Why we care. Can marketers or consumers trust CARU’s seal of approval? If we take Walmart at its word — and so far there is no reason not to — CARU reviewed and approved Universe of Play. The retail giant likely thought this would protect them not just from the FTC, but from charges like those made by the consumer groups. 

Those complaints were significant and should arguably have been foreseen. Now both marketers and consumers must wonder if CARU is providing meaningful oversight or just a fig leaf?

What it was. Universe of Play was one of two Walmart marketing efforts launched in Roblox, a metaverse platform, last September. It featured interactive games where users could win virtual coins to buy virtual merchandise. 

The company said the marketing was aimed at consumers between the ages of 17 and 24. However, the key brand tie-ins for Universe of Play were Jurassic World, Paw Patrol and Razor Scooters, which appeal to a significantly younger audience.

Dig Deeper: Walmart launches Roblox metaverse experience 

The complaints. In January, the ad watchdog truthinadvertising.org and several other consumer groups, sent a letter to CARU saying Universe of Play targeted young children and was marketing products without providing proper disclosures that site and its content are actually ads. 

The groups also said Walmart’s use of CARU’s COPPA Safe Harbor Program seal conveyed the message the game was compliant with the organization’s guidelines.

CARU is one of a dozen industry self-regulation programs run by the nonprofit BBB National Programs. In 2001, CARU’s advertising program was the first to be certified by the FTC as a Safe Harbor under the U.S.’s children’s online privacy law, COPPA. Participants who adhere to CARU’s guidelines are considered to be in compliance with the law and protected from any FTC enforcement action.

An unsafe harbor. The consumer groups’ letter also asked CARU to audit Walmart’s Roblox games. The retailer issued a statement saying this had already been done: “In December 2022, Walmart was approved to join CARU’s COPPA Safe Harbor Program after demonstrating that Universe of Play, a new immersive Roblox experience, complies with the stringent requirements of COPPA and CARU’s Guidelines.”

Some time after that Walmart removed the game from the site. Walmart hasn’t responded to a request for comment. CARU has refused to answer questions.

The post Walmart pulls Universe of Play off Roblox platform after consumer groups’ complaint appeared first on MarTech.

Besides the fact that those with access to the internet are better off than 99% of the rest of the world’s population, there are many other reasons to feel hopeful as the new year approaches. No, really — there are. I’m here to help your grinchy heart grow three sizes today. 

So, in the spirit of the holidays, I have crafted this — if not optimistic, then entertaining — list of immersive marketing trends to look forward to in 2023. My wish is that this approach helps us enter the new year filled with humor and gratitude and not take ourselves too seriously. 

So, without further ado, here’s your countdown of the “Top 10 reasons marketers can be optimistic in 2023” à la David Letterman. (If you’re too young to remember Letterman’s nightly Top 10 list — here’s a great example on YouTube to get you up to speed with us old people.) 

10. Better B2B marketing in the metaverse

If you have followed my writing at all, you know I’m passionate about innovative B2B marketing and can’t wait for us all to move away from lengthy solution briefs and white papers that nobody but us are reading. 

I feel 2022 ushered in a new, exploratory era in B2B marketing that will mature throughout the upcoming year. Companies will begin to better understand how to leverage immersive media to help meet their business objectives while simultaneously solving customer pain points. I hope we see more companies embracing the three use cases outlined in my recent article: 

• Events.
• Learning and education.
• Networking. 

All have been vital to reaching and influencing a B2B audience and now we can scale our efforts exponentially by strategically using immersive technology.

9. No more mind-numbingly passive (and boring) virtual events

And speaking of events, I can’t wait to see marketers embrace truly interactive and immersive platforms for their virtual and hybrid events. If your event attendee is expected to be sitting and watching anything from home, you’re doing something wrong. 

Ironically, I listened to a great webinar recently while walking my dog that outlined one of my top trends for 2023 — the need to move our audiences from passive to active participants. 

