Parallel Lines

19.5.2022


From rappers Travis Scott and Little Nas X giving it large, quite literally, as avatars in the gaming platforms of Fortnite and Roblox to AC Milan streaming its match v Fiorentina into a room in the metaverse, viewing content is not quite like it used to be. And marketers need to understand this.

There is a video on Youtube with nearly 6m views, where a teenager on the Ellen Show tries to use a dial-up phone, something that was a big part of my teenage years, mainly used to tell my parents that I would be out just little past my allotted time. Clearly she failed, to the amusement of the mainly non-teenage crowd, and she probably went off to relive her tragedy on Insta and Tik Tok. 

It took 30 years to get from dial up telephones or the launch of Sky TV to today’s smartphone and social media dominated world. However, today’s startling speed of technological development means that the timeline to make some of today’s tech obsolete and reach a world dominated by gaming platforms and the metaverse will be a lot less. In fact, The Future Today Institute in New York City predicts that by 2030, “a large proportion of people will be in the metaverse in some way,”

The metaverse has been defined as just a virtual world where kids play games. But in our opinion, it is a virtual layer that sits on top of real life and that its true value lies in creating experiences that bridge both worlds. Marketers should be looking to draw parallel lines between these virtual and physical worlds to reach and deliver immersive experiences to Gen Zedders.

As the graph below shows, we are some way towards this change already as Gen Z, who account for 32% of the global population, clearly favour playing games as opposed to watching TV shows or movies at home. If these games are their favoured choice of media, it stands to reason that content creators and advertisers will use these platforms as their preferred way to reach them. 



The Travis Scott concert, mentioned in the opening paragraph, had 12.3m virtual concert goers, even more astonishing when you think that the 2021 UEFA Champions League final attracted 8.7m viewers in the UK. I get that the global number is nearer 700m, but for a nascent media that figure is impressive.

It is clear that gaming platforms will develop the into social media platforms through their usage and adoption by Gen Z and beyond. The question for brands and rights holders in sport is how will you use these media channels to get in front of this audience?

With creativity only limited by technology, brands and rights holders have the opportunity to take a long position and develop content that builds brands over immediate monetisation. We already have metaverse shopping districts like Metajuku, brands like HSBC and JP Morgan have created virtual assets and Snoop Dogg released the first ever music video built in the metaverse.

By all means use dial-up to reach old gits like me and social media for millennials, but if you want to reach Gen Z and beyond, you need to get thinking about avatars, games, in-game assets and how they translate into real life activations.