It has been over a year since Metaverse entered brand experiences and customer journeys. Similar to every other technological transformation, Metaverse changed how businesses present their products and services to customers and also brought in a shift in consumer preferences. With the world on the brink of the evolution of the Internet that would be 3D, every brand’s digital presence will have a 3D version of it.
The initial Metaverse wave had created an instant excitement amongst brands and a lot of businesses were seen swimming in Metaverse pools. Marketing and brand exposure was a major part of the motivation behind these investments when the Metaverse concept was new to everyone. As with any other hype cycle, there tends to be a peak of inflated expectations followed by a trough of disillusionment. After the initial hype, there is often a period of more realistic expectations and gradual progress as technology advances. The initial excitement around the Metaverse used only for one-time marketing purposes has now mellowed down, but the Metaverse strategies that brands deployed in tune with their product discovery experiences are still going strong and will continue to see the upward graph of growth for a very long time.
For example, Maruti Suzuki and its Meraverse projects. After the success of Nexaverse, Maruti Suzuki launched the Expoverse this year. Initially, the Expoverse was developed only for the Auto Expo and was going to be available to users for a period of 1 month. But having witnessed a jump of around 15% in test drive bookings and user engagement from more than 500+ cities, Maruti Suzuki has decided to make the Expoverse a long-time initiative. As of today, Maruti Suzuki has included new models like the Jimny on the platform for users to explore and book a test drive for.
DaveAI-powered Expoverse for Maruti Suzuki has witnessed engagement from more than 2.6 Lakh unique customers so far!
Here’s how Maruti Suzuki tied its product discovery experience to the Metaverse: Expoverse
“There are two categories of customers who onboard themselves on the Metaverse. Companies who want to just ride the hype cycle as a one time initiative. And companies like Maruti Suzuki who invest in integrating this experience tied to their product discovery experience. The former set could not garner continued interest while the latter continues to see incremental business benefits.”– Sriram P H , Co-founder & CEO – DaveAI
You Launched Your Metaverse. How Do You Now Keep Up The Momentum?
Metaverses like Decentraland, Roblox were used mostly for Marketing and PR. But that is not the only use case Metaverse can cater to. A Metaverse strategy integrated with a brand’s product discovery experience can bring in immense and long-term benefits for the business. With a Metaverse strategy integrated into their product discovery experience, brands can leverage cutting-edge technologies such as VR and AR to create realistic and immersive simulations. Customers can virtually interact with products, visualize how they would fit into their lives, and make more informed purchasing decisions. To implement a Metaverse strategy successfully, brands must prioritize user experience and ensure seamless integration between the physical and virtual realms. This requires investing in intuitive interfaces and personalized experiences that align with the brand’s values and customer preferences.
Brands have to leverage the tech for business KPIs using this 3-step plan:
1. Define trackable KPIs: Curating a Metaverse strategy to solve a particular problem is the right way to go for long-term success. Brands should break down enterprise-level KPIs into smaller measurable and relevant KPIs. Start by identifying your overall business objectives. What do you want to achieve? These objectives could be related to revenue, customer satisfaction, market share, and cost reduction. Once you have your business objectives defined, identify the specific metrics or indicators that align with each objective. For example, to address the KPI of ‘increase in revenue’, your Metaverse KPI could be the monthly increase in the number of visitors or the average time spent by a user on the platform. KPIs should provide clear, quantifiable data that can be tracked over time. Determine the data sources that will provide the necessary information to track your KPIs. KPIs should not be set in stone. Periodically review and evaluate the relevance and effectiveness of your KPIs. As business objectives or market conditions change, you may need to adjust or add new KPIs to reflect the evolving needs of your business.
2. Curate 3D experiences that bring out the messaging that can affect these KPIs: Spend time curating immersive experiences that are unique. Through the Metaverse, brands can transcend the limitations of physical space and reach a global audience. Customers can access these virtual experiences from the comfort of their homes, breaking down geographical barriers and creating a more inclusive and accessible shopping experience. Furthermore, the Metaverse allows for social interaction, enabling users to connect with others, share recommendations, and seek advice, fostering a sense of community around the brand.
Brands should collaborate with creators to enhance brand presence and engage with audiences in new and exciting ways. By partnering with creators, brands can tap into their creativity, influence, and expertise to create compelling experiences that resonate with the Metaverse community.