So, the question you need to ask yourself is: “How can I provide my virtual event attendees things to do and ways to engage while offering them more of a ‘choose your own adventure’ approach?” 

Extended reality, or XR, does a great job solving this problem. You can learn more ways to use XR for your events in 2023 and beyond in this recent MarTech article.

8. Beautiful (but empty) virtual spaces

2023 will continue to see an increase in new, metaverse-esque and artsy platforms that allow artists and 3D content creators to build their own worlds. A few examples of these types of spaces include Monaverse, Room and OnCyber. 

Many of these platforms boast an active community of virtual space dwellers. However, upon closer inspection, most of the featured spaces are empty of real life. 

One of the least fun things to do is wander around a jaw-dropping, beautifully built virtual space on your own. And why should you when the major benefit of connected immersive spaces is the ability to be present in a space with anyone from anywhere in the world?

7. Real-time, user-generated, 360-degree streaming video becomes a thing

The proliferation of 5G will help fuel an increase in real-time, immersive video content streaming. So, prepare to watch your friend’s grandmother’s 100th birthday as it’s happening in all the glory of 360-degree streaming video — yay!

6. We no longer have to connect a crypto wallet to access blockchain-powered virtual worlds — hallelujah!

Anyone who has attempted to explore an Ethereum-powered virtual world will understand my pain on this one. It’s a major headache to create and connect a crypto wallet to your virtual world account, which creates so much friction that many potential users bail. There are many other reasons we will continue to see headlines like “After the hype, NFTs fall as speculators exit” as NFT-centered virtual spaces pivot to try and entice users to stick around.

5. Brands stop forcing virtual world explorers to adopt dopy avatars shaped like paperclips and weeble wobbles — double hallelujah! 

Hopefully, 2023 will be the year that marketers wake up to the fact that, yes, avatars are important. Of course, they are — they are a representation of ourselves. How we express ourselves through avatars is deeply rooted in our subconscious and ties into that infamous reptilian brain that drives all our purchasing decisions. 

Forcing your audience to live inside the body of a crappy avatar is a stupid marketing decision. And what you deem as a suitable and even likable avatar is most likely not suitable or even desirable from your target audience’s perspective. Trying to make something that looks cool for the kids is often the kiss of death. 

A better approach is taking the risk to allow your community to bring their own avatar via an integration with Ready Player Me or providing robust tools to allow them to customize it themselves.

4. No more stock images of someone in a head-mounted display — ever!

Yes, I’m taking a page from Joan Crawford’s book on this one. I hate, hate, hate this overused and almost always completely irrelevant image of someone in a VR headset. Spoiler alert — we won’t be walking around with a VR headset strapped to our faces in the future. 

We will be finding a more comfortable and intuitive way to access immersive content while going about our daily lives. This could look like eyewear or something we haven’t even imagined yet.

3. Fewer epic metaverse marketing fails (well, maybe just a few fewer)

Sigh. This one does sadden my heart a bit. Epic fails in the metaverse hurt us all, and it’s my sincere wish that perhaps some of my articles on marketing in the metaverse will help prevent these types of mishaps.

A recent example, the EU’s $400K foray into the metaverse, was proclaimed a failure by many media outlets, including a Yahoo Finance article stating that virtually nobody attended the online event. The huge cost to develop the stand-alone platform would have been better spent doing some good in the world. I can’t say that I radically disagree with that perspective but let me try and paint a silver lining. 

The event space was crafted by Journee, one of the best immersive agencies out there (thus the hefty price tag). It was beautiful, easy to navigate and had quite a bit of entertaining features. Only a few months before the EU’s event, I had attended a similar event built by Journee, which was a huge success, well-attended and much more of a bellwether for the future of events in virtual spaces. 

The EU may have made some missteps, however, what they have learned from this project will hopefully fuel much better campaigns in the future. I tell my students all the time that marketers learn so much more from what others deem failures than we do from successes.

