Takeaways: Value Creation in the Metaverse by McKinsey
Marketing, branding, and e-commerce in the metaverse era
Original research link: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/value-creation-in-the-metaverse
Original research published date: June 2022
As I dive into the journey of understanding more about the metaverse, an ever-evolving topic that contains new information almost every day, I find it useful to read others’ research besides writing my own. In the Takeaway series, I hope to share the points that I find it useful in understanding industry opportunities and/or surprising when reading certain research/articles.
The four major layers of the metaverse: the highlight of creators/3D platform
While there are many versions of the components of metaverse, I like the highlight of creator platforms in Mckinsey’s version, as Unity and Epic games’ Unreal engine have played major roles.
Metaverse is not just gaming and Web3, but they are core components that one can’t ignore now.
In the research, Mckinsey highlighted emerging consumer-facing industries like socializing, fitness, commerce, and remote learning beyond gaming as well as enterprise solutions. However, gaming metaverse platforms are still the most common types like Fortnite and Roblox with these games acting more like social platforms.
On the Web3 side, blockchain, digital assets (crypto & NFT), and smart contracts act as key components of achieving permanence, functionality, and interoperability. (For more comparison with Web2 metaverse, please check the table at p.14)
In the future, e-commerce shows the biggest potential for consumers
Interestingly, if we set our eyes far from now in 2030, gaming is not the sector showing the biggest potential but e-commerce according to the research. Maybe that’s the new opportunity?
The research also pointed out that “Of all the potential drivers of the economic impact of the metaverse, e-commerce is the largest” with a potential impact of 2-2.6 trillion dollar impact by 2030, way bigger than advertising, virtual learning, and even gaming. The impact comes into dimensions of net-new business models, operations with higher productivity/ collaboration/ lower costs, more user-engaging activities, and new products/services with a seamless purchase journey.
Investment capital is NOT driven by VC/PE but M&A and internal corporates
We see lots of announcements of new gaming funds and direct investments in the market, but the big pie of capital actually comes from corporate investment and M&A.
Final thoughts: Metaverse branding & marketing as a focus of the business strategy
If we observe closely the corporates’ actions related to metaverse, it’s not hard to find that they are mostly about marketing & branding. In my opinion, metaverse may elevate the need for branding/ marketing talents to understand how to utilize this new technology, especially if e-commerce becomes a more important piece in the metaverse field.
Hence, in the following articles, I’ll focus more on case studies and the observance of marketing, branding, and commerce in the metaverse.