且非常耗时。它没有办法像其他数字渠道一样，能够清楚的跟踪广告支出后所收获的回报，这一点让市场人员望而却步。“有一些品牌因为没办法衡量具体价值而保持谨慎的态度。” Anzu 营销副总裁 Natalia Vasilyeva 说：“而我的立场是，你不能指望新的媒体渠道各方面都非常完美，就像早期的社交媒体也并不完美，对吧？”

尽管如此，率先进入该领域还是有优势的。品牌们都希望通过制定长期战略获得回报。NASCAR 游戏和电子竞技董事总经理 Nick Rend 称，吸引新消费者、特别是让青少年消费者更加了解 NASCAR是品牌的长期战略，而与Roblox 建立全新的合作伙伴关系对于这个长期目标“至关重要”。Rend 在 LinkedIn 的帖子中写道：“社区为平台用户创造了非常好的体验，作为品牌方，需要呈现出我们的真诚。我们也非常清楚，曾经用来评判完成品牌影响力和参与度 KPI 的旧有标准，并不一定适用于 Roblox 这样的社区。用户和品牌良好互动、关于品牌的深刻理解以及对于品牌的归属感，将会为品牌带来增长，这也是用户虚拟世界冒险的一部分。

The Metaverse – How brands are boldly embracing marketing's new frontier

Through virtual worlds, NFTs and immersive experiences, brands are experimenting in reaching new generations of consumers.

In November, NASCAR will kick off a multi-year plan to get its brand in front of young gamers on the wildly popular platform Roblox. For starters, NASCAR is dropping a digital car in the platform’s breakout Jailbreak game and is selling apparel for players’ avatars. Players will also be able to design their own NASCAR uniforms as part of a fan contest, with the game’s developers acting as influencers to promote it on social media.

NASCAR’s activation is one example of how brands — from Chipotle to HBO — are advertising in spaces known as “the metaverse” to reach new audiences and cater to consumers accustomed to digital realms.

Initially envisioned as a form of a decentralized open internet, the metaverse — first coined in Neal Stephenson’s 1991 novel Snow Crash — allows users, as digital avatars, to move and interact across digital worlds, and use or exchange digital items across platforms.

Although interoperability is a long way off, the term has become a catch-all for new digital, immersive, and social spaces encompassing gaming platforms like Roblox, Fortnite and Zen Racing, or NFTs, VR, AR, cryptocurrencies and online marketplaces like Decentraland, all of which have ballooned in popularity during the pandemic.

“Every brand and company will need a metaverse strategy,” Cathy Hackl, chief metaverse officer and CEO of metaverse-focused consulting agency Futures Intelligence Group, tells The Current. Hackl, who recently worked with Clinique to develop the brand’s first NFTs which unlock early access to in-demand products, says that being part of the metaverse will become brands’ calling cards similar to how social media profiles and websites work today.

The power of the metaverse

Brands like Warner Bros., Hyundai and Gucci have built their own virtual worlds; Coca-Cola, Anheuser-Busch and Crockpot are tiptoeing into the space by selling NFTs—non-fungible tokens bought and sold on blockchain technology allowing people to own digital items like images or videos—and Sephora, Nike and HBO are leaning into AR and VR experiences. Facebook is so enraptured that the social media giant intends to spend $10 billion to become a metaverse company in the next five years, with immediate plans to change its name and hire 10,000 people in Europe to oversee what many predict will be a holding company under which Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus and others will exist, according to The Verge.

The reason? There are so many eyeballs and interactive opportunities. On Roblox, more than 200 million monthly active users, about half of whom are under the age 13, play hundreds of thousands of virtual games, many of which now incorporate brand activations. WarnerMedia’s Wonder Woman: The Themyscira Experience has been visited nearly 30 million times on the platform.

Beyond creating branded digital worlds or items, brands are also showing up in metaverse environments through digital advertising. Anzu, for instance, places ads that track viewability in real-time within gaming environments across mobile, console and now recently Roblox for brands like WarnerMedia and Paramount+. The ads mimic real life and blend into gameplay —so billboard ads or branded clothing appears in-game just as it would in real life. These can be bought programmatically, or dynamically in Roblox, at CPMs ranging from $6 to $12 across platforms.

For brands, the promise of a world in which fans can interact across multiple platforms with the same branded assets or ads is powerful, says Alex Wills, chief experience officer at The Mill, which creates 3D experiences for brands like Riot Games, Electronic Arts and HBO. These brands, he says, fundamentally understand the building blocks of the metaverse and the gaming engines they’re being built upon. “Suddenly you’re not creating things bespoke on one platform, you have an ability to create experiences that transcend the barriers that have been up,” he says. Wills sees a future where platforms like Facebook’s Oculus and Fortnite will become more open if consumers demand and expect it.

Growing pains

As of now, the metaverse is still very nascent and comes with some learning lessons for marketers. For one thing, brands need to first embrace their own digital transformation. Much of the work being done now is updating asset libraries, says Wills. “Systems that were normally 2D, forward-facing brands are realizing they need them to be 3D,” he says.

NFTs are proving an entry area for many brands to experiment with metaverse properties. Chris Robbins, CEO of home appliances at Newell, parent company to Crockpot, says NFTs are becoming more understood and therefore “a nice bridge between more traditional consumers and digitally-savvy buyers.”

Another issue is determining return-on-investment. Building out entire worlds can be costly and time-consuming. Not being able to track return on ad spend as clearly as other digital channels is making marketers pause. “Some [brands] are cautious because of the inability to measure everything from A-Z,” says Natalia Vasilyeva, VP of marketing at Anzu. “My stance is that the early days of social media were not perfect. Right? You can’t expect the new medium to be perfect in terms of everything.”

Still, being first to the space has its advantages. Brands expect to reap rewards with a long-term strategy in place. Nick Rend, managing director, gaming and esports at NASCAR, calls the brand’s new Roblox partnership “critical” to the brand’s long-term success in reaching new consumers, especially those who will grow up knowing NASCAR. “The community makes this platform incredible, and it is essential for us to show up authentically,” writes Rend in a LinkedIn post. “We are also well aware that brand impact and engagement KPIs aren’t necessarily driven by traditional licensing models in platforms like Roblox. Growth comes from how users interact with, interpret, and incorporate your brand as part of their virtual escapades.”

原文转载自: https://www.thetradedesk.com/us/news/the-metaverse-how-brands-are-boldly-embracing-marketings-new-frontier?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=organic_social&utm_campaign=blog_post

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