2. None of us are too cool for school in 2023

Being a lifelong student, I’m extremely happy about this one. There will be more valuable online immersive marketing programs available to marketers and communicators looking to create innovative and effective campaigns. 

You can look at a few of the online educational resources that exist today in my article on becoming a metaverse marketing maven. In addition to the ones I outline, new programs are being developed that are solely focused on immersive communications and strategy, like this newly launched remote program from the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communications. (Spoiler alert: I am teaching in this program and couldn’t be more thrilled!)

1. Great news – those vapid, superficial and perfect-looking influencers on Instagram aren’t real

That’s right. There will be an increase in virtual influencers in 2023 as brands continue to love the idea of not having to deal with a real person’s demands and bad behaviors. I love the idea that companies can now exploit AI-driven, virtual avatars that shamelessly wear and promote their products. Brands such as Prada, Diesel, Tommy Hilfiger and even Chevrolet have leveraged completely made-up virtual influencers in prominent campaigns. 

A fascinating study conducted this year concluded that a consumer’s relationship with a virtual media persona doesn’t differ significantly from their response to influencers who are actually human. 

Duh! This is what I’ve been preaching for years, who cares if your digital boyfriend is real or not — they meet a real need and that’s what counts. Hopefully, this new era of virtual influencers will help remove the stigma that still lingers with having a meaningful relationship solely through digital technology, whether it is AI-driven or not. 

You can learn more about this trend at virtualhumans.org, a platform that tracks the activities of virtual influencers across the globe.

Bonus trend for 2023: Peace, joy and love 

May more marketers awaken to the role they play in shaping a sustainable digital universe where technology and nature not only co-exist but thrive.

And because it’s the holidays, my gift to you, my lovely reader, is this extra special bonus. My most sincere wish for 2023 is that marketers around the world wake up to the fact that we are responsible for creating the world that we are all hoping for. 

We all need to become informed digital citizens, better understanding our relationship to technology and advocating for the well-being, safety and freedom of our audiences in the digital world. 

You can learn more and join me in this mission by reading my manifesto and attending my monthly XR for Marketing and Communications Pub Crawl, which will resume in the new year. In the meantime, happy holidays to all, and to all a good night!

The post Top 10 immersive marketing trends that will grow your grinchy heart in 2023 appeared first on MarTech.

Ad spend will continue to grow. The overall ad spend is projected to be up 5.9%, according to the IAB’s “2023 Outlook Survey.” Every digital channel is expected to see increased ad spend, with CTV leading the way in a 14.4% increase. Among category channels, B2B (20.8% increase), travel (20.6%), restaurants/beer/liquor/wine (17.1%), and financial services (11.1%) are projected to do the best. 

Top goals. Customer acquisition is by far the top goal for media investments in the coming year (61%). The next two goals are increasing brand equity (43%) and improving media efficiency (35%).

These goals all explain why the three things marketers plan to focus most on in 2023 are:

• Cross-platform measurement — 55%.
• Ad placement with publishers with first-party data — 53%.
• First party data acquisition/partnerships — 52%.

Good news for retail media networks. All of which means next year will be a really good one for retail media network (RMN) owners. Some 61% of buyers are investing or considering investing in RMN advertising next year, resulting in a projected ad spend increase of 28.4%. Onsite (owned & operated) ad investment is by far the top RMN ad tactic, being leveraged by 91% of buyers, according to the IAB.

Dig deeper: In this economy CMOs need to spend more on training, not tech

Why we care. Uncertain times call for data and spending certainty. Marketers aren’t waiting to find out when third-party cookies will finally go away. They are looking at first-party data acquisition now. Similarly, the chancy economic picture means re-evaluating media buying as frequently as possible. Also, all this means marketers are feeling far less adventurous: Only 26% said they will be significantly focusing on Web3 (including metaverse, NFTs, etc.) in 2023.

The post Economic uncertainty means marketers will re-evaluate ad buys more frequently in 2023 appeared first on MarTech.

