As the Metaverse moves forward, digital marketing trends that brands need to pay attention to in 2023

For brands, the Metaverse is a huge "blue ocean" waiting to be developed. The Metaverse not only creates digital collectibles, but also brings huge opportunities and challenges to brands. So how should brands play with digital collectibles in 2023? Interested friends, let's take a look.

If you were to list the hot words in the marketing industry in 2022, digital collectibles would definitely be on the list!

When it comes to digital collectibles, we have to start with the "cryptopunk avatars" in 2017, but at that time digital collectibles were still luxury goods within a niche circle.

In 2017, Cryptopunk Head No. 7523, known as the “COVID Alien” because it wears a mask and surgeon’s cap, sold at Sotheby’s for a final price of $11.75 million.

It was not until 2021 that digital collectibles saw a real explosion with the help of the first year of the Metaverse. That year, the overseas transaction volume around NFTs exceeded US$19.6 billion.

2022 is recognized as the "first year of the development of digital collections". In China, well-known large companies, media, cultural exchanges and other platforms have entered the market, and digital collections in various forms such as pictures and videos have become the new favorite of the times. In addition, brands in the fields of clothing, fast-moving consumer goods, automobiles, culture, etc. have also begun to try to play with digital collections.

So, how have brands explored digital collectibles this year?

01 Digital collections, the trend code of the new era of brands

To understand the concept and gameplay of digital collectibles marketing, we must first talk about what digital collectibles are.

Although digital collectibles are often generally referred to as NFTs, in fact, digital collectibles are actually a form of application of NFTs, that is, through blockchain technology, unique digital certificates are generated corresponding to specific works and artworks, which realize authentic and reliable digital distribution, purchase, collection and use while protecting their digital copyrights.

This means that after a digital collection is encrypted through NFT means, it will have its own unique and irreplaceable "digital certificate" that can be used to represent unique things, such as original paintings and cultural relics in museums.

Because of this, digital collections quickly became popular in the cultural and museum field. The digital collections launched by the Palace Museum, Dunhuang Museum, Hubei Provincial Museum and others were all sold out in seconds after they went online.

For example, the Hubei Provincial Museum once made its treasure, the Sword of Goujian, King of Yue, into a digital cultural relic, with a limited number of 10,000 copies for sale, which attracted 600,000 people to buy online and sold out in just 3 seconds. The Henan Museum's 10,000 digital collections of the "Fuhao Owl Zun" were also sold out in seconds after they were released online, with the total sales time not exceeding 1 second, which shows how popular it is.

Henan Museum's digital collection "Fuhao Owl Zun"

In fact, it is not limited to cultural relics. The emergence of digital collectibles also allows brands to create scarce and exclusive content for each user in this digital age where copies are rampant. This ensures that users' memories will not disappear with the end of the marketing campaign, but will establish a longer connection between users and brands because of long-term holding. This is also the important value of digital collectible marketing.

Jiang Xiaobai Digital Collection Gift Box

For example, in the field of fast-moving consumer goods, domestic and foreign companies such as Jiang Xiaobai, Nongfu Spring, Mengniu, and McDonald's have all launched digital collections. In February this year, the Jiang Xiaobai digital collection activity was launched, creating digital collections of two virtual images, "Blue Biao Biao" and "Red Beng Beng", which were all sold out in just three minutes after the sale started.

This marketing campaign drove daily sales 16 times higher than usual, the number of paying users 3 times higher than usual, and the number of visitors on the same day 3 times higher than usual. When consumers purchase digital collections and receive physical goods as gifts, their consumption experience and satisfaction are effectively improved, and their purchasing enthusiasm is successfully stimulated.

Of course, in addition to the characteristics of digital collectibles themselves, there is another important factor that cannot be ignored, which is the metaverse that has brought digital collectibles into the spotlight.

Since 2022, the scope of digital collections has continued to expand, from the initial paintings and music works to a pair of shoes and a ticket, from popular fashion brands to intangible cultural heritage, from the Internet to the catering industry, gradually evolving into "everything can be a digital collectible." The reason is that digital collections are a low-cost way for brands in various industries to enter the threshold of the metaverse.

