Additional Advertising Implications of the Metaverse

https://www.marketingdive.com/news/miller-lite-skirts-super-bowl-ad-block-with-metaverse-bar/617653/

The article summarizes how the Molson Coors beer company is partnering with the Metaverse company Decentraland to circumvent Anheuser-Busch’s advertising exclusivity that started in 2010 and which is currently expected to extend until 2027. Within Decentraland, Miller Lite will have a unique booth that patrons can visit to view Miller promotional offers and interact with other patrons.  Although this marketing tactic will not generate the number of impressions and awareness that a superbowl ad would today, it provides another interesting use case for how metaverse advertising could compare to traditional mass media, and specifically to the holy grail of mass media – the television Super Bowl Ad. Since consumers are glued to their smartphones, it seems at least plausible that they can be enticed to engage with a digital medium during Superbowl or television downtime. Such mediums can potentially strengthen the impact and relevance of advertising by providing a social platform for users to engage with one another. What if you could join the Miller lite booth in Decentraland and “politely” debate the merits or flaws of the two teams currently competing with other patrons? In the same way that streaming on-demand television has become favored in many contexts to traditional ‘scheduled television’, could we one day expect on-demand interactive experiences to at least partially dominate how advertisers reach consumers?

It’s also interesting to consider the attribution challenges posed by executing parallel marketing tactics at the same time. If many viewers are distracted or engaging with their smartphones or metaverse activities during a super bowl ad, then the advertisement becomes much less effective or useful. Mass media is already more difficult to determine the ROI of marketing dollars than a digital medium, but if consumers have yet another reason not to view the television during commercials, the economic value of those commercials is further diminished