When asked this fall, 20% of respondents said they were currently invested in metaverse experiences, while another 36% said they were considering it.

The metaverse was defined in the survey of 223 marketers as “virtual, internet-based experiences that bridge offline and online worlds, where people can customer avatars, play games, shop, interact and virtually attend live events.”

Metaverse goals. Those surveyed said they were investing in a metaverse presence to boost brand awareness and perception, and to reach customers where they are.

Here are the top reasons why marketers are making this investment:

• Build brand awareness/recognition (52%).
• New way of engaging existing customers (48%).
• Boost brand perception (46%).
• Reach audiences not found/hard to find elsewhere (42%).
• Provides an additional ecommerce channel (34%).
• It’s a good fit for our audience (28%)
• It’s a good fit for our brand (27%).
• Drive customer loyalty (21%).

Too nascent. This leaves 44% of those surveyed who weren’t yet investing in the metaverse, primarily because these spaces are too nascent or not the right fit.

Here are the top reasons why marketers aren’t currently investing in the metaverse:

• Metaverse advertising is too nascent (41%).
• It’s not a good fit for our audience (37%).
• It’s not a good fit for our brand (35%).
• We don’t have room in our budget (35%).
• We have yet to develop a metaverse advertising strategy (34%).
• Ability to deliver ROI/business objectives is unclear (32%).
• Lack of industry standards (20%).

Why we care. The MarTech flash survey taken last spring found that a quarter of marketers were planning a metaverse activation within a year, which seems to be confirmed by what this IAB report finds.

Those marketers who have the metaverse in their sites are sticking with their plan. For those on the fence, they might be nudged by a number of agencies who’ve launched committed metaverse services this year, and by self-service capabilities for NFTs that are now available.

How many of the “no, nevers” will shift to “maybes”? Time will tell as the space continues to evolve and trailblazing brands show how success can be achieved.

Dig deeper: How Adidas builds metaverse experiences and partnerships

The post Over half of marketers are using the metaverse or considering it appeared first on MarTech.

Creating new meeting spaces in a digital office

“The fact is that any company that becomes successful becomes ‘distributed’,” said Howard Lerman, founder & CEO of Roam, a cloud-based headquarters for remote staff. “You have engineering centers, people in the field, people in flex spaces, remote team members. Any company that succeeds has people anywhere, and frankly, even before the rise of remote work, distributed engagement was already broken.”

Roam, currently in beta with about two dozen enterprise and smaller-sized clients, allows users to navigate a floor plan where each employee has their own office and can move around and meet with their colleagues.

Large organizations can build multiple floors in Roam that resemble an office building, with each floor serving a different department or function. Conference rooms hold more people for formal meetings, while a theater includes a “stage” for Zoom-style video presentations.

Dig deeper: Top 3 marketing use cases for the B2B metaverse

Employees have a bird’s eye view of who is at their desk, which employees are meeting with each other and the status of individual users. This way, team members can know at a glance if someone is available for an informal meeting.

“There are too many meetings,” said Lerman. “Things that should take two people five minutes right now are scheduled for 60-minute Zoom meetings with eight people next week. We’ve been living in a world where our workflow supports the technology, and what we need to do is get to the reverse.”

Supporting workflow and individual preferences

Instead of structuring a team’s workflow with lots of large-scale formal meetings, remote work apps put employees in the driver’s seat, giving them flexibility to meet briefly when they need to.

The average meeting time in Roam is eight and a half minutes, according to Lerman. Of the five hours the average user spends in Roam, only 80 minutes are spent in meetings.

“Most Roam members see their overall meeting times cut by 50% because you can just walk over to someone and meet with them right now instead of scheduling everything in the future,” he said.

Users can also personalize their work area in Roam similar to a social media profile, with family pictures, books they like and other preferences. There’s even an option to play a brief three-second entrance tune when a user enters or leaves a meeting space.