Visualization plays a pivotal role in the Metaverse, contributing to its immersive and interactive nature. Visualization serves as the bridge between the physical and digital worlds, enabling users to visually perceive and interact with the Metaverse. Balancing the visual quality with efficient rendering techniques and optimization strategies ensures smooth and responsive experiences for users across different devices and network conditions. Smooth performance enhances user satisfaction, reduces bounce rates, and supports positive KPIs.
Conversational AI is at the centre of this universe giving digital humans in the Metaverse a voice! These clones are crafted with a development process of model creation, motion capture, and real-time rendering. Effectiveness depends on the perfect amalgamation of industry-specific multilingual NLP, an AI brain for profile dominant engagement, ecosystem integration, and multi-platform scalability.
Depending on the purpose of development, digital humans should have a unique brand-dependent character or personality. Kotak Mahindra Bank has recently launched a Metaverse in collaboration with DaveAI. Konaverse speaks fluently about the essence of the bank which helps customers feel the familiar tug of emotion that comes with a physical bank branch visit. The user can complete various financial tasks in a digital banking unit with the help of a digital assistant in an immersive environment irrespective of time and location. Keya is a digital assistant in Konaverse that the user can call anytime and ask her any queries they have to make the most of their Metaverse banking experience. Keya provides accurate navigation utilities and has an AI-powered brain. Projects like these are helping banks and financial institutions gain a deeper understanding of issues customers have, find solutions to specific problem statements, create long-term plans for growth, and retain customers for a long time.
Visit Konaverse
3. Be Agile: Monitor your defined KPIs closely after launching a feature, get qualitative and quantitative feedback, and have an agile approach to development. Enhance what works and eliminate what does not. Start by clearly defining the niche market that the brand wants to target within the Metaverse. Consider the demographics, interests, preferences, and behaviour of the target audience.
Encourage the formation of niche-specific communities within the Metaverse by facilitating interactions and collaborations among users who share similar interests. This can be done through events, forums, or social spaces designed to connect individuals with a common passion related to the brand’s niche market.
Continuously gather feedback from the niche market audience and make iterative improvements to the curated Metaverse experience. Listen to their suggestions, monitor their engagement levels, and adjust the virtual environments or offerings accordingly. This iterative process ensures that the Metaverse aligns with the evolving needs and preferences of the niche market.
Evolution Of Technology
Technologies like VR will continue to evolve rapidly to support the growth of Metaverse and provide increasingly immersive and engaging experiences. The Metaverse aims to connect people across various platforms and devices and advancements in VR technology will focus on achieving seamless cross-platform compatibility, allowing users to access and interact with the Metaverse using different VR headsets, consoles, PCs, or even smartphones.
Recently Apple launched its headset called Vision Pro which points to a future where headsets are cheaper and accessible to a majority of people soon making 3D experiences mainstream. With this launch, Apple is emphasizing on how the real and the virtual world environments would merge to bring in a singular reality for the user wearing the headset. Apple CEO Tim Cook was seen talking about how the headset brings in “the beginning of a new era for computing.”
“VR technology is improving and is here to stay. Apple’s VR launch confirms that. Metaverse will become a necessity for brands in the very near future when customers expect it, it will no longer be a novelty or a marketing gimmick.”– Puneet Sharma, Client Partner – DaveAI
The advancements in 5G technology provide a strong foundation for the development and expansion of the Metaverse. They enable faster, more immersive, and highly connected experiences. 5G’s low latency and high bandwidth features are beneficial for AR and VR use cases. It allows for more immersive and realistic experiences, such as seamless streaming of high-resolution VR content and real-time AR overlays in the physical world.
Generative AI has the potential to impact the sustainability of the Metaverse as well. Generative AI technologies, such as advanced neural networks and deep learning models, have the potential to enhance various aspects of the Metaverse and provide experiences that keep users engaged. Generative AI will contribute to the Metaverse through realistic environments, procedural content generation, personalized avatars, natural and intuitive avatar conversations, content adaptation, and creative tools.
Read the 9th edition of Dave Tales to know more:
DaveAI Is Investing A Major Part Of Its R&D Budget In Generative AI!
At DaveAI, We develop Metaverse strategies for brands in different business domains with different prospects to engage with their customers and solve problems. We help brands integrate their product discovery experiences with the Metaverse and also provide in-house technical support and maintenance. With a large team of creators, we develop unique experiences for brands.
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