Pop Culture’s Playbook for the Metaverse
The latest iteration of pop-cultural life online is already immersing people – or their avatars – in interactive, persistent, shared virtual worlds. Gartner predicts 25% of global consumers will spend an hour daily in virtual worlds by 2026. We highlight key moves shaping tomorrow's entertainment-oriented metaverses, including consumer-creators redefining social media, and companies engineering friendships with synthetic (non-human) beings.
Persistent Personalisation: Virtual Nesters’ Social Spaces
Next-Gen UGC: Tools for Tomorrow’s Creators
Music & Entertainment: Interactive Tent-Pole Performances
Virtual Venues: Always-On Destinations for the Arts
Proximity Gains: Investing in Online Neighbourhoods
Populating the Metaverse: Virtual Influencers & Synth Beings
Meta (formerly Facebook) foresees that personalised environments to retreat to will serve as central portals into the wider metaverse for shopping, socialising and play. Start-ups designing spaces where consumers can present themselves through displaying their personal taste are amassing hundreds of thousands of waitlist sign-ups. This signals the value of branded concepts that provide tools for self-actualisation.
Meta (formerly Facebook) foresees that personalised environments to retreat to will serve as central portals into the wider metaverse for shopping, socialising and play. Start-ups designing spaces where consumers can present themselves through displaying their personal taste are amassing hundreds of thousands of waitlist sign-ups. This signals the value of branded concepts that provide tools for self-actualisation.
Summary
Persistent Personalisation: Virtual Nesters’ Social Spaces | Meta (formerly Facebook) foresees that personalised environments to retreat to will serve as central portals into the wider metaverse for shopping, socialising and play. Start-ups designing spaces where consumers can present themselves through displaying their personal taste are amassing hundreds of thousands of waitlist sign-ups. This signals the value of branded concepts that provide tools for self-actualisation. |
Next-Gen UGC: Tools for Tomorrow’s Creators | The unlimited size of the metaverse means many companies will benefit from deploying user-generated content (UGC) to build and populate the virtual expanse. Another exciting wave of technology start-ups is creating DIY tools for tomorrow’s consumer-creator cohorts, including facilitating complex 3D landscapes via voice commands, and in-world broadcasting. We spotlight key companies to track, learn from and affiliate with. |
Music & Entertainment: Interactive Tent-Pole Performances | Born of the success of pandemic audience sensations like Travis Scott in Fortnite and Lil Nas X in Roblox (see Key Stats), virtual-first live events are transcending gaming, enticing wider mainstream audiences. New technologies are rewriting the experiential space of online performances, with sensory immersion and audience integration turning passive broadcasts into opportunities for fan communion. |
Virtual Venues: Always-On Destinations for the Arts | Following the success of immersive one-off live events (see above), permanent digital destinations are vying to become always-on hubs for artists and cultural collectives. Astute brands are following suit, setting up dedicated virtual clubhouse locations where their customers can interact with each other. See also Placemaking in the Metaverse in Retail's Metamanoeuvres. |
Proximity Gains: Investing in Online Neighbourhoods | Platforms with non-fungible token (NFT) backed real estate, including The Sandbox and Decentraland (tokenisation means property can be bought, sold and traded), have seen high interest (see Key Stats). As brands, artists and celebrities secure their virtual territory, these metaverse spaces are starting to mirror real-world real estate, indicating a potential shift from leaping into single games to creative neighbourhoods and districts. |
Populating the Metaverse: Virtual Influencers & Synth Beings | Globally, virtual influencers' engagement rates on Instagram are nearly three times higher than those of human influencers (Hype Auditor, 2021), signalling the affinity with synth beings. From customer service and mental health mentors to animal avatar companions, AI-powered virtual beings will fill the metaverse's vast virtual spaces with sparks of life. We spotlight some of the most noteworthy developments. |
Pop Culture’s Playbook for the Metaverse
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Offering access to over 350 consumer and cross-industry reports annually, Stylus Membership is your window to tomorrow’s most exciting opportunities.
We already arm more than 500 of the world’s most forward-thinking brands and agencies with the creative insights they need to make transformative business decisions.
We’d love to do the same for you.
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