NCET Biz Tips: Don't invest big money in the metaverse … yet

When it comes to creating a presence in the metaverse, many brands are eager to jump on board in 2023; and rightfully so, since being early to new platforms can determine who gets the biggest audiences long term. The thought of having a virtual space that allows them to connect with geographically-dispersed customers in a more tangible way is exciting. However, having a metaverse space that is accessible to the public at all hours can actually reflect more poorly on a brand than not having a metaverse space at all, since at this stage of adoption, most of them are sitting empty.

Recent case in point from last week: The European Union spent nearly $400,000 on its own metaverse and no one came to its virtual party.

One of the key benefits of the metaverse is the ability to create immersive and engaging experiences for customers with a spatial element and sense of place. An empty metaverse space that's clearly full of skeuomorphic indicators of its intent to accommodate a crowd (lots of seats, lots of space) reflects more poorly on a brand than not having such a space at all. Imagine clicking on a link to enter a space for a well-known brand, only to find that it's completely empty when it's clearly designed to accommodate a crowd. Yikes.

In order for a metaverse space to be effective, it needs to either be designed as a self-guided solo experience, or an engaging “time and place” experience, not just a “place” experience. This means not only creating a visually appealing space, but also ensuring that there is something happening in the space during the hours that it is accessible.

If a brand's metaverse space is always empty, it can be stale and uninteresting to users with elapsed time of visits less than 3 minutes and no network effect of other users' presence to bring them back.

At this time, having an empty metaverse space without strategic onboarding and offboarding plans before and after intentional experiences is usually going to be a waste of resources. Building and maintaining a metaverse space requires time, effort and money. If a brand's metaverse space is always empty, it can be seen as a waste of these resources and a poor investment. Creating an effective time and place experience means hand-holding users from other forms of communication (SMS, email) into the space, a guided timed event in the space, and follow-up actions outside of the space again afterwards via SMS or email.

If you're going to craft a self-guided solo experience to avoid the potential "ghost town" problem, I would still recommend ensuring that the space is staffed by at least one team member at all times that the experience is accessible to the public – at the very least, an AI chat bot, but ideally a real person with a real voice.

As a marketing expert who's a metaverse native, I often spend more time telling brands not to build huge costly metaverse spaces than I do telling them that they should. But I do think there is a clear first-mover advantage for brands who are doing something in the metaverse – best to do your testing and make your mistakes while stakes are low, to position yourself to be competitive in the next five years. But I'm only advising a spend in the 5-8% of total marketing budget range.

Be thoughtful about the optics and approach the metaverse with a strategic and well-thought-out plan in order to avoid the pitfalls of a virtual ghost town.

Wesley McQuillen is principal at ALTER Strategies, a multi-award-winning senior marketing executive and Web3 native with a focus on alternative marketing strategies for the hard-to-advertise.