NAB
From virtual teleportation and 3D audio to advanced avatars
and genuninfluencers, “a new digital era is on the horizon as the metaverse
shifts from a sci-fi concept into reality,” says Emma Chiu, global director of
Wunderman Thompson Intelligence.
article here
In “Future 100: Trends and Change to Watch in 2022,” the
marketing agency charts a set of 100 emerging and future global trends,
consumer change, and innovation patterns. Primarily intended to guide and pique
the interest of advertisers, the report nonetheless synthesizes some of the
core trends we’ve been reporting here at NAB Amplify.
These include the metaverse disrupting the physical world
and augmented reality becoming the chosen medium for advertisers.
Let’s take a look at eight of them, drawing on the report
compiled by WTI’s futurism, research and innovation unit.
Meet the Genuinfluencer
Virtual genuinfluencers — a term first coined by consumer
trend forecaster WGSN — describes a CG-created influencer designed to be
relatable rather than aspirational.
An example is Angie, a virtual influencer on Chinese
site Douyin who has gained 300,000 followers by celebrating her
“imperfections.”
Unlike other virtual influencers, whose skin has been
smoothed to perfection and whose faces are perfectly symmetrical, Angie’s skin
is sometimes dry or flushed, she gets acne and acne scars, her makeup creases
and her teeth aren’t perfectly aligned,” says Chiu. “Instead of posing in
designer clothes, she wears simple white T-shirts and athletic shorts.
This chimes with data from Wunderman Thompson that 73%
of American Gen Z’ers want a brand that understands them, and 76% want a brand
that is accepting of a range of identities and experiences. “Being too
aspirational is repellent now,” The Guardian reported in August 2021.
This is also filtering into the virtual realm, where brands
have an opportunity to craft their avatar influencers around core values and
relatability.
Virtual Venues Meet Physical Spaces
Lost Origin is a London-based test project designed to push
the boundaries of what’s possible in the nascent world of immersive and
interactive tech-led performance storytelling.
“Virtual reality experiences can be solipsistic. You can
experience VR alone but you cannot share the experience with others,”
explains Maciek Sznabel, project lead at Factory42. “The aim was to design
an interactive experience that people can enjoy together and, to achieve that,
we decided to mix theatrical performance with mixed reality technology.”
In another example, The Royal Shakespeare Company used
Unreal Engine to present Dream, an interactive performance of live actors
that brings the audience into the production for an almost game-like
experience.
“Liminal spaces, which blend virtual and physical
experiences, present brands with an opportunity to reinvent how physical
experiences and bricks-and mortar spaces can look,” says Chiu.
As related example of this trend, in Manhattan, High Line
Art and westside cultural institution The Shed collaborated to create The
Looking Glass, an augmented reality installation of virtual sculptures located
in the High Line park last summer.
Chiu adds, “Alongside the rise of fully virtual venues and
spaces, extended reality is informing physical spaces, elevating events to
limitless interactions and experiences.
Social Media-tainment
Plots that develop entirely on profiles, dramas that unfold
in feeds, and fictional characters who chat with their followers. Is this the
next big thing in entertainment?
FourFront is “revolutionizing TV through TikTok,” Fast
Company reported. FourFront, which secured $1.5m in funding last October,
is a new kind of content studio. It produces scripted narratives on social
media that have the look and feel of regular posts, featuring fictional
characters who have their own storylines, social media pages, and interact with
followers organically. As of October 2021, FourFront had 1.9 million followers
and 281 million views across its characters’ TikTok accounts.
“We’re blurring the line between reality and storytelling,”
FourFront cofounder Ilan Benjamin told Fast Company.
This could point to a new kind of social media-based
interactive entertainment format. “Not only have we been creating this universe
of characters on TikTok, we’ve also been iterating with a new interactive
format,” Benjamin said. “There’s an evolution in entertainment happening from
motion pictures, where audiences can engage in what we call living pictures
with characters who feel alive, who live in our world, who are on social media,
and react in real time to audience engagements. That fourth wall is completely
broken.”
Invisible Universe is another startup scripting
entertainment specifically for social media. CEO Tricia Biggio, a former SVP of
unscripted television at MGM, calls it “the Pixar of the internet.”
With the mission of creating what the company calls “the
next 100-year animated franchise,” Invisible Universe develops original
animated characters on social media in partnership with celebrities,
influencers and brands. It has released characters in partnership with Jennifer
Aniston and Serena Williams.
