What Is An Immersive Experience And How Has It Been Defined In The Web 0, Web 2 And Web 3 World
The experiential marketing sector has long argued that the demand for physical media increases directly proportional to our reliance on digital media. It primarily depends on the different kinds of experiences we can produce as an industry. They are personal, immersive, up-close, and built around physical interactions with other people. Experiences are supposed to be shared by all people to foster a surreal sense of immersion in a fantasy world that truly enthrals you and removes you from the limitations of the actual world. Immersive, in every sense of the word, involves creating a layer of abstraction from reality that removes you from physical tethers and transports you into something more significant.
In recent years, the most excellent way to innovate in the industry was based on digital integrations, with social media collaborations, digital activations, and events tying together to create a cohesive experience that we termed "O2O," or offline to online. This model has served as a reliable baseline for building abstraction from reality by removing the limitations imposed by the real world while promoting inclusivity for people unable to attend an event physically. However, today the world is changing, and we must change with it.
The development of new technology that supports how we connect with the internet as a whole and the integration of new ways for people to interact with one another has fueled the fast growth of the Web3 sector. Technology improvements have been a great boon to the experiential sector with the proliferation and broad adoption of virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality devices, adding additional layers of intractability to anything that can be made. In terms of the social component, the numerous Metaverse platforms continue to serve new purposes daily, encouraging community participation at their core.
Web3 marks one of the most transformative shifts in recent history, generating incredible opportunities in the realm of experiential marketing. New spaces offer the freedom to create new communities of people online. Though the sector is in its infancy, the community-focused ethos is rewriting the rules of engagement and interaction, thus creating a new frontier for online experiences that are genuinely transformative. The world of the Metaverse is undoubtedly one of the most engaging ones people can access, offering the ability to interact with purely imagined spaces. As a result, we open the door to a new way of "living" experiences.
The Metaverse and its various platforms present an incredible opportunity for creating experiences, quite a few of which we've already seen. Whether it be concerts, meetings, conferences, games, or just spaces for people to come together and interact, the Web3 space has created a platform for experiences. From an experiential marketing standpoint, this space provides us with a one-of-a-kind opportunity to incorporate IRL into the URL, which brought us to our extension of the O2O model, transforming it into the O2O2M model, taking events and activations from offline 2 online 2 the Metaverse. It bolsters our line of communication for brand or IP, building recognition, understanding and community.
The O2O2M model is the ideal way to tailor experiences for brands, as it leverages each level of the audience, from Web 0, Web 2 and Web 3, all to bring together a community to immerse themselves in an unforgettable experience. Though there is no definitive playbook for Web3 and how it works other than getting your feet wet and figuring it out the hard way, there will always be an advantage in being the first one on the ship. Seeing brands like Adidas, Nike, Tata, and the likes getting involved in the Meta, NFTs, and other projects in the Web3 space has inspired great confidence in identifying the new trend of community-based marketing through immersive experiences.
Every new advancement will have its challenges, but the potential that events in the Web3 space offer to everyone who ventures into it is enormous and will result in some of the most amazing experiences we have ever witnessed.