But of course, serious work must also get done. And important work processes have to fit in with the digital experience provided by remote work apps.

Frameable Spaces, a remote work app launched by Frameable, also uses a floor plan and personal offices to support collaboration. Their clients include Amazon, Uber, Airbnb and HubSpot, among others.

“In terms of integrations, you’ve chosen tools you want to use,” said Adam Riggs, Frameable’s founder and CEO. “From a strategic perspective, we don’t want to pick and choose [integrations].”

He added, “We’ve invested heavily in excellent video technology so multiple people can screen-share at the same time.”

Using screen sharing, team members can be logged into other critical work tools individually and then show their screens and share ideas with colleagues. Another use case Riggs pointed out was that Frameable Spaces could be used as a bridge for two separate physical offices. This way, one team could be in an office building together and know instantly who is on call at the other physical office by looking at Frameable Spaces — and the team at the other location would know the same about the first team.

The emphasis here is on synchronous work, whether physically together or remotely connected.

“Without being outright against asynchronous work, we think synchronous enables a variety of talent types to work together,” said Riggs. “It doesn’t have to be ‘camera on’ all the time, but it’s important to have a flow. Email and chat alone do not deliver that.”

Dig deeper: Why we care about AR & VR

Building workplace culture with virtual events

Remote work apps like Roam and Frameable Spaces bring colleagues back into a shared space, digitally. They allow clients to customize the office layout to reflect the company that employees work for, replacing some of the needs that physical offices served, while making work more efficient and flexible for a new era of “distributed” organizations.

Neither, by design, is immersive. Instead, care goes into the experience to provide nuance to virtual interactions.

For instance, in Roam, when people go into the large theater for presentations, they encounter several levels of interaction coded into the UX. First, a user can pick which row to sit in audience. Once seated, they can chat with others in their row, but not with the rest of the theater, just like in the buildup to an in-person PowerPoint. Meanwhile, only those on the “stage” can be seen and heard by everybody, which removes much of the confusion and chaos of massive multi-user Zoom calls.

But in this brave new world of remote work, some companies are experimenting with immersive virtual events. Party.Space, a B2B metaverse platform, hosted a virtual company retreat for Zapier and a Halloween quiz for Google.

Party.Space’s CEO and founder Yurii Filipchuk makes a clear distinction between virtual spaces for work, which handle the brass tacks of Google Docs and task managers, and his own platform, which provides a virtual space for socialization.

“Certainly, any work process is about efficiency and results, but they can hardly be achieved without a social component,” said Filipchuk. “To be more productive, a person needs to feel an emotional bond with his company and colleagues. And here the metaverse comes in.”

He added, “Organizations should create an environment for non-formal social communication as part of their remote format implementation. And again, the metaverse is an excellent tool for it as you can host whatever parties, gatherings and meetings you need, and unite all your team members globally.”

Party.Space hosts fully-immersive virtual 3D spaces that are also easy to use and browser-supported, so that users don’t need any additional hardware to participate. These party spaces are customized to reflect a company’s culture and to keep workers interested with a dynamic environment to explore. Plus, gamification is also included, in the form of themed quizzes.

Remote work is potentially less social, with more distractions, said Filipchuk. Because of this, companies need to step up and make the digital work experience more engaging and persistent.

The post How new remote work apps and virtual meetings are transforming employee experience appeared first on MarTech.

There’s a rationale behind the new services from Razorfish, which are organized under three primary Web3 offerings, called Razorfish Reef, Razorfish Wave and Razorfish Drop. The offerings line up with three areas any brand needs to have covered in Web3 — content, networking and virtual goods.

“In this new digital landscape, experience drives everything, so it made sense that we provide a suite of offerings focused on the creation, production and activation of these new dynamic experiences and spaces, and the products and people that inhabit them,” Cristina Lawrence, Razorfish’s EVP, consumer and content experience, told us.

