There’s a new way to grow business. It’s on video, and it’s meta!

Authored by Prashanto Das, Founder, Hyperstate Technologies

The metaverse is not the future, it is already here. For brands this is the transition point-to build a higher customer experience-faster, to build their own utopia. 

It’s hip to add a little metaverse to your marketing mix, let's show you how.

So what exactly is the metaverse? 

The M word has us all in a tizzy. It is exciting, confusing & exhilarating at the same time. 

Don’t think of the metaverse only like a virtual world driven by rudimentary avatars but more like a system of interconnected digital spaces that can be navigated on the internet and viewed through a graphical interface instantly. 

The unlocking of the metaverse will propel new technologies that will make e-commerce instantaneous. For example, intelligent video avatars that assist goal completion or action-led videos that allow friends to shop together will become the norm. Don’t just watch, but choose & checkout- right from the video. 

So what can I do with a Metaverse ?

Your brand Metaverse can be used to create many types of online applications - games such as Minecraft and Second Life, virtual worlds such as Sittercity, or Interactive-Video Experiences.

Duh I understand video but what is a video-metaverse ?

Your stories, the characters, the people behind the stories, your ethos, your culture, all that exists today for your brand is your brand metaverse. The question facing most brands now is how do I unlock the gates to this metaverse for my audience?

Videos driven by context, propelled by consumer choice are the key.

Video V/S the video-metaverse?

The Video-Metaverse is about context : what, why & how. It adds the dimension of action & shifts the power of choice to the consumer. It allows them to participate in your world and not just watch your singular brand story.

By the end of 2020, most brands have got the video strategy going right. The limitations have always been with the medium- the linear nature of the video format. 

Imagine, what if you could watch the video, choose your character or story & watch it from that perspective. What if your audiences could dive in and immerse themselves in your brand.What if they could  physically manifest their choices, by interacting with your characters? Buying products while conversing with them in the digital world and placing real orders in the physical world.

Sounds exciting, but how does  all of this help my business ?

The video-metaverse adds longevity & impact to your marketing efforts. It makes every marketing dollar sweat to deliver more to your brand goals. 

Brands are forever faced with questions  like

  • How do I sell better?
  • Is my campaign working ?
  • Are all markets behaving equally?
  • Do audiences understand ?
  • Do influencers work  ?
  • If they do, how many of these zillions of followers would actually participate with my brand?

Information hereto unmapped and unavailable thus far, can now be unlocked and made available instantly. It makes the future perfect, while taking instant corrective action on what's happening at the moment.

How does the video-metaverse impact my business ?

The video-metaverse is built on customer experience and customer centricity. It adds to the power of persuasive storytelling that videos already have. The video metaverse is power-packed with features like world-class intelligent search, social commerce and AI-embedded voice recognition technology that allow  conversations with a video.

It captures granular Big Data on user behavior, recognizing the patterns and needs of global shoppers.

With the video-metaverse, digital commerce can now be driven by humanization & not just digitisation. Selfie-videos shot on mobiles can be turned into humanized bots that meet and greet. This small change itself has the potential to turn websites into digital stores where owners and sales teams meet and greet every visitor just like you would in a physical store.

How will video-metaverse drive video-commerce ?

As more content gets produced and more videos get made, in the attention economy, turning videos into experiences is the logical way forward. It helps brands make better, more engaging stories, helps their consumers make the best possible choices in the shortest possible time. The video-metaverse helps convert attention to loyalty and equity to revenue. 

Results already show that brands who have transformed existing videos to their video-metaverse have benefitted with 10X GTM, 5X Time Spent, 6X engagement being delivered on an average.

 

How will the video-metaverse affect my video advertising ?

Used in advertising as interactive-video campaigns, the AIDA (Attention-Action) funnels have collapsed, shortening the time between videos being watched and action being taken. Rudimentary, time consuming, post click actions are giving way to in-video choices. You go from the AD to the Cart instantly. No more is there a version of the story playing out, as per the inventory and size-dimensions available but the story that consumers relate to,rules.

 

Even on metrics, watch and view metrics are giving way to action metrics & outcome metrics. Brands adopting interactive videos are seeing a 10X-25X upside over ordinary campaigns

I already do videos, do I need to invest in new tech ?

Actually not, you can use your existing videos to start building your metaverse, albeit they will need some work and a layer of action. All of this is made simple with #Nocode platforms, which allow for existing content to be transformed & teams to be upskilled in the shortest possible time.Delivering exponentially more value for a similar effort. 

2022 the year for the video-metaverse.

Following Lindy’s Law, the ordinary video is not going anywhere, it will however morph and find a new lease of life, in a new avatar, as it has over the years. For brands, 2022 is similar to the watershed DVD moment, when the DVD lost its mojo.Brands have a choice today, to apply brute force to make more and more video content or with incremental effort and smart technologies become data led, outcome focused, consumer centric and build video experiences. 

The times are a-changin. The early bird will catch the worm. The secret to a great brand is being written right now in front of your eyes. See you in the video-metaverse

 DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and Adgully.com does not necessarily subscribe to it. 

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