The 4 Essentials of Metaverse Marketing

The metaverse sounds grand.

It feels like metaverse marketing is a very complicated thing. It seems like everything has to be done and it is difficult to grasp the key points.

Actually, not necessarily.

The essence of metaverse marketing is simple, just remember 4 words.

These four words are——

"Practice at home" is the essence of Metaverse's marketing.

Last week, on behalf of IP Egg Fried Rice, I gave a two-hour online lecture and interaction with Liu Fangming, general manager of BlueFocus Blue Universe, and Lin Lechang, founder of Digital Intelligence Chain.

In this lecture, we elaborated on the three main points of Metaverse Marketing:

1. Metaverse Marketing is the Upgrade of People, Goods and Markets

The trinity of people, goods and places is the core essence of digital marketing, and metaverse marketing is a further upgrade of people, goods and places.

I use this picture to illustrate the content of the upgrade -

The upgrade of human beings is based on users + needs, and the metaverse develops into virtual avatars (user-selected characters) , virtual people, and virtual pets.

The upgrade of goods is to transform goods into content + services, with NFT technology as the core, to form digital content, digital items, and membership service certification.

The upgrade of the venue is to further upgrade from the current online live broadcast scene, online meeting scene, etc. to the brand's virtual world area, and establish the brand's own metaverse planet.

2. Old wine in new bottles, solving old problems

The term I use is "old wine in new bottles", while Blue Label Fang Ming always says "solving old problems". We all believe that the essence of metaverse marketing is to solve major problems that past marketing methods have not been able to solve.

For example, how to realize brand value, how to sell products more effectively with lower promotion costs, how brands can interact deeply with consumers, etc. These are all old problems, and the new approach of the Metaverse can better solve these problems.

3. NFT is the center of Metaverse marketing

The essence of NFT is a unique, non-homogeneous token technology. Digital collections are only the initial application of NFT. The higher-level application is that NFT can connect brands, products, and consumer CRMs to form a digital ecological community. This is the brand metaverse.

I used this picture in my online lecture -

That is, NFT can achieve a more effective integration of product and effect than any previous means, realizing the trinity of brand digital assets, product enhanced marketing, and CRM customer relationship management.

Fang Ming of Blue Label Blue Universe used this picture to illustrate:

That is, marketing + NFT will have three major application scenarios, namely brand + NFT, sales + NFT, and CRM + NFT. These three application scenarios can be used separately or combined.

After the merger, we are creating a brand planet for the metaverse. It is not mysterious but very real.

Metaverse marketing is very simple, just four words: "practice at home."

I break these four words down into three parts: "at home", "cultivate" and "practice".

Let’s talk about “at home” first.

at home

"At home" means "at your own home", that is, the goal of metaverse marketing must be to establish the brand's own metaverse, rather than just promoting it on other media.

For example, everyone recognizes the importance of content marketing, but if we only produce content on external media platforms, the content of brand companies will never be better than professional cultural and creative content.

Only when the content is planted on one's own land can one avoid competing with external content for sensational content and only then will it be most suitable and conducive to growth, and the brand metaverse will be created as time goes by.

The metaverse also has a basic underlying logic: "everything belongs to you."

In the current web2.0 era, data and applications are monopolized and controlled by large platforms. However, in the web3.0 era of the metaverse, data and applications will return to the hands of users and the brands themselves, just like in the real world.

Therefore, brands should view metaverse marketing as: building the brand’s own home.

No matter how much promotion you do on big platforms and media, you should ultimately bring the value back to the "field" you have built, turning the "field" among people, goods, and field into the brand's own little piece of land. In this way, the "people" will also settle down for you, and the "goods" will also be distributed through yourself.

For example, ADI-VERSE:

Adidas has launched the "AdiVerse" metaverse on the underlying fully shared metaverse SANDBOX, which can not only generate NFT digital items, but also sell them in combination with physical products. It can also become the Garden of Eden in the lives of users. At the same time, this land can also appreciate in value and is a long-term digital asset of the brand.

Another example is Starbucks’ NFT-centered third space:

Starbucks plans to create a series of branded NFT collections this year, with both traditional and innovative themes, and will also collaborate with other innovators and like-minded brands in the world.

Holders will become members of the Starbucks community and be given access to exclusive experiences and benefits. Starbucks believes that NFTs have great potential to create an expanded shared ownership model for loyalty, providing unique experiences, community building, storytelling and customer engagement.

Moreover, this approach can also become a source of value-added business while creating a new type of digital ecosystem to complement Starbucks’ current digital platform offerings.

What Starbucks wants is to be able to create a new global digital community, one defined by collaboration, experience, and shared ownership, centered around coffee, and then potentially expanding into areas such as art, music, books, and more, a digital "third space."

For example, Nayuki's Tea launched a stored-value card NFT:

Nayuki is not only the first domestic brand to independently issue NFT digital collections, but more importantly, Nayuki NFT is used in membership services and the sale of stored-value cards.

The effect was very impressive. This event was completely centered around its own mini program, directly bringing in hundreds of millions of yuan in revenue and a large number of new members, so this is not just brand promotion, but also promotion and membership services.

For example, the NFT collection gallery of fashion brand RL:

Fashion brand RL not only issued digital collections, but also established its own online NFT collection gallery.

Through the collection gallery, the new and the old are connected, and the fashion shows/live broadcasts that fashion brands have always done, limited edition releases, brand quarterly catalogs, etc. are fully integrated. Users who own NFT digital collections are also RL members and can obtain priority purchase/reservation qualifications, etc., and are closely integrated with real offline store dynamics.

In short, the key to building these metaverse "brand fields" is to use NFT technology to build the company's own digital ecosystem.

This is being at home.

build

Let’s talk about “cultivation”.

"Xiu" means cultivation and self-improvement.