What is Web3? Over the last year, many brands have pivoted to emerging Web3 platforms. They are sometimes referred to as the “metaverse,” and often they are linked to gaming and virtual worlds. A large swath of younger Gen Z consumers flock first to these platforms and build strong communities around them. So that’s why this new designation, Web3, is used by marketers — to distinguish from legacy Web2 social platforms like Facebook and Instagram.

As new Web3 communities emerge, there is also a need for brands to build bridges between Web2 and Web3 platforms, so this is also a main objective at Razorfish.

In Web3, Razorfish puts an emphasis on “open metaverse” worlds, like Decentraland, where users can explore and brands can incorporate blockchain-based NFT activations. They also support brands reaching audiences in “closed metaverse” platforms (like Fortnite and Roblox).

“We’re also finding that social platforms like Discord are becoming increasingly important,” said Lawrence. “Discord is taking on the role of a brand’s ‘community hub’ for metaverse/Web3 activations, and bridges Web2 and Web3 community ecosystems.”

Dig Deeper: Samsung expands presence on Discord

Content. The Razorfish Reef offering tackles the production of content at scale for Web3 experiences, including consumer experiences, metaverse influencer marketing and ecommerce plays.

“Great content needs to reflect the shared values and passions of the community it’s serving, while also being adaptive,” said Lawrence. “The Web3 realm offers plenty of untapped value in the relationship brands can develop with younger audiences, while enabling brands to be accessible for all, and move beyond storytelling to ‘story living.’”

This year, Razorfish partnered with Samsung to launch their Samsung 837X virtual experience, which connects consumers on Decentraland and Discord to Samsung’s flagship store in New York through hybrid experiences like the recent Climate Week NYC fashion show.

Web2/Web3 cross-channel experiences. Razorfish doesn’t see Web2 going away anytime soon. “We see Web3 as additive to Web2, and a complete digital ecosystem,” Lawrence said.

She added, “We shouldn’t think of consumers moving over from Web2 to Web3 — they are bouncing in and out of these different digital landscapes throughout their day to do whatever it is that they want to do with their digital lives. Remember, in many cases, these Web3 natives are using Web2 social platforms to talk about what they’re doing within their Web3 lives, like talking about their latest NFT projects.”

The Razorfish Wave offering provides community building and management across platforms using human- and machine-based methods, with an emphasis on 24-7 “always-on” moderation, since these are living communities, as opposed to “one-off” events.

Dig Deeper: What is the metaverse and how can we get there?

NFTs and virtual goods. Razorfish Drop is the offering that covers NFT drops, virtual goods and direct-to-user opportunities. Plenty of brands have dropped collectible NFTs, but the question remains — what next? How can brands maintain the momentum and keep consumers engaged? Do customers want to collect an NFT for bragging rights, do they want a virtual piece of swag to show off with their avatar, do they want it to unlock special access to events or discounts on real-world purchases?

“At this time, a testing mindset is critical for brands to learn within this new digital landscape,” said Lawrence. “Nothing is more effective at doing this than quick-turn pilots within the metaverse/Web3 ecosystem. Most importantly, this is a creator-and-builder-driven landscape, so testing and learning is also about ‘earning’ the right to build relationships with these consumers via these new contexts.”

Why we care. It’s all about authenticity and fitting into these communities. That’s why Web3 activations are a long-term commitment by brands. That have to “earn the right” to this audience’s attention, as Lawrence said. 

While brands and agencies test and learn, the space will continue to evolve. That’s why definitions for terms like Web3 and metaverse are still in flux. For some marketers and Web3 creators, the emphasis is on open platforms and interoperability. But that’s not the metaverse that exists today, which is much more siloed. 

It comes back to meeting customers where they are, and a lot of them are spending time on Roblox, Fortnite and Discord, so the main goal is to bridge these platforms with relevant experiences and context.

Dig Deeper: How Adidas builds metaverse experiences and Web3 partnerships

The post Web3 content and capabilities from an agency’s perspective appeared first on MarTech.

