Brand advertisers are very excited about the opportunity to engage with consumers in the Metaverse. From virtual workspaces for remote workers to virtual avatar dressing rooms for clothing retailers, trade sites and meeting circuits are filled with curiosity about what the metaverse might hold.
But platforms and publishers responded with more... "Hmm." Much of the conversation in this metaverse felt familiar. What has really changed since all the "virtual reality advertising" conference demos and experimental events in the early 20s?
A key reason for this fascination is the mess of the current digital media environment. The user experience is very poor; it's dangerous, and malware and scams are at an all-time high. How do you expect consumers to engage with some creative when they're just looking to get rid of a virus?
With consumer expectations for digital privacy and security rising rapidly, the media industry should focus on cleaning up our current digital environment before it disrupts the Metaverse. It's time to refocus on consumers and provide them with a safe and engaging environment with relevant advertising, not a wasteland full of objections. This will rekindle advertisers' interest in digital media rather than shiny objects like the Metaverse.
Taking Brand Safety Seriously
Brand safety is critical to revolutionizing the current digital quagmire. Previous keyword-driven approaches not only robbed publishers of revenue; they limited advertisers' reach, causing them to miss out on key audiences and opportunities. This was evident at the start of the pandemic. But technology and methods are evolving rapidly -- and more consultative approaches from service providers are helping publishers and advertisers.
Publishers must think about brand safety like advertisers. Defending their brand means protecting their extremely valuable audience from threats of all kinds. Ransomware is now affecting consumers on a massive scale, and malware delivered through advertising channels to digital publisher apps and websites is a key channel for these major attacks. Since 2016, the amount of malware in the digital ecosystem has grown fivefold, and in 2021 alone, new malware incidents, each involving thousands of individual incidents, have grown by 30%. Online scams targeting vulnerable consumers will explode in 2021, growing 63% for the year.
With the widespread adoption of programmatic, publishers have lost a great deal of control over the advertising content that appears on their properties. To protect their brands, publishers need tools to spot and stop threats before they hit consumer screens. Artificial intelligence greatly helps them identify and eliminate malvertising. It is also a central tool for flagging sensitive ad content, with topics as diverse as adult products, cryptocurrencies, gambling, alcohol, marijuana and inflammatory political ideas.
Reignite the digital spark
According to Digiday Research, 80% of digital publishers see no future for their business in the Metaverse. It's easy to resonate -- the widespread vision of a virtual world revolves around social networking, gaming, collaborative work and shopping. In fact, at the IAB's annual leadership conference in early February, GroupM CEO Kirk McDonald even joked that Mark Zuckerberg's infamous Metaverse introduction video was "Second Life's Second Life."
But what about media consumption? Do you need to be in Metaverse to listen to podcasts? See a movie? Reading a guide article? Where our current digital environment is optimized, there is massive media consumption.
The problem is that our current digital environment has lost its luster, largely because the constant clamor for more revenue has drowned out the need to cater to the consumer experience. In order to take the minds of brand advertisers out of the virtual world, we need to refocus on rebuilding consumers' trust and keeping them safe.
Source: Metaverse Matrix