3 Things CPG Marketers Can Do Now to Prepare for the Metaverse
Rewind the clock to 1995. You’re a CPG marketer trying to wrap your head around the internet opportunity. At this point in time, it’s a fringe technology.
Many marketers at the time either dismissed the opportunity or recommended waiting until it became more mainstream. But, imagine if you had known then what the internet would grow up to be — and that’s about where we’re at with the metaverse today.
The biggest mistake that marketers can make right now about the metaverse is not to see it through this lens. While no one knows the future, part of every marketer’s job is to be a bit forward-thinking and understand how the consumer-brand relationship will evolve.
3 Things CPG Marketers Can Do Now to Prepare for the Metaverse
What is your plan if this thing takes off in 2024? Here are a few areas to focus on:
Start Building Your Team and Getting Involved
Even if it’s just one person dedicated to staying on top of the metaverse…let them keep you abreast of the evolution in this space, especially what other brands are doing, even if they’re not in your category.
Learn more about your customer base and map out their potential evolution in the metaverse. Will they be the first to adopt? Last? What are their current attitudes toward it? There will likely be a big spike in interest at some point, and you will really want to make sure you’re already at the table by then.
[Read more: Coca-Cola Moving Retailers Into the Digital Age While Meeting Consumers In the Metaverse]
What are the current ways for marketers to get involved? What advertising opportunities are there?
Recommendation: Set a metaverse experimental budget and start trying things. Build up your expertise and be ready for the big spike.
Figure Out Your Data Plan
When marketers don’t have years of refined experience targeting audiences and campaign performance to guide them, they will need to ensure that they can at least get their first-party data into the metaverse. This is imperative. Creative, targeting, and bidding decisions differ if the consumer is a loyal buyer of your products, has never tried your CPG brand, or is deeply entrenched with a competitor.
Data utilization is already one of today’s biggest challenges. How to collect, transport, and use it will most likely have its own set of rules in the metaverse. Having a solid data practice could take months or even years to build, but it’s hard to imagine that it won’t be a difference-maker for marketers in the metaverse.
Recommendation: Get comfortable shoring up first-party data relationships today so that you can eventually leverage them seamlessly for metaverse opportunities.
Get Measurement in Place
The metaverse will need its own set of measurement rules and best practices. There will be new metrics and KPIs. Most likely, cookies will not be easily accessible or even available at all.
Today’s marketers are dealing with new data challenges from changes in consumer behavior, government regulation, and tech company policies. A new measurement approach is needed already that doesn’t rely on mechanisms that are rapidly becoming obsolete.
For example, marketers are investing in incrementality testing tools to measure beyond third-party cookies and even the previous limitations, which couldn’t account for the online-offline interplay of marketing activity. Incrementality not only enables marketers to evaluate experimentation with emerging innovations like the metaverse, but also to understand the incremental value it brings to your total marketing program.
Recommendation: As you revisit your existing marketing practice to evolve to today’s measurement challenges, ensure your new approach can also incorporate future needs like the metaverse.
Be Ready: The Metaverse Might Be Here Sooner Than You Think
For the metaverse, 1995 might not be the best analogy. According to a new article by CNBC, “Some experts say it may only take one or two killer apps for the metaverse to boost VR use from a mere 5% of teens to a big market.”
Some are ahead of the game. Shoe brand Vans, for example, launched a virtual skatepark in the metaverse world, Roblox. With over 50 million visits already, they’re an example of how consumer goods marketers can think outside of the box and get involved right now.
Marketers have a lot on their plates, so it’s not surprising that many don’t have the metaverse high on their priority list yet. But, it’s time to at least start getting prepared.
—Joshua Dreller, Director of Content Marketing at Skai
