Cymballe outlines the future of multiverse marketing

Over the past few years, metaverse hype has taken over the world by storm. It is similar to merging the concept of online gaming with Web3 technologies, not only opening up a new horizon for marketers, but also making the borders between real, virtual and social worlds become increasingly blurred. To keep up with the changing landscape, brands are forced to reimagine their customer experience and make it hyper-connected across different realities. 

At Cymballe, the Best MarTech Team at MARKETING-INTERACTIVE’s Digiz Awards 2022, we believe that a gamified experience could be the answer for brands to establish themselves in the emerging multiverse, and its possibilities are limitless.

With the rise of the multiverse, we’ve seen many brands already taken the initiative to extend their presence into the virtual world through gaming. When talking about gaming, it doesn't necessarily mean you have to build an enormous 3D-enabled environment, or create a full range of fancy gaming assets. If you don’t have the flexibility to spend a lot of time and marketing budget on building the game infrastructure from scratch, implementing part of the gaming elements into existing brand experience is somewhat a more budget-friendly and efficient way to level up your brand's marketing strategy in the multiverse environment. Be it establishing a virtual brand ambassador to interact with customers, launching branded virtual apparel for social media avatars, or giving away NFT assets as a member-exclusive premium.

By leveraging the member database already developed, brands could seamlessly integrate the gaming world with their loyalty programme, and even connect it with the eCommerce platform -  all within one mobile app. For example, the points members gain in the game could be used to redeem physical prizes and offers, or on the other hand, you could reward members with virtual assets, such as extra gears or badges, for their in-game avatars for spending a certain amount in retail stores. Having a holistic and addictive play-earn-buy ecosystem, you will be able to proactively engage with your customers, keep them motivated and coming back, and more importantly, convert the game engagement into sales.

Aside from driving engagement, gamifying your brand experience is also a good way to gain valuable insights and strengthen customer bonding. Once customers connect their gaming persona to their real-world membership, you could keep track of every action they make in the game and across different realities. As they continuously spend time and effort engaging with your game, you will be able to acquire more and more data and insights relating to individuals' preferences and behaviours, enabling you to offer them with more personalised services. 

With the emergence of new phygital retail-technologies, such as augmented reality (AR) mirror, interactive hologram display, and location-based push notifications, you could even bring your virtual gaming experience to the store level. Imagine, in the future, your brick-and-mortar store will be more than just a place for buying and selling, but instead, a "playground" allowing your customers to experience your products, and immerse themselves into your authentic multiverse. A new era has already arrived and it’s the time to bring the game on. So what are you waiting for?

This article is sponsored by Cymballe.