How xp&dland is helping brands navigate through the metaverse and Web 3.0

xp&dland, a next-generation platform for brands on the metaverse, has been recently launched by XP&D, Zoo Media, and Noesis.tech. xp&dland will enable Web 3.0 strategies for brands and look at evangelising communities and companies from the real or Web 2.0 world to pivot to the metaverse, for their product showcases, events, and activations.

The xp&dland platform is focusing on building the O2O2M (Offline ⇋ Online ⇋ Metaverse) consumer experiences for brands. This platform is using technology (Noesis. Tech) as a common enabler, building community strategies (Zoo Media), and enabling shared and social experiences for consumers (XP&D).

In an exclusive interview with Adgully, xp&dland founders Sukrit Singh, Pratik Gupta, and Siddharth Bhansali decode the world of metaverse, the opportunities and challenges of Web 3.0, how xp&dland is helping brands in creating immersive experiences for their audiences, as well as give a tour of how the xp&dland platform works.

What is xp&land and what unique proposition is it bringing to the table now that brands across industries are exploring the Metaverse?

Sukrit Singh: The objective of doing the platform was to pivot experiential to digital, because everything is now offline to online, and there was no agency willing to do it, and that’s how we got together with Foxymoron. Suddenly this thing called the metaverse comes around, which is nothing more than the world of experiential and the world of digital coming together. It is the experiential Internet, where you actually experience the Internet from inside of the Internet, with wearables. We were waiting to launch this because we wanted to go with proof of concept – either as a variable or as an avatar, I am inside the Internet and I am experiencing things. This is the collision of experiential and digital, and this is going be the new advertising communication and that’s what Web 3.0 is going to be.

We are thousand days away from the full-fledged metaverse, the beginning of the meta and the beginning of the Internet Netscape navigator. Hence, it is important to understand the concepts of what the metaverse is. In the future, we are going to experience the Internet on Web 3.0. Right now, you and I are talking through a screen, but we are going to be in a shared space. We are not building the metaverse as an agency vertical, xp&dland is across all metaverses. It is a concept of experiential, community management and communication across many metaverses. We are building on many different metaverses right now, as we speak. We believe that we should enable people to get on to the metaverse today with the simplest of mobile phones and 3G connection. We believe that the next smartphone is going to be wearable or wearables are going to be the next smartphone.

In the future, we are going to be either inside or toggling between ourselves and our avatars. We are going to live two lives – the real life and the meta life. When kids today play Roblox, assuming different avatars, the personality travels from the real world to the metaverse and back to the real world. PUBG is another example where people are playing as their avatars, but they are also sharing the space, talking to each other and communicating, and what one player is doing affects the other player, so it is a world within a world.

Pratik Gupta: The only part of the conversation that everybody’s having on the metaverse is NFTs. We all know how NFTs without communities hold no value. We have seen people who bought an NFT for $2.9 million in the first week and put it together. But when they tried to resell it, the value they got was only $700.

That’s the reality of every NFT; people bought NFTs, thinking that was their metaverse strategy, but the real metaverse strategy is in the experiences within the communities that you build for brands. NFTs basically have value because you can get access to, say, nightclubs or reataurants, which otherwise you don’t have access to; or get to talk to Snoop Dog because they are a part of the community. An NFT is as good as a community and the demand that the community actually generates. These are some of the things that we will have to understand as a part of ownership and NFTs.

You can buy clothes, shoes and accessories, so ownership is real. I can sell those products as opposed to in the Web 2.0 world. I may have 20 million subscribers on YouTube, but YouTube owns the subscribers and one day decides to not give access to the subscribers, it’s all over. But in the Web 3.0 world, if I own a pair of jeans, those belong to me and I can sell them to anyone. We have to understand the construct of buying and selling in the world. But all of this is going to be driven by communities, which is the angle that everybody is missing right now.

There is no metaverse without the real world, and in future, there will be no real world without the metaverse, and Web 2.0 is the bridge, we use it to activate Web 3.0 communities today. It is not about people who are inside the metaverse, but the billions watching them from the outside to see what’s happening, and that’s where the magic comes for the brands and consumers.

Most people who are saying that they are doing the metaverse are actually building virtual reality experiences.

How is xp&dland helping brands target their audience better?

The Web 3.0 world requires people who understand the experience and can create experiences for consumers. Foxymoron, Noesis and Zoo Media have come together to form xp&dland, and what we are planning to do is go to the brands and create long term Web 3.0 strategies for these brands. It could be NFTs, it could be virtual spaces, it could be product launches, it could be interactions with their brand investors or cricketers. It is also about what we are going through in the web world on a continuous basis to actually enable people to interact with us. These are some of the things that we are doing.

How can brands create their own unique space in the metaverse?

It depends on the brand and the brand values. Every brand has to be unique, even in the social and digital space. For instance, a brand like BMW can create a different event to launch their product. We have understand what objective they are trying to fulfill. For a brand like Mercedes, it could be keeping their top 10 consumers and keeping them in love with the brand. For somebody like Gujarat Titans, it would be about numbers and volumes. Everything will differ and change as per the brand and the brand’s expectations. Everybody is going and building space, but we are trying to build a strategy. That strategy will tell you what you need to do on Facebook, on Instagram, what kind of events you need to do and, therefore, what you need to do on Web 3.0. Brands can buy or rent a space on metaverse platforms like us.