Therefore, many brands use digital collections as a gateway to the metaverse to attract young people of Generation Z, demonstrate that the brand is at the forefront of trends, and ultimately create a younger brand image.

02 Digital collection marketing brings new value and new challenges to brands

As digital collectibles become more and more like the "standard configuration" of brand marketing, it also reminds us that digital collectible marketing is not just a popular concept, but a new exploration of the communication method between brands and users in the next era.

From the perspective of marketing tactics, first of all, from the perspective of brand marketing, digital collections can be said to be a low-cost and sophisticated marketing carrier. Compared with advertising, which mainly relies on marketing expenses, digital collections rely more on the content of the brand. As long as there is good content, marketing breakthroughs can be achieved.

In other words, digital collectibles marketing can change the current situation where brands are highly dependent on platform traffic, thereby breaking away from the domination of centralized platforms, keeping user data firmly in the hands of the brands themselves, and even accumulating public domain traffic by relying on the high topic attention of digital collectibles.

At the same time, the emergence of digital collections provides users with long-term fun and sociality, and provides a new carrier for private domain operations, such as enhancing the artistic scarcity of digital collections, and adding exclusive rights to give high-end customers a sense of identity, thereby improving user stickiness, etc.

For example, in 2021, Audi released a limited edition art blind box with collection value for A8L 60 TFSle owners, which further strengthened the owners' identity and value identification.

In the long run, digital collections are also the cornerstone of the metaverse. Therefore, in the future virtual world, digital collections are also the basis for brands to connect with users and build interactions in the cyber scene where the virtual and the real coexist. Brands build their own brand user base by continuously issuing digital collections, which is also the only way to ultimately create a brand metaverse and establish deep links with users.

So, how should brands plan digital collection marketing?

From the perspective of marketing tactics, whether it is digital collectibles or various new technologies related to the metaverse, there are two stages of development. The first stage is when the concept is first born, new concepts often come with hot spots, and hot spots mean traffic.

At this time, when brands are planning the marketing of digital collections, they can consider using topicality to build virtual people or digital collections, and use hot spots to gain more exposure and attention for the brand. This is also the reason why brands from various industries are flocking to the Metaverse.

In the next stage, as the concept matures and more and more players enter the market, the brand's digital collection marketing also faces challenges, which requires more in-depth thinking and systematic layout. In this regard, the marketing strategy summarizes several points for your reference:

1. Brands strengthen their own connotation and IP culture construction

First of all, from the characteristics of digital collections, the construction of digital collections is not the occupation of productivity and means of production, but the occupation of imagination and creativity. At this time, the brand's own culture will become more important, which is why the digital collections of cultural and museum brands are so attractive to young people. IP will be an important support for the marketing of brand digital collections.

2. Combine the traffic and users brought by digital collections with the existing digital marketing system

Secondly, we need to deeply explore the marketing potential of digital collections based on the existing brand system and marketing system. For example, we need to combine digital collections with marketing methods and asset management to evolve the current marketing touchpoints, better realize brand rejuvenation, assetization of brand value, build a private domain operation system, and explore brand diversification benefits.

3. Finally, we must seize the opportunity and enter the game as soon as possible

We believe that the immersive experience brought by the Metaverse will become one of the most important content trends in the future. Digital collections have lower costs and are uniquely owned. They will be an important foundation for building the Metaverse. Only by paying attention to digital collections can brands make preparations in advance for the transition to web3.0.

03 Lightweight platforms may become the first choice for future brands as they provide opportunities for growth

Regarding the future of digital collection marketing, another foreseeable trend is the platform that provides brands with one-stop solutions, and there is also broad space in the future.

Because these methods of building digital collections seem easy, but the actual operation is very dependent on the company's industry observation ability, technical accumulation and content operation experience. It may be a good choice for brands to quickly build their own digital collection marketing through the platform at low cost.

At present, we have also noticed that there are many successful cases in this regard. Take Yilian Xingyun, a leading domestic metaverse digital marketing and web3.0 technology service provider, as an example. Its one-stop metaverse digital marketing solution, YEEVERSE, has helped brands implement digital collections and metaverse marketing in multiple vertical industries such as consumer goods, local life, cultural and museum, hotel and travel, film and television, and sports.

