6 minute read 24 Aug 2022
Women wearing vr headsets

Are brands entering the metaverse headed for the wild, wild West?

Authors
Alison Medina

Consumer and Generational Strategist, Consulting, Ernst & Young LLP

Former journalist turned consumer and retail thought leader. Articulates trends and data as human-centric insights. Strategic communicator, storyteller, trend watcher, wife, mom, coach, advocate, ally

Mehrdad Moghaddam

Senior Director, Corporate and Growth Strategy, EY-Parthenon, Ernst & Young LLP

Passionate about driving innovation and next generation experiences for retailers and direct-to-consumer brands. Foodie, electronic music aficionado and emerging market enthusiast.

Marcie Merriman

EY Americas Cultural Insights & Customer Strategy Leader

Student of human behavior, lover of transformative design. Living at the intersection of culture, commerce and technology to build human-centered experiences. Catalyst. Entrepreneur. Mom.

6 minute read 24 Aug 2022

A new frontier for retailers that are looking to meet their consumers in an evolving and unknown landscape.

In brief

  • The future of the metaverse is largely undefined, making brands somewhat ill-equipped for future challenges.
  • The metaverse’s limitless nature lends itself to very real implications that need to be explored, such as tax and legal ramifications of virtual purchases.
  • This new digital realm is transforming the value of companies and products and may also transform experiences, reshape e-commerce and accelerate innovation.

The metaverse is here. In fact, it has been for quite some time. While most of us may have just learned of the term “metaverse” more recently, those born in 1997 and after (Gen Z and Alpha) have grown up with it. For them, the idea of interacting, learning, conversing, and even buying in a virtual universe is not new. It’s how they have learned to communicate (just ask your child about the latest skin release or virtual concert).

Perhaps already the biggest buzzword this year, “metaverse” might be the latest clickbait, but the futurist concept of a virtual-reality alternative to the real world is not futurist at all. It is already here and is at the precipice for rapid acceleration. We have reached a convergence point with consumer intrigue, technology at the ready (artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain), increased network connectivity via 5G and cloud computing, and the democratization of e-commerce — a development accelerated by the pandemic that has driven the adoption of digital — to create the perfect storm for the metaverse to take flight. If the last two years have changed our thinking around how digital fits into our lives, the next five may completely upend everything we have been expecting from the digital revolution.

Metaverse: The future is indeed virtual — yet still a bit murky

From a brand perspective, entering the metaverse is still a bit like the Wild West. Much like the prospectors of 1849 set off for California in search of gold without a clear picture of the journey ahead, brands and other entities entering the metaverse are still largely ill-equipped for future challenges. This is because the future vision of what the metaverse will become remains largely undefined. We don’t yet know who or what will control it in the long term, whether several virtual worlds will coexist and be interoperable, or which experience standard (such as augmented reality (AR)-enabled or virtual reality (VR)-facilitated) will become dominant.

Interesting use cases continue to enter the metaverse discussion seemingly every day. DTA — direct-to-avatar — product releases are gaining momentum as several luxury and mainstream brands promote their contactless cyber fashion offerings. Last year unveiled virtual cars, zero-space museums, around-the-globe travel tours and a virtual real-estate surge, with the world’s first virtual home sale clocking in at $500,000.1 Meanwhile, the island nation of Barbados is preparing to legally declare digital real estate as sovereign land, becoming the first country to open an embassy in the metaverse.2

Through the metaverse, cryptocurrency and virtual art, collectively known as non-fungible tokens (NFTs), are moving further into the mainstream. While digital art has been the primary NFT revenue source so far, the use cases continue to evolve and have blossomed into digital twins of physical products, memorabilia, exclusive NFT fashion collections and more. The implications for retail are immense and provocative.

