Being human totally sucks most of the time. Videogames are the only thing that make life bearable.
—ReadyPlayer One, Ernest Cline.
Ready – Launch
In the spring of 2018, Steven Spielberg ignited the world yet again.
And like previous times, the rabbit he pulled out of the hat for this occasion, so to speak, was something that had been sitting on everyone’s lips for quite a while albeit lacking the critical impetus to explode into a full-fledged public discourse.
The sensation was the metaverse, or, a “network of always-on virtual environments in which many people can interact with one another and digital objects while operating virtual representations – or avatars – of themselves”, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica. The concept, despite wowing audiences from around the world on screen, is howevernot a new one.
Ernest Cline, the author of the novel Ready Player One, which Spielberg later adapted into film, came from an established line of American sci-fi writerswhodevoted their ink to substantiating in imagination what was yet possible in reality. The technological dimension – the science part of the science-fiction,was all sound, in theory.And almost always ahead of time.
The metaverse required, above all else, an elaborate cybernetic system of interface that could handle real-time transferring and rendering of information at high volume, and immerse, at least in vision, the user in adistinct reality.Impression is of paramount importance here.Much like in a good film the viewer forgets the world beyond the screen, a good metaverse, so the argument goes, would make the user forget their actual physical selves.
While marketing companies have been enthusiastically hopping on the metaverse bandwagon since – with much fanfare, technological challenges to its realization are still numerous. And among a legion of more moderate alternatives to a fully flushed-out metaverse is our protagonist today – Mixed Reality (MR).
A Matter of Nuance
Simply put, MR is a combination of Augmented Reality (AR) – familiar to those who were infected by the Pokémon Go frenzy a few years back, and Virtual Reality (VR), which have been almost household names to our recent memory.In terms of technological basis, AR relies on the offline world as a platform onto whichfictional objects are projected, whereas VR operates in a stand-alone fictional world, interactable via external interface such headsets. MR takes from both, and relies on either the actual world,such as Microsoft Holo Lens or a fictional one – as in the case of Windows Mixed Reality, as its primary platform.
Image source: abcNews
The key difference between MR and either AR or VR is that, whereas the latter ones are in partdesigned for supporting a singleuser’s adventures, MRsuggests a more accentuated focus on connecting people.In the ideal scenario, instead of oneor a few playerschasing rare Pokémonsacross blocks withinan apparatus tailored to accommodate those individual acts, the fusion of AR and VR into MR provideselements that facilitate social interaction– or interpersonal communication – as part of its core design.
And with that, a new frontier isopening up for those who are most in need for novel ways of interactivemass communication – marketers.
A Quick Glance Across the Board
To date, many alternative reality attempts in marketing content creation are still referred to either as AR or VR, yet across the spectrum, it is rather unambiguousthat the line separating AR, VR and MR is not at all definitive.
Take Merrell’s Trailscape. Back in 2015, footwear manufacturer Merrell, in a bid to promote their new Capra hiking boots, launched a VR demonstration at Sundance Film Festival.In a specifically designedstageresembling a mountain hiking route(a rickety wooden plank bridge connectingnarrow mountaintop trails) that is equipped with motion trackingdevices and4D mechanics (artificial wind, sound, ground shakes, etc.), visitors were invited to put on Capra hiking boots, and immerse themselves virtually via Oculus Rift VR headsetin some predesigned hiking scenarios.
Image source: Framestore
To convey a real sense of the thrills of hiking, visitor experience was enhanced by a virtual rockslide, the ensuring rumbling of the ground, the collapse of the bridge once passed, and that final sensation of relief and reward at the end of the trail, when a 360-degree magnificent view was augmented by simulated wind and bird calls.
The plan all along, of course, was to safely relocate visitors into an authentic hiking experience that would intrigue, interest, and eventually, motivate people to undertake that hike themselves – something that cannot be done in the headset-free reality as safely. In other words, to communicate what it is like to actually hike. Yet upon closer scrutiny, one would find traces of MR already evident in this then first-of-a-kind VR demonstration nearly a decade ago.
The combination of VR headset with 4D—itself already a rudimentary form of AR, for one, is self-evident. For those of us who have been to 4D films, setting aside whether it is a good idea to have chairs shake uncontrollably at random intervals or our faces softly sprinkled with what is supposed to be water, blasted with wind – the experience is decidedly more memorable than otherwise. On top of that, the real-time motion trackers further blended the digital and actual realities to provide a well-synthesized experience that made the whole deal feel much more real.
Another example took place at Microsoft Build 2017, when designers at Cirque du Soleil, one of the top theatre production companies in the world, showcased a scripted event stage design with Microsoft HoloLens.