Since it means "repair at home", it of course refers to the long-term optimization and development of the brand's own ecology.

An NFT-based brand community can achieve "digital and real integration" and "value confirmation". It can not only sell goods, but also accumulate user relationships and manage brand value... These are all things that can be cultivated.

Finally, someone once asked me, even without NFT, we can still build a community, sell products in the community, and accumulate user relationships? So what are the benefits of adding an NFT?

I responded that, yes, it could be done without NFTs, but it would never really be in place.

For example.

A certain brand may have stores and customer relationships on Alibaba, JD.com, and Pinduoduo, as well as public accounts and community relationships on Tencent's WeChat and QQ, self-media on ByteDance's Douyin, as well as Weibo, and so on. Even if the brand wants to establish its own private domain, it can only do so on different platforms.

If customers want to bring in all user value by building their own mini-programs, the effect will definitely be limited, because it is difficult to get customers to really enter the brand's own community for a long time. Apart from being able to redeem some coupons, there is no long-term retention rate.

However, it will be different with the addition of NFT.

Because NFT is based on the underlying blockchain, not on a certain website. Therefore, any enterprise and application can be built on the underlying blockchain without having to build it on other companies’ websites and become someone else’s data guinea pig.

Only NFT based on the underlying blockchain can make user value and brand value truly belong to the brand itself.

NFT can prevent the fruit from falling on other people's platforms, and allow the fruit to eventually fall into your own basket.

This difference is not obvious now, but as the trend develops, when national blockchain strategies and metaverse applications become more popular, the difference will be very obvious: those who have their own user NFT community are equivalent to running 3,000 meters first in a 10,000-meter race compared to those who do not.

So I often tell brands/IP parties recently not to just think about posting NFTs on other NFT trading platforms and treat it as a marketing and sales activity, but to consider how to settle them in their own pool.

Metaverse Marketing: Brands should “fix” these three things “at home”:

1. Cultivate products and combine product power and cultural power into NFT;

2. Cultivate services and turn various services into NFT token rights;

3. Cultivate users and turn customers into partners who build with you to share the value of NFT.

OK

Finally, let’s talk about “action”. “Action” is the action that integrates knowledge and action.

Action is not only a marketing action, but also a product action and a service action.

It is not only the actions of the enterprise itself, but also the actions of the customers/users.

For example, recently the consumer electronics brand Dyson used engineers' manuscripts as inspiration to launch the 2022 limited edition collection of NFTs for three technological products in the form of precise design prototypes, including two versions: "Commemorative Edition" and "Rare Edition".

This is the "action" of combining product and art in NFT.

Not only that, this action was launched on Dyson’s own brand mini-program, and then promoted through Tencent’s large platform, involving both private and public domains, and moving from the public domain to the private domain.

So it is another "action" that combines membership services with NFT.

During the Dyson Super Member Day event, people only need to enter the Dyson official mini program, register as a Dyson member, and complete the sign-in task to be eligible for Dyson's "Commemorative Edition" digital collection.

The "rare edition" also requires participation in digital collection interactions to encourage private domain users to actively spread the content. At the same time, it also provides players with a series of membership values, including exclusive cash back, limited-time discounts, points deductions, buy three get three free gifts, 0 yuan trials and other 10 welfare benefits.

Therefore, the marketing of NFT must be based on a certain private domain of customers. This time, Dyson took video account live broadcast as the core and mini program mall as the trading platform, and cooperated with circle of friends advertising and WeChat search to realize the linkage between public and private domains and online and offline, which not only completed sales and brand building, but also promoted the growth of private domain GMV.

Let’s take a look at Qantas’ NFT issuance:

Qantas will release its branded digital art collection or NFT in mid-2022: anyone who buys Qantas NFT will automatically become an investor in the brand. Holders can expect to receive special access to many exclusive Qantas services and products in the future.

The initial buyers of these NFTs will be able to earn Qantas Points, and Qantas has also decided to reward the first buyer of the Qantas NFT with Qantas Points, making its NFT product unique. This is the first time ever that NFT holders have the opportunity to receive immediate redeemable value when purchasing an NFT. The airline is working to provide more benefits and rewards to its NFT holders in the future.

Qantas’ “unity of knowledge and action” is the “action” that is an upgrade of the original membership system.

Now, let’s combine the three points of “staying at home”, “cultivating” and “practice” together.

Metaverse Marketing’s “Practice at Home”:

1. Use NFT to build your own brand home;

2. Cultivate products, services and users;

3. A journey of cross-border integration.

It's not only big brands that can do it; small and new brands can do it more easily.

Because new brands are not bound by the past, they can more easily integrate their products and services with NFTs, and it is also easier to combine brands and IPs.

For example, there are already new brands abroad that use NFT directly to create——

The Flyfish Private Club in New York City, USA, is the world's first NFT-themed private dining club and is expected to officially open in 2023.

This restaurant operates on a membership system, and the restaurant's membership is the NFT it sells, that is, you must hold its NFT to enter the restaurant. The restaurant currently offers and sells two levels of membership, namely Flyfish (FF) membership and Flyfish Omakase (FFO) . People who own membership NFTs can enjoy Flyfish Private Club seafood cuisine, host cocktail parties, and even hold private parties, enjoy the vast outdoor space and unique Omakase room.

“We don’t use NFT as a speculative strategy, but as a service, so whether it goes up or down, left or right, it actually has no impact on our business model.”

The way of using NFT to create new businesses like Flying Fish Restaurant can really be used in many industries, especially in any industry that requires constant communication with users.

Membership clubs, food, beverages, beauty, cars, mobile phones, restaurants, training, education, shopping malls, cultural tourism, etc. will all be the stage for NFT metaverse marketing...Put old wine in bottles and solve old problems better.