Why we care. Frameplay is an intrinsic ads platform, but the worldwide growth of gaming and in-game ads is real. Games tracking data and research firm Newzoo estimates the gaming audience at 3.2 billion, and places the 2022 global games market at $196.8 billion, up 2.1% year-over-year.

It’s worth considering not only the amount of interest in advertising on games, but also the playbook for successful ad experiences indicated by the gamers themselves. For marketers just getting into the gaming ad space, note the negative response gamers have to audio ads.

Dig deeper: PepsiCo’s strategies for marketing via online games and esports

Mobile first. When thinking about elaborate in-game experiences, marketers might imagine their audience in front of a large screen hooked up to their PC. But that’s not how most games are experienced.

The device on which gamers said they played the most was mobile (43.2%), followed by console (31.1%) and PC (24.8%).

Ad formats. A full 45% of gamers in the survey said interstitial ads were the dominant ad type they experienced in games. This means that gameplay is interrupted while the audience watches the ads.

Intrinsic in-game ads were less frequent, with only 22.8% identifying those as the ads they saw the most. Behind those top two types were adjacent ads (banners, etc.), at 11.8%, and audio, at 4.5%. Sixteen percent of the gamers surveyed said they mostly didn’t see any ads.

Preference. Gamers prefer ads that don’t interrupt gameplay, so they ranked intrinsic in-game ads as the preferred format. Behind that, adjacent ads ranked next-highest, followed by interstitial. Audio ads were the least preferred.

Less distraction, more action. Gamers don’t want distractions that can diminish their gameplay and enjoyment of the experience.

Here are the ad formats, ranked by the percent of gamers who thought they were distracting:

• Interstitial (54%)
• Adjacent (42.9%)
• Audio (41.9%)
• Intrinsic (23.9%)
• None (6.5%)

It’s a little odd that gamers would find a lack of ads (e.g. “none”) distracting, but this goes to show just how enmeshed ads are in the gaming experience.

Finally, here are the ranked responses to the ad formats that would compel gamers to take action, based on what they saw in the ad.

• Intrinsic (34.1%)
• Interstitial (27.2%)
• None (27.1%)
• Adjacent (24.1%)
• Audio (15.3%)

Note, again, that audio ads really don’t make gamers happy. Gamers use audio to talk with other gamers while they play, or to listen to music or consume other media. Audio ads interrupt this flow.

As ad opportunities open up for advertisers, getting in the right way is crucial. It’s all part of adapting to the culture of gaming and making your brand’s presence known and appreciated, not loathed. The full study by Frameplay can be viewed here.

Dig deeper: How the gaming universe is preparing marketers for the metaverse

The post Survey finds gamers prefer native ads appeared first on MarTech.

Samba TV’s insights are derived from over 20 television manufacturers, sourcing viewership data on U.S. households across gaming and OTT (over-the-top TV) devices, as well as linear TV services (aka cable).

Why we care. Audiences are cutting the cord and migrating to streaming platforms, and advertisers are following suit. But especially now, with the cost of multiple streaming app subscriptions approaching that of a pricy cable bill, viewers are all over the place. And a lot of younger consumers are just playing video games, many still on consoles through their smart TVs. 

So this partnership is tailored to find audiences in this current fragmented chaos.

Dig deeper: Brands are betting heavily on CTV advertising

Viewership behaviors. Converged already has purchase behavior and other insights from advertiser first-party data sources. The Samba TV dataset adds a layer of viewer behavior from streaming, gaming and linear TV on top of these existing insights. Within the Converged platform, HMG can curate the right insights for specific advertisers.

“This partnership allows us to understand how consumers spend time across screens and the ability to analyze the unique value media has for each one of our clients,” said Mike Bregman, HMG North America Chief Data Officer, in a company statement.

The post Havas Media partners with Samba TV to integrate streaming, gaming and linear TV data appeared first on MarTech.

There are plans to add further reward types and customization options following the platform’s release. PolyientX describes this as the first platform of its kind.

