The metaverse is one of the most contentious topics facing forward-thinking brands and marketers today, with deep divisions on whether it’s a fantasy or, in a world where NFTs already exist, just around the [digital] corner. Indeed, for an industry based on articulating ideas, few seem to be able to even define what actually is the metaverse.

But what does the metaverse mean for marketers – should they be cynical and focus on what works now? And if the concept is all a far-flung dream, why are some of the biggest brands in the world chasing an abstract concept?

A panel of experts at Nine’s Big Ideas Store session, ‘Blurred Realities’ – hosted by Director of Powered Enterprise, Nicki Kenyon, with Wavemaker’s Chief Growth and Product Officer, James Hier, The Australian Financial Review technology journalist Jessica Sier and futurist Tom Goodwin – took on the hotly-debated subject.

Before marketers start planning for this new frontier, the world needs to reach consensus on what the metaverse is and how it affects consumers. According to journalist Jessica Sier, the metaverse is not a singular place, rather it’s a variety of collective, virtual shared spaces that rethink how people spend their time online. 

“We do it through a screen but we’re in another place and we’re interacting in real-time with other people, doing real things,” says Sier. “The metaverse is evolving so there are things like commercial transactions, people are trading things, and buying and making money and that seems like a natural evolution and how companies are building it at the moment.”

“We’re not admonishing any clients because we’re all on this journey together. The CEO of Blackstone says it best: this journey will transform every Tom Goodwin is not as sold on the concept of the metaverse in its current state, telling Kenyon: “It’s a complete mess. Everybody’s talking about the metaverse but nobody remotely has any idea what it is. We all hold on to this vision in our head of whatever suits us individually.”

Outgoing Managing Editor of The Australian Financial Review Joanne Gray – who will soon be taking up a position at climate advisory and asset For James Hier, the metaverse is “just a vision”.

“A lot of people have been challenging it and calling it a ‘multiverse’ because none of it is actually connected,” he explains. “The metaverse is almost a collective noun for a collision of a whole lot of technologies like AI, VR crypto, NFTs with online interactions that we’re very familiar with, like social, commerce, gaming, entertainment, identity…” 

So why are brands and marketers investing in something that is still “just a vision”? Microsoft recently invested $75 billion in game development and interactive entertainment content publisher Activision Blizzard – this is a lot of money to invest in something that doesn’t exist. 

Jessica Sier said there needs to be a degree of scepticism around companies raising capital and ploughing money into metaverse with no real strategy. However, she doesn’t agree with the idea that the metaverse doesn’t exist.

“There are people spending time in these online places. They are buying and selling, there are commercial transactions taking place”, says Sier. “I would also argue that there is a technology breakthrough that means that a digital asset on the internet now, there’s only one of them. It’s got its own identity and can move around cyberspace.”

This is an interesting breakthrough because it means when people buy and sell digital assets on the internet, they’re not buying or selling something that can be copied and pasted thousands or millions of times, which has been a problem for brands for many decades now. 

Ultimately, brands and marketers need to be where the eyeballs are and at the moment, that is online, inside these universes. So now, with this technology breakthrough, brands can issue digital assets as part of their product line.

Nike has already done this, releasing sneakers to dress skins for different characters online, and they can now make sure that for people buying these ‘digital sneakers’, there is only one version, which gives it a value. 

“Whether or not you think the free market has taken this idea and gone a bit mental with NFTs – which is definitely what has happened – the technical breakthrough is quite sound,” says Sier.

“People are going to spend more and more time online in different virtual environments ‘doing stuff’. Now, we don’t know what the ‘stuff’ is yet, but people are in these games already… in Minecraft and Roblox, you’ve got kids already building their own portions of the metaverse with software.

“So if you’re going to look at a trend, look at what the young people are doing, and that’s what major brands are already doing. They’re pouring all this money in to try and capture a super young audience who’s got heaps of disposable income and who’s spending heaps of time in a game.

“If I’m a marketer then yeah, I want to make sure that Coke is in front of their eyeballs so that in their real lives they’ll buy Coke… I think it’s just an extension of people’s physical lives.”

While the metaverse is still in its infancy and may not have yet reached the ‘vision’ of Big Tech, the panel agrees that a range of online universes do exist and people are joining them in growing numbers. Smart brands are taking advantage of that, however a healthy dose of scepticism is warranted, as is a clear strategy for playing in this space as it continues to develop.