Making the brand's digital collection marketing lightweight, one-stop and powerful operational empowerment may be the reason why YEEVERSE has flourished in multiple industries.

YiChain Nebula was incubated by YeePay, a well-known domestic third-party transaction service provider, and inherits YeePay's 19 years of industry transaction service experience, product technology advantages and resource endowments.

Relying on the platform's own technical strength and operation and maintenance experience, YEEVERSE Yilian Nebula understands better what kind of technical architecture and operation services digital collections need. It uses standardized product function modules to integrate digital collection casting and chain-up, issuance and sales, marketing gameplay, points interaction, transaction services, asset management and other functions. It can help brands and IP parties quickly build their own digital collection platforms and layout metaverse marketing, while providing a strong grip for the brand's private domain traffic operations.

Taking the hotel industry as an example, Shanghai Sheshan InterContinental Hotel (Shanghai Shenkeng Hotel) took the opportunity of its fourth anniversary celebration to launch a four-year anniversary limited edition digital collection - "Meteorite Depression" with the theme of "Si is 'Deep' Hidden".

As a product technology service provider, Yilian Nebula has created a full-link digital collection marketing system for the hotel and embedded it into the hotel's official account and mini-programs, providing a one-stop service of "minting + chaining + issuance + settlement" for digital collections, enabling the digital marketing upgrade of the hotel industry throughout the entire process. Once launched, it received good market feedback and presented an extraordinary gift for the Shenkeng Hotel's fourth anniversary marketing.

In terms of the sports metaverse that has been very popular this year, Yilian Nebula also built a digital collection mall "HiMi" for Manchester United's official authorized dealer Beijing Dongchi Culture and provided marketing service support, helping Dongchi Culture seize marketing opportunities during the 2022 Qatar World Cup and win the Best Sports Collection Company of the Year at the ECOTIME Sports Annual Conference.

Dongchi Culture focuses on the official authorized World Cup peripherals, uses blockchain technology to trace the origin of signed jerseys, and releases a variety of World Cup peripheral blind boxes to further focus on fans' concerns and deeply explore the application scenarios and value of the sports metaverse.

As the marketing of digital collectibles and the metaverse enters a deeper stage, for most industries, building their own technical team from scratch and timely follow-up maintenance have caused brands to have many concerns.

But now, the emergence of YEEVERSE's one-stop metaverse digital marketing solution has enabled brands to easily solve the problems in technology and system construction. It can pave the way for brands to enter the metaverse, allowing brands to use the issuance of digital collections as a starting point to enter the broader metaverse world.

Take the cultural and tourism industry, where digital collectibles are the hottest, for example. YiChain Nebula helped Utour launch the "U2NFT+U2META" Utour Cultural Tourism Digital Collection Metaverse, opening a new chapter in the "Digital Collection Metaverse" of Utour Group.

The underlying overall development and construction of U2NFT+U2META is fully supported by YiChain Nebula. Combined with the characteristics of the cultural and tourism industry, it empowers Utourism and accelerates the digital transformation of the cultural and tourism industry.

Leading platforms in the industry, represented by YEEVERSE, are exploring more value scenarios with brands, helping them to achieve brand rejuvenation, brand value assetization, acquire Generation Z users, build private domain operation systems, and create new ways of interaction between brands and users. This will not only further expand the marketing value of the "Digital Metaverse", but I believe that platform development will also become a long-term direction for the future.

Conclusion

For brands, the Metaverse is a huge "blue ocean" waiting to be developed. When it is truly implemented one day, it will definitely bring huge opportunities and challenges to brands, just like the industry reshuffle from offline to online and from PC to mobile in the past.

What’s more, there is a group of young people who are interested in the new era and new technology. Choosing to deploy digital collections at this time will undoubtedly seize the initiative in the long-term brand development. For brands that are in the shallow waters, choosing to cooperate with the industry’s leading Metaverse marketing platform will be a good choice.

Author: Mr. Bingfa

Source: WeChat public account "Marketing Art of War (ID: lanhaiyingxiao)"