Dig deeper: Salesforce launches pilot NFT cloud

How does if differ from no code NFT generators. Given the availability of no code generators for NFTs, we asked Nick Casares, head of product at PolyientX, what differentiates this offering.

“While most no-code solutions focus on helping marketers launch NFTs,” he said, “the PolyientX platform allows marketers to add utility to already launched NFTs. Brands are creating NFTs designed to unlock utilities like redeemable merchandise, event access and exclusive discounts. Adding these types of utilities is outside the purview of most no-code solutions and typically requires custom development.”

The platform is also designed to address three specific pain points, he told us:

1. Educating customers and consumers about NFT technology.
2. Collaborating with customers to create an authentic NFT strategy.
3. Sourcing the technology partners to execute their vision.

“NFTs are becoming more mainstream, but the technology is still immature,” Casares said. “Successful marketers are investing the time to educate themselves and partner with best-of-breed technology providers to help clients deliver NFT projects as the Web3 space grows.”

Why we care. Seems like just yesterday that NFTs (along with Web3 and the metaverse) were weird and wonderful things just out of sight over the horizon. But the future arrives fast. Not only are we seeing imaginative adoption of NFTs by marketers and a growing range of use cases; we’re already seeing opportunities for non-developers to create and customize NFTs.

The post PolyientX launches self-service NFT platform appeared first on MarTech.

That’s why it’s on the to-do list for so many companies, but as a long-term play. In our flash survey, over three quarters of marketers were planning some kind of metaverse activation, but for 28.7%, this was coming six or more years down the road.

What will the metaverse be?

“I don’t believe the metaverse exists yet,” said Lisa Peyton, immersive and strategic communications instructor for University of Oregon.

For Peyton, the metaverse means “interoperable virtual spaces where you can go between them seamlessly and frictionlessly.” 

She added, “Right now, we have several walled gardens that people are referring to as ‘metaverses.’ I don’t call them that. I call them virtual worlds.”

“The metaverse is not coming soon,” said Tim Parkin, President of Parkin Consulting. “It’s not tomorrow, it’s not next year. This is going to be a long development, and it will take a long time for people to accept it, realize what it really is, understand it, and adopt it.”

Users’ role in the metaverse

The intent of the metaverse is to give users the power to create their own experiences and also to interact with others in these spaces, and even collaborate with each other.

“I have a background in video games and game design, and I would say the metaverse, in its intention and design, is supposed to be the world’s largest video game, essentially,” said Parkin. “[In it] we can all participate and play and interact together remotely from wherever we are and experience things that we couldn’t experience in real life. That’s really the value of the metaverse, is that it brings people together in a new context, in a new way, so that we can experience things different from reality and also together.”

“If we think about that magical Star Trek future that we all dream of, with interplanetary travel — free and open and democratic for all — that’s really my vision of what I hope the metaverse can be,” said Peyton.

Dig Deeper: Manifesto for the makers of the metaverse

Connecting with metaverse users

In reviewing existing virtual worlds, marketers need to understand the user base and see if their customers are present on the platform.

“As a marketer, I can never know too much about who I’m trying to reach, who I’m trying to influence, who I’m trying to educate,” said Peyton. “To that end, you really want to understand who your audience is and where they are.”

Just like social media platforms like Facebook, virtual worlds have their own distinct audiences and cultures. Second Life skews older, for instance, while Roblox is a younger crowd. 

“Games have been around for a long time, and the metaverse really is a gaming experience,” said Parkin. “Games like World of Warcraft have active massive communities of people. Microsoft buying Mojang [Studios], the creator of Minecraft, several years ago, shows the power of these virtual communities. And absolutely your audiences are in these virtual worlds.”

Whether or not the metaverse we imagine exists today, there are users in video games and virtual communities that marketers need to connect with, and it’s possible to do that today.

The post What is the metaverse and how can we get there? appeared first on MarTech.