Campaign China invites generation Z creatives and senior marketing and brand experts to discuss how they view the present and future of Yuan Universe in the Chinese market?

Just like in other parts of the world, Yuan Festival as a concept has gained widespread attention in China in recent months, and opinions and marketing activities have sprung up after the rain.

For example, Forrester’s principal analyst Xiaofeng Wang shared a blog post discussing Metaverse and NFT, citing the innovation of the Singles’ Day Shopping Festival in 2021—an art exhibition and the Metaverse Symphony on Tmall/Taobao—as example. At the same time, Catherine D. Henry, Senior Vice President of Growth, XR Strategy and Innovation of Media.Monks in the United States, shared her views on China's role in building the meta-universe. With the emergence of core technologies such as artificial intelligence and 5G, and the emergence of super applications such as WeChat ("the pioneer of Metaverse"), she believes that China will lead the construction of "the future of virtualized human experience."

Sports China asked Wang, Henry and more Chinese experts to weigh how the Chinese market views the development of Metaverse.

Forrester Chief Analyst Wang Xiaofeng:

In a rapidly developing market like China, brands are more likely to use emerging technologies and digital innovations to differentiate and attract novelty-seeking consumers. More brands will try Metaverse and NFT in marketing activities, either in cooperation with digital platform participants such as Alibaba or Tencent, or by themselves (with the help of digital agents) such as SK-II CITY activities. Although it is still in the early stages, we hope to see individual activities or pilots here and there, but it will not be large-scale, because the use cases and the technology itself are not mature, and most consumers are not ready. Whenever a new technology or marketing strategy is available, the pioneer brands that have the courage to be the first to try will gain the first mover advantage. It attracted more consumers and media attention, and created a lot of public relations value. In addition, consumers are more likely to see it as an innovative brand. The few brands that first adopted WeChat Moments advertising, and the first luxury brands that were first sold on Tmall or used Douyin, benefited from early adoption. Brands should act fast, but they should also adopt a method of testing and learning, and test the waters responsibly and cautiously. Brands should consider and measure what real customer and commercial value Metaverse can bring, not just chasing shiny things. Merely offering marketing gimmicks is dangerous, because when something new passes, consumers will quickly abandon it. Brands should also consider corporate social responsibilities, such as respecting consumer data privacy and practicing ethical marketing, even in virtual environments.

Catherine D. Henry, Senior Vice President of Growth, XR Strategy and Innovation, MediaMonks:

Brick-and-mortar retailers can challenge the convenience of online shopping by providing more social experiences. One of the best examples is Burberry's social retail store in Shenzhen. In order to better attract young and fashionable consumers in the physical retail space, Burberry stores provide digital immersive retail experiences, linking social activities with physical experiences. Burberry worked with Tencent to create a small program in Tencent's WeChat app, where customers can unlock exclusive content and personalized experiences. Just like the private club app, customers can book themed fitting rooms, pre-select clothes and choose their own music during fitting. They can also book tables at Thomas's Cafe in the store, as well as make appointments with stylists and other services. Since the store opened, Burberry's sales have increased by about 30%. This is a perfect example of the metaverse-driven type of "retail entertainment", where digital and physical experiences merge together-we can expect more retailers to adopt this approach. The Chinese market will have its own unique hardware, infrastructure, user interface and user experience-which may be different from the West. Therefore, brands wishing to enter this lucrative market should be prepared to participate in an independent but huge demographic and ecosystem, where Gen Z (people under 34) account for 36% of the population, or about 500 million people. Compared with other parts of the world, young people in China are more enthusiastic about mobile devices and technology, and to a large extent do not use PCs or other technologies. In addition, online consumer behavior is much more advanced in many ways. Today, we have a unique opportunity to develop a physical Internet that is inclusive, accessible and open to countless developers and creators to push technology to new boundaries. The most important thing for the company now is to create an interoperable system that allows users to move freely between different virtual galaxies.

Monica Lee, Chairman of Superunion Asia:

The popularity of "Yuanjie" seems to be accompanied by anxiety. Brands worry that they will not be able to keep up with new trends. As a brand consultant, my suggestion is to go back to the brand itself and think about the nature of "meta universe" and its relationship with the brand. The concept of "meta universe" is essentially a new form driven by the new generation of Internet technology changes. For brands, it is a huge new content, service and experience carrier that can cover almost everything. It is a new world full of infinite creativity, creativity and possibilities. Especially for Internet social and gaming brands, Metaverse has widened the boundaries. People use "social" to imagine and redefine their new identities, and use "games" to build a virtual parallel world, allowing them to get an unprecedented experience from the meta-universe. There are many different forms of Metaverse, but what remains unchanged is the essence behind the concept, that is, "human." It is people's innovation and creativity that build the meta-universe. The carrier of service and experience is changing, but the brand's goal has always remained the same: "capture people's hearts." In Qingyuan Universe, brands need to ask themselves how to clearly define their core brand philosophy and guide marketing activities, and how to use the power of creativity to tell brand stories and win people's hearts.