Image source: CNET
Renowned for its large-scale circus shows, Cirque du Soleil often requires huge sets and an accompanying entourage of equipment, making event planning a formidable challenge. On an empty stage equipped with display sensors, three Cirque du Soleil demonstrators created a virtual stage, added numerous objects, moved and refurnished them, and ended with a quite impressive prototype, all in collaboration with each other. The show, naturally, was scripted, as real-case model developing, and alternating are likely to take much longer. Nonetheless it does demonstrate quite clearly how MR technologies can quite effectively facilitate real-time communication.
A brief interlude worth mentioning here was when a designer – who was at the time not on set – joined the ongoing project as an avatar, likely via Microsoft Mixed Reality headset, and made a few inputs using controllers from the same set. The changes took effect simultaneously, suggesting them being scripted like others, but it once again demonstrated just how well the collaboration between AR and VR – at the center of Microsoft’s push for developing full-fledged MR – can be.
A much more recent and perhaps curious case can be found in the most recent South Korean election, a more or less parallel sphere to commercial communications. Already one of the world’s most connected countries, in this election season, South Korea saw its leading politicians turning to virtual spaces to facilitate their campaigns.
Partly due to the ongoing pandemic restrictions as well as an attempt to connect with young, tech-savvy voters, both leading and minor candidates used a variety of different virtual platforms – including a major TV network’s metaverse – to talk and listen to voters, a gesture that has so far evidently won the attention of many young people who would have been out of reach by conventional campaign approaches.
Where Do We Go from Here?
What is abundantly clear, at this point, is that notwithstanding the few explicit mentions of MR by name, the marketing – especially the integrated digital marketing landscapeincreasingly findsitself amidst an accelerating transformation that is setto eliminate the boundary between the virtual and the actual for good. Sooner or later, it seems, adopting MRwould cease to be a mere competitive edge, but another must-have to survival for those who provide advertising agency services.
Image source: France 24
In part, this reflects the general trend of consumer fascination with MR, whose global market is set to skyrocket from a mere $47 million in 2018 to $3.7 billion by 2025. This is, to a large extent, buoyed by a burgeoning attention economy that is deeply intertwined with anything digital, where ROI is measured by the second and consumer demands forever morphing around the clock – and above all else, meaningful engagement, or social community is the golden key to sustainable growth.
The conventional practice in marketing communications, where a predesigned narrative that representsthe product and the brand narrates itself to the consumer in soliloquy, hoping to elicit a curious glance or two back, could thus be upended. A MR aided marketing approach would instead thoroughly gamify the entire practice.For instance,as opposed tostaring at an invariably uninviting2D screen and having to imagine, in abstract, what is behind the message, MR marketing could draw the otherwise impassive consumer into an already immersive world designednot only to tell, but to interactand feel.
To Game or Not to Game
This is especially the case with young consumers. According to a Forbes article, Gen Z, or those who are 23 or below, are among the most coveted groups brands wish to win over. On a regular basis, 90% of them are gamers, and nearly half identify gaming as one of the top three daily leisure priorities. The allure is more than self-explanatory. At a time when younger generations are becoming increasingly disillusioned regarding real life prospects, gaming offers a welcoming haven that not only promise, but actually delivers a sense of connection and control to their often physically alienated and powerless lives.
Such a well-catered habit in assuming the limelight in their digital lives is already shaping demands on overall consumption habits as well. Instead of being communicated to as an insulated audience, younger consumers want to participate in the communication process,in additional to playing a more central role in their leisure activities.
Image source: Subspace
With social interaction as a core of MR technologies, a gamified approach centered on interaction could thus forever change the relationship between consumer and brand.
Nowhere is this more manifest than in the metaverse, which is, after all, an advanced form of MR in action. Metaverse marketing or blockchain marketingcould very much, in theory, supplement or even take over conventional offline marketing as it removes the hardcore hindrancesthat prevent the consumer from active engagement (recall the Merrell case from earlier).As the whole metaverse world is fictional – therebygamifiableat the very foundation, a group of avatars walking on a metaverse street could very easily, instead of just staring paststationary posters after posters, hop into a mini-program portal and participate in interactive storylines that would make them want to come back for more next time, in additionto an unforgettable experience already much closer to heart.
In other words, the turn to MR marketing representsa tectonic shift in the very philosophy of marketingcommunications, and how well brands can adapt to this transformationdepends on their willingness to invite the consumerto joininthe making and telling of their unique stories.
Perhaps, after all, what sucks has nothinginherently to do with being human.But confined to being a 21st century bipedal humanoid cut off from the virtual, at a time when we are closer than ever to having the technological means to enact our own – and countless others’ imaginations.Now that does suck.
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