The metaverse is limitless — there are no constraints to virtual experiences, varieties of worlds or number of users — and persistent. It’s a virtual space that’s always on. This lends itself to some very real implications to explore. As brands and companies begin to purchase virtual real estate, design and sell digital products and build communities in the metaverse, what are the tax and legal implications of a virtual world? Legal entity structures, trademarks, flash title transfers — these are all areas that currently have no precedence in the virtual world. For example, if you take a picture of a luxury bag and place it on your avatar in the metaverse, are you infringing on copyright? 

Decentralized Web 3.0: Uncertainty and the risk-reward quotient

There are fears, of course. How will an evolving meta-society straddle physical and virtual realities? Do ethical codes extend to the metaverse? Would a decentralized Web 3.0 make the metaverse a homogeneous society, “blocking” all people, ideas and ideologies that differ from one’s own? Do ethical codes extend with us to the metaverse?

The metaverse will extend physical realities into a virtual realm beyond what we can currently envisage. Companies, brands and ecosystem participants have carte blanche to shape the future metaverse landscape. The challenge is determining when the reward of jumping in will outbalance the current risks and unknowns.

Web 3.0 to transform experiences: How today’s companies can keep their eyes on the ball

While we don’t yet have answers to every operational question, we do know that a new digital realm is coming, and it is transforming the value of companies, products and assets. Web 3.0 will leverage industry ontology to transform experiences, reshape e-commerce and accelerate innovation. AI and machine learning will deliver curated and hyper-personalized interactions and leverage data to enable insights-driven decision-making, while also monitoring cybersecurity and enhancing overall risk management. Finally, crypto and blockchain offer a decentralized payment solution, which enables accurate logistics and secure revenue record-keeping that is theoretically immutable and secure from hacking.

The adoption of these mega tech trends will reshape how companies create a tight entanglement with the consumer. Determining the precise adoption point, however, is difficult if not impossible. While some naysayers cast metaverse as the next dotcom bubble waiting to burst, there is legitimate concern that companies not investing in this innovation risk falling behind sooner than anticipated, similar to brands and retailers that lacked a robust digital presence in the early months of the pandemic-driven lockdowns.

Companies entering the metaverse will need to understand their financial business case and level of investment before dipping their toes in the virtual marketplace, and balance that against the cost of waiting.

Metaverse brands will have to determine whether they are there to create a true digital twin of physical operations in a virtual world or explore new ways to reach consumers relative to the physical world. A brand’s forte in the metaverse might take the form of a shoppable virtual store in a virtual mall, or it may materialize through an avatar space suit that transports users to a branded meetup lounge on the moon.

Opportunities to personalize “omniverse” experiences in the metaverse based on a unified view of the customer in alignment with what they do in other, more traditional channels (search, web, email, SMS and physical store) are vast. Brands that can tap into the sentient possibilities of virtual exploration can create real and lasting brand loyalty with consumers, redefining the end-to-end customer journey and the entire ideology of experience. This is one of the areas where companies must consider the extent to which they want to drive innovation with virtual customer experiences vs. waiting to conform to any established experience precedents.

In the wild, wild West — who won?

This article was originally published by Total Retail.

Summary

As the metaverse continues to take shape, brands considering voyaging the unmarked trail must do so with intention and strategic vision. While your departure date might still be unknown, the time to begin the conversation is now.

About this article

Authors
Alison Medina

Consumer and Generational Strategist, Consulting, Ernst & Young LLP

Former journalist turned consumer and retail thought leader. Articulates trends and data as human-centric insights. Strategic communicator, storyteller, trend watcher, wife, mom, coach, advocate, ally

Mehrdad Moghaddam

Senior Director, Corporate and Growth Strategy, EY-Parthenon, Ernst & Young LLP

Passionate about driving innovation and next generation experiences for retailers and direct-to-consumer brands. Foodie, electronic music aficionado and emerging market enthusiast.

Marcie Merriman

EY Americas Cultural Insights & Customer Strategy Leader

Student of human behavior, lover of transformative design. Living at the intersection of culture, commerce and technology to build human-centered experiences. Catalyst. Entrepreneur. Mom.