2022 Metaverse Marketing Trend Report

As athletes from various countries excitedly held hands and danced in circles, and after Kang Hui said "Please take a seat and watch the ceremony" three times, the Beijing Winter Olympics came to a successful conclusion. In addition to the top star Bing Dwen Dwen and the athletes, virtual people inside and outside the stadium also stole the spotlight.

China Mobile's 5G ice and snow digital expert Meet Gu, tailored for Gu Ailing, interacted with the host beyond the dimension; Alibaba's digital human promotion officer "Dong Dong" assisted in promoting the 2022 Winter Olympics; the AI ​​virtual weather anchor "Feng Xiaoshu" jointly created by the China Meteorological Administration and Xiaoice Company reported the Winter Olympics weather index in real time to the contestants and spectators in each venue; virtual singer Luo Tianyi performed her original song "Time to Shine" in the form of singing and dancing at the opening ceremony of the "Meet Beijing" Olympic Cultural Festival...

As the concept of "metaverse" becomes popular, Internet giants are taking advantage of the opportunity to create virtual humans, and brands are also innovating in content and marketing through the interconnection between the virtual and the real. Whether it is the emerging virtual idols that serve as a bridge between virtual and reality, or the prevalence of various immersive experience waves, in today's society, everyone hopes to have a rich self, one traveling in the virtual world, and the other wandering in the real world. Driven by technology, the virtual and the real will eventually be boundless and interdependent.

1. From 1.0 to 2.0, virtual idols are also advancing

On October 31, 2021, a Douyin account named "Liu Yexi" posted a video titled "Now, the world I see, you can see it too." In the video, a woman dressed in ancient costume is holding a pen and putting on makeup in front of the mirror, with many onlookers behind her.

In this short 2-minute video, cyberpunk and fantasy ancient style scenes are intertwined. The video received 2.477 million likes within 5 hours on the night it was released. For a time, various related topics such as #刘夜熙#Who is Liu Yexi quickly fermented, and the popularity of concepts such as "virtual idol" and "metaverse" increased sharply.

People who are familiar with the two-dimensional culture should know that virtual idols are not a new concept. The originator of virtual idols is "Hatsune Miku", created in Japan in 2007. Hatsune Miku is a virtual girl idol developed by Japan's Yamaha Corporation based on a speech synthesis program. She has officially set aqua blue hair and eyes, wears a sailor suit, and has a moving voice that can sing countless songs.

Hatsune Miku is not only a household name in Japan where two-dimensional culture is prevalent, but the craze has even spread across the East China Sea to China. With her unique charm, she has attracted more and more young people to become her fans. At the same time, a large number of secondary creations and original works have made Hatsune Miku's character more and more full, and even become a cultural symbol on the Internet, and there are more and more works labeled "Hatsune Miku". It can also be said that Hatsune Miku ushered in the 1.0 era of virtual idols.

After a bumpy growth period, virtual idols have entered the 2.0 era under the trend of the "metaverse" since 2021, and hyper-realistic virtual people that are infinitely close to human images have begun to rise.

Fashion blogger AYAYI received 2.24 million views and over 4,000 comments in her first appearance on Xiaohongshu, breaking the record in the history of real-life fashion communities; "Hua Zhibing", who has a sweet voice, pure looks, and is proficient in poetry, composing music, and painting, has attracted much attention after entering the Computer Science Department of Tsinghua University for further studies; virtual images of celebrities such as "Dilraba Dilmurat" and "Taosman" have also received a lot of attention as avatars.

Left: AYAYI, Right: Hua Zhibing

The second outbreak of virtual idols is not accidental, but an inevitable development brought about by the rise of the Z generation consumer group. They grew up in the Internet age, immersed in the virtual world, and pursuing a rich spiritual world beyond reality.

For brands, young consumers' pursuit of virtual idols also brings new opportunities for brand marketing. According to the "2022 China Consumer Trend Report" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report") released by Zhimeng Consulting, 35.9% of consumers believe that virtual idols can actively promote the positive image of the company. Among these consumers, those born after 2000 have the largest proportion, accounting for 63.6%, followed by those born after 1995, accounting for 41.5%. Overall, the younger the consumer groups, the more positive their attitude towards recognizing the value of virtual idols.

In the future, virtual idols will need to rely on being integrated into brands and redefined in order to play a greater role. The survey shows that 48.4% of consumers believe that whether a virtual idol has strong exposure and becomes a "hot product" is the key factor for its success. Therefore, how to create a "hot product" in the virtual idol world is one of the important directions for the brand to explore in the future.

2. Metaverse takes the stage and the digital world is reconstructed

In addition to virtual idols, the metaverse is also a keyword that cannot be avoided in 2022. After the sandbox game platform Roblox included the concept of "Metaverse" in its prospectus in March 2021 and was called the first "Metaverse" stock, Facebook changed its name to Meta, triggering widespread discussion in the global capital market and Internet industry, forming the Metaverse phenomenon.

