CULT&RAIN is a cutting-edge fashion brand led by George Yang that markets luxury streetwear in both digital and physical forms. Recently, they dropped digital sneakers with a form of digital token - a POAP - to hundreds of avatar visitors to their metaverse. Those hundreds of shoes, walking around Decentraland, are like walking ads for CULT&RAIN, or in other words product placement in the metaverse.
The immersive and immediate experiences of the 3d internet or metaverse create the potential for creators, marketers, influencers and others to organize vastly superior online experiences to Web2, because metaverse UXs offer more person-to-person, transparent and authentic experiences for customers in these spaces. Consumers get to meet their favorite fashion designers, musicians, artists, etc. avatar to avatar (almost face to face). For example, Yang will be able to meet up and share every step of the production process of his shoes and jackets, speaking to the more transparent engagement with consumers too.
This fall, CULT&RAIN is dropping its own line of personal metaverse hangout spaces to its token holders and key influencers. This will allow its marketing team to orchestrate marketing campaigns with much more reach, virality and conversion. Another example of this is the CPG brand Wisher Vodka. Wisher Vodka has already created a hub in SwivelMeta, linked to an experience in Decentraland, as well as provided access from their hub to their website.
What CULT&RAIN and Wisher have in common is that they are creating networked experiences that engage influencers and consumers in exciting new ways, our term for these are metaverse marketing networks.
As Matt Wool sketched out in Fast Company recently, this is the start of a vast new vista of opportunity to create marketing networks around affiliates and partners.
As exciting as these collabs and projects are for us here at SwivelMeta, network experiences that traverse different venues generated and managed by our own microverse platform are just the start. Things really get exciting when creators and marketers can do the same thing across many different metaverse platforms.
New options are emerging every week for both brands and influencers to stand up tailored and personalized metaverse venues. In addition to SwivelMeta’s, these include speciality metaverse platforms like Spatial, Mona and OnCyber as well as ‘destination worlds’ such as Decentraland, CryptoVoxels, Roblox and The Otherside. These platforms enable the creation of theaters, DJ booths, shops, showrooms, personal hangouts, apartments, studios - the list of experience-rich spaces is as long as the imagination.
Individual metaverse spaces or experiences can be of limited utility however, if they exist in isolation from the rest of the 3d internet. Here is where the power of Metcalfe's Law comes to bear.
The next, and even more powerful step in the development of metaverse experiences is the enablement of organically-created, cross-platform networks. When companies, influencers and consumers can link their spaces together regardless of which platform they exist on, the result will be true viral network effects (nfx). Of course we’ve already seen this happen across Web2 platforms at scale - Shopify’s influencer matchmaking service is just one example - but we expect it to happen even faster in the metaverse.
We’re already seeing a needed first step in networking these diverse spaces together in the form of portable avatars from companies like ReadyPlayerMe and Genies. This allows people to create and nurture their individual personas and take them across many different platforms and worlds.
But portable avatars are just the first step. Because the SwivelMeta platform was built with marketers in mind, we’re building all of the network plumbing performance marketers have come to expect in Web2, except we’re building it for 3d metaverse experiences, so marketers can run campaigns and promotions and track things with dashboards. For example:
This is where Web3 blockchain-based building blocks like wallets and tokens make for a much more scalable, efficient and effective mechanism for implementing performance marketing networks than Web2 technologies like browser cookies, embedded codes and tracking links. Blockchain data and “what’s in your wallet” can be as effective as cookies in the future.
But even more importantly, using wallets and tokens is so much more positive for the wallet owner who can set the rules of engagement and add a sprinkle of personalization. Imagine simply using a "wallet connect" to "share" whatever data you want to share, and unplugging/unconnecting whenever you want. Essentially anything that a marketer would want access to, as well as even more personal data records: you as the individual can control your "gate."
This fall we’ll release v1 of our multi-platform Affiliate SDK to be used by creators in other platforms like Decentraland or Spatial so marketers can manage and track cross-platform experiences.
We’re already collaborating on this effort with Web3-oriented companies and projects such as ReadyPlayerMe, Decentraland, Active Replica (metaverse events), Taco (white-label NFTs) and Outernet London (in-person and metaverse brand experiences). We’re also building the software glue needed to activate and tie in traditional Web2 ecommerce platforms like Shopify and others.
We’re passionate about collaborating with other builders of the 3d internet, so that global companies and the influencers on which they increasingly rely can create the kinds of experiences we can only dream about today. You can schedule a meetup here, if you’re interested in working with us.
