Extended reality brings brands into multiple worlds – are they ready?

XR encompasses a range of technologies – such as augmented reality, mixed reality and virtual reality – that create immersive, synthetic environments that simulate the physical world. Consumers and businesses are now interacting with brands in multiple realities, each with unique personalities, needs, wants and desires tied to a single identity.

Brand marketers and advertisers must be cognizant of each reality and provide communication and experiences with the same urgency in synthetic realities as in physical reality.

These new layers add further complexity to a complex business environment, especially as the myriad of personalities tied to a single identity may be wildly divergent and even violate our expectations. The precision segmentation and personas we employ in physical reality may not apply across virtual worlds.

For example, I may be a chief technology officer, a father, a son and a husband as I sit and write this article, but also a dragon in a synthetic world. My needs as a dragon in this other world will differ, opening broad and exciting new opportunities for marketers.

Artificial intelligence (AI) can help make this work but needs help. AI is still a brittle technology; machine learning (ML) often needs more understanding of context and culture, and we need shared definitions of concepts for AI-based persuasion to be successful. To do that, we need to crack the concept of intersubjectivity.

Creating a shared experience with AI

Intersubjectivity is a notion used in psychology, social science, and philosophy, referring to the shared understanding and meaning individuals create through communication. It’s making sense of the world (real or synthetic) through interactions and developing a shared understanding of experiences. Today, AI and ML practitioners and researchers are working to understand how to facilitate intersubjectivity, achieving a shared human-robot experience.

Effective web3 marketing strategies must understand intersubjectivity by recognizing that everyone inhabiting a digital space is a potential participant, contributor and collaborator. In these new spaces, like physical reality, we are part of a collective community working together to create something bigger than ourselves.

For brand marketers, intersubjectivity puts the customer at the heart of an experience. As in physical reality, creating a two-way dialogue between brand and audience across realities is vital.

Intersubjectivity is crucial because it shapes how people perceive and understand the products and services offered in the metaverse. Marketers must understand how their target audience interacts with their brand and the shared meanings created through these interactions. Just as they always have, brands need to create experiences that resonate, are memorable and foster a sense of community (even if that means doing so for a human being who is also a dragon).

By understanding web3, marketers can appeal to their target audience, build brand loyalty and generate sales by tailoring their products and services to customers’ needs and preferences across realities.

Using AI to orchestrate simultaneous realities

The concept of ‘simultaneous realities’ can be challenging for marketers, especially when addressing one identity with multiple personalities across different virtual worlds or realities. However, with the help of AI, marketers can use technology to orchestrate these realities while ensuring brand safety and maintaining intersubjectivity.

One approach is to use AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants to interact with audiences in various virtual worlds or realities. These AI-powered agents can provide consistent messaging and brand identity across multiple platforms, ensuring audiences have a cohesive brand experience regardless of their reality.

To ensure intersubjectivity, AI can analyze audience behavior and interactions with the brand across different virtual worlds. This analysis can provide insights into how audiences perceive and interpret the brand. It allows marketers to tailor their messaging and experiences to different audiences, while maintaining a consistent brand identity, contextually appropriate to the different worlds’ personalities, rules and properties.

Brand safety is crucial here. AI can monitor audience-generated content across different virtual worlds and flag inappropriate or harmful content. This technology can also help identify potential risks to brand reputation, alerting marketers to address them.

Marketers can also use AI to measure the effectiveness of campaigns and assess their impact on different virtual worlds and audiences. This analysis can help identify areas for improvement and optimization, allowing marketers to refine their messaging and strategies to maximize impact.

Embrace tomorrow’s complexities, today!

As the market continues accelerating into a digital future, understanding intersubjectivity and XR technologies is becoming more critical. A successful web3 marketing strategy requires a deep understanding of how people perceive and interact with brands in these synthetic realities.

We are continuing to build AI infrastructure into the marketing technology stack. Integrating tools like ChatGPT into marketing plans can amplify and ensure a cohesive brand experience across physical reality and virtual worlds, coordinating identity and personality for audiences and brands. By tapping into these elements, marketers can create an innovative and effective web3 strategy to keep ahead of the competition.