If 2021 is the first year of the "metaverse", then 2022 marks the first year of China's metaverse. Governments in many places have also intensively released signals of metaverse layout and have successively introduced supporting policies related to the metaverse. For example, at the end of 2021, Shanghai officially included the metaverse into the "14th Five-Year Plan" for the development of the electronic information industry, and the Tongzhou District Government of Beijing also issued the "Several Measures to Accelerate the Innovation-Leading Development of the Metaverse in Beijing's Sub-Center". Recently, with the attention of the people across the country, the metaverse has also become a hot word at the two sessions.

As a conceptual emerging thing that has not yet been implemented, the "metaverse" is full of unknowns. In fact, to this day, ordinary people still know very little about the metaverse. Many people have only heard of the three words "metaverse", and people of different age groups have different attitudes towards the "metaverse".

The report shows that 47.9% of consumers heard about the term "metaverse" for the first time and were opposed to it, of which 72.7% were born after 2000. The consumer group with a positive and supportive attitude accounts for 16.0%, of which only those born in the 1980s and 1990s account for more than 18%, and those born in the 2000s account for only 10%.

For the market, if a technological concept that claims to reshape the social ecology is not understood by the public, it will be difficult to form basic public opinion, and it will be difficult for brands to attract consumers through the concept of the metaverse. The report shows that when talking about the "Metaverse", 20.7% of consumers think it is just a marketing gimmick. Consumers are still in a state of confusion about the "Metaverse", and it will take time for it to be truly popularized.

Why do most consumers think that the "Metaverse" is a marketing gimmick? At present, since the properties of the "metaverse" have not been fully developed, the initial "chaos" makes it difficult for consumers to see the essence. If we look at it from the other side, what does the “metaverse” look like in the minds of consumers?

The report shows that 41.2% of consumers believe that the "metaverse" should have a diversified, that is, an inclusive group ecology and self-presentation form, and 36.5% believe that it should have diversity in development to meet the diverse group imagination and expression needs. In building an ecology that meets consumer expectations, the "metaverse" still faces many challenges.

3. From virtual to real, from real to virtual, virtual and real coexist

The birth of the metaverse has given this era a new impetus, driving the rapid operation of digitalization and forcing the industry and investment community to “move forward.” At the same time, the diversified development prospects have also brought about marketing possibilities that cannot be ignored. The new virtual world is on the rise with new concepts, and it is also a "value" target that various industries are vying for.

With the development momentum of the metaverse, we can also break down the marketing possibilities of the coexistence of the virtual and the real. The first is from the real to the virtual, based on the imitation of the real world by the virtual world, by building an immersive digital experience, enhancing the digital experience of real life, and emphasizing the digitalization of the real experience.

In the era of mobile Internet, the virtual world is mainly established through 2D forms such as text, pictures, and videos. In the future, in the era of the metaverse, the real physical world will be digitally recreated in the virtual world to establish a completely virtualized parallel world.

Take purchasing clothes as an example. In the early days, we obtained flat information by browsing pictures and text reviews on e-commerce platforms, and buyers' shows and sellers' shows became topics of ridicule. Now, short videos and live streaming have become a trend, and the three-dimensional interactive presentation of the effects of clothing on different models reduces information bias to a certain extent.

In the future, visual marketing methods will be more diverse, and users' demands for fashion styles will be more diverse. Fashion brands need to make comprehensive use of visual interaction technologies such as virtual reality and augmented reality, so that users can directly see the visual effects of clothes on themselves, conduct immersive shopping, and make more reasonable purchasing decisions.

The second is to move from virtual to real, transcending the imitation of the real world and self-creation based on the virtual world. It can not only form a value system independent of the real world, but also have an impact on the real world, emphasizing the realization of the authenticity of the digital experience.

As the first stock in the Metaverse, Roblox had bold ideas and rapid layout after its listing. The fertile soil of the Metaverse it built provides good marketing opportunities for brands. For example, to commemorate its 100th anniversary, Gucci created a virtual art garden, Gucci Garden, in Roblox and launched a virtual art garden experience activity. Visitors can purchase virtual items that are sold for a limited time, and as players browse through the virtual garden, the appearance of the mannequins will change based on the experience. The real experience helps brands attract consumers' attention and enables digital experience to drive real consumption.

As human beings improve their creative and control technologies, will there still be "barriers" between the virtual world and the real world? The "metaverse" is just an opening. With the entry of countless industry "players", the "collision" of technologies between each other and the continuous iteration of 5G, the "flat" era of the Internet is about to pass, and what is coming is a "three-dimensional" new "digital universe" world. The collision and fusion of countless "metaverse" players will create an "explosive" new digital era.

Author: Xiao Mingchao

Source: Trend Watch