Roger Bikkier, MD, MediaMonks China:

Creating interesting or useful digital experiences will be the most important. No one wants to wear a VR headset to watch pre-roll ads. Metaverse opens up endless possibilities for more attractive formats, experiences and even a fully branded digital world, which is beyond our imagination today. The institutions that are best suited to provide services for brands entering this new era are those that have internal digital production capabilities to link strategy and production. Brands should challenge their agencies to go beyond meta-universe case sharing and get their hands dirty in experiments. Although everyone is scrambling to keep up, those who do, learn, and adapt the fastest will be in the lead. Having a partner who can reverse Metaverse experiments at a digital speed will be the key to success. Although people generally worry about privacy issues, I see the return of anonymous appearances presents a huge opportunity. With the meta-universe, we may return to a world where everyone can be anyone or anything. I hope that there will be some "verses" that embrace privacy within the scope of anonymity, perhaps beyond the meta-platform. In the virtual world, I can be any shape, form, color or gender. From an inclusive perspective, this is huge because it creates a level playing field. From the perspective of marketers, positioning will be a challenge.

Generation Z's View on the Metaverse

In addition to the industry experts cited above, Campaign China also asked a group of young Dentsu marketing professionals for their views on Metaverse. They are not only young creatives, but also the next generation of consumers. Members of Dentsu's so-called "Team Z" also expressed their views in a recent column on NFT. Team members only use English names to identify themselves.

In contrast, the Chinese market is still in its infancy. One of the most impressive works is McDonald's Big Mac Rubik's Cube. Although it is not sold externally, it is only sold to some employees and loyal consumers, but I think it is really good-looking. Every piece of the Rubik's Cube is very delicate, which impressed me deeply. The other is Baidu VR's "Xirang". It is said that it is a product of the meta-universe concept. I tried it as soon as it was launched, but I feel that this product has a lot of bugs and is not well polished. It seems to be just to catch up with the latest metaverse craze.

Speaking of the Tmall Metaverse Art Exhibition, the super-realistic digital artist Ayayi itself has not become popular, so many people are not familiar with her, and their interest in digital collections has not increased. I did buy an NFT before, but it was not very useful at all. The picture is completely covered by the payment code. It's like eating chicken ribs, tasteless but wasteful to throw away. Traditional brands need to think about what kind of content can be produced in Metaverse to attract online users to purchase, and how online content can be connected with offline products.

I think the development of Metaverse is a trend, especially after the epidemic. The world is now a very different place. People embrace the online experience and enjoy the convenience brought by technology. In the past two years, the collapse of real idols has brought an impact to the brand and also promoted the growth of virtual idols. The younger generation of Internet aborigines are more eager to experience virtual reality. All these factors are bound to have a considerable impact on the Chinese market and the media industry. Brands need to pay close attention to the trends of the Yuan Festival market and keep abreast of the latest information. To open up the young market, we need to read the opinions and opinions of Generation Z in real time, and then establish a strong connection with them with warmth and trust.

Now everyone has many different interpretations and understandings of metaverse/NFT, and I prefer to think of it simply as the transformation of brand marketing from offline to online. The most important factor in Metaverse's development is technology and policy. Rather than expect people to use Metaverse's concept for online marketing, I am even more looking forward to what kind of digital innovation and applications Metaverse will bring. If we are optimistic, the next era after 5G may be the meta universe! Some people are worried that it will affect the real economy, but from what we currently see, digital goods are mainly to meet the spiritual needs of consumers, rather than material needs. Therefore, in the future, the real economy must not only be genuine, but also give more spiritual value to the goods. This is a big challenge for marketers.

It will not be negative, but I think the metaverse may not have a good impact. To be honest, my friends and I are currently skeptical of Metaverse. We believe that these concepts have just appeared in the Chinese market and have not broken through. So the Z generations around me are just talking about NFT as a hot topic, or just choosing to buy it out of curiosity. At the market level, NFT collectors are only a small group of people. When a brand is co-branded with NFT, the followers of the brand will not care too much about the income that NFT can bring to them, but will focus on the brand itself. Because in a diversified brand world, NFT is relatively a niche group, it is difficult for a brand to maximize its revenue through co-branding with NFT. This is why we should treat meta-festival marketing with care and caution.

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