Chiu concludes, “Storytelling is evolving, with emerging
formats that are tailored for social media feeds. As movie theaters struggle
and TV viewership declines, the entertainment industry is rethinking how it
reaches and serves audiences.”
Spatial Audio
Immersive listening ushers in the next generation of audio
experiences.
Apple’s new third-generation AirPods and MacBook Pro laptops
will be equipped for spatial audio. Startup company Spatial is creating immersive,
interactive soundscapes for public spaces, including lobbies, retail stores,
offices and even hospitals. Sony introduced two new home speaker systems in
2021 with 360-degree spatial sound mapping technology for an immersive
listening experience.
Companies are “fundamentally rethinking the future of work
in this hybrid environment,” Spatial CEO Calin Pacurariu told Fast Company.
“And they see sound as a competitive advantage.”
Chiu writes, “Social media platforms such as Instagram have
driven a hyper-focus on visual elements over the past decade. Now, especially
as digital platforms mature and engagement evolves, focus is shifting to
multisensory elements — audio, in particular — for a truly immersive
experience.”
Next-Gen Avatars
Nvidia is preparing for a future where 3D avatars with
conversational AI will operate in both the virtual and physical world. In a
November 2021 demo, the company announced the Omniverse Avatar platform.
“The dawn of intelligent virtual assistants has arrived,” said Jensen Huang,
founder and CEO. “Omniverse Avatar combines Nvidia’s foundational graphics,
simulation and AI technologies to make some of the most complex real-time
applications ever created.”
Epic Games believes digital humans are the future. A year
ago, Unreal Engine launched the MetaHuman Creator, which allows real-time
creation of photorealistic avatars in minutes. The cloud-based app can
replicate intricate details of a person’s features, from complexion and
wrinkles to broken capillaries and scars.
In September 2021, California-based avatar-generating
startup DNABlock raised $1.2 million in seed funding to make the
metaverse more diverse and inclusive, Silicon Icarus reports. The
company’s CEO, Anthony Kelani, said, “The metaverse needs to represent
everyone. This needs to represent the world. And with avatars, specifically,
you should be able to generate an avatar that looks like you or like someone of
color.”
Next December we will see what advances James Cameron will
make to his virtual playground in Avatar 2.
“In 2022, new-age avatars will not only seem
hyper-realistic, but also reflect the world’s diversity,” says Chiu.
Virtual Teleportation
Transforming communication and collaboration is at the heart
of Varjo Teleport VR. The headset, launched in October 2021 by
Helsinki-based Varjo, uses a cloud platform to allow for “photorealistic
virtual teleportation.”
Chiu thinks technologists are “opening up digital portals —
making virtual teleportation a plausible reality.”
One of them is Mark Zuckerberg. “By 2030, the new generations
of Oculus will allow users to teleport from one place to another without moving
from their couch,” he told The Information’s 411 podcast.
Microsoft Mesh uses mixed reality (MR) to create
interconnected worlds where the physical and digital come together. The idea is
that people in different physical locations are able to collaborate and work in
real time on the same project via holographic experiences across different
devices.
“You can actually feel like you’re in the same place with
someone sharing content or you can teleport from different mixed reality
devices and be present with people even when you’re not physically together,”
says Microsoft’s Alex Kipman.
London-based design practice Space Popular proposes
an even more ambitious concept — a civic infrastructure that allows for virtual
teleportation. The cofounders envisage a “threaded network of virtual textiles
that our virtual selves pull aside to move between virtual environments.”
Pulling this together, Chiu says, “Distance is becoming less
of an obstacle. As people spend more time working, socializing and
collaborating online, technology is paving the way for teleportation into a new
virtual dimension that offers more intimate, close-to-reality in-person
interactions.”
Co-Creative Platforms
Creativity is increasingly informed and powered by
technology, setting the stage for the next era of digital platforms and
creative influence, believes WTI.
Digital tools have “activated an entirely new world” of
creativity — one where “creations can transcend physical limitations,” creative
technologist and digital designer Helena Dong tells the consultancy.
Seventy-two percent of gen Z and millennials in the US, UK
and China believe that creativity today is dependent on technology, and 92%
believe that technology opens up a whole new world of creation, according to
WTI’s research conducted in July 2021.
“For generation alpha and generation Z, customization and
creation are intricate parts of their gaming experience,” Keith Stuart, games
editor at The Guardian, tells WTI. “For them, customization and the play
element are part of the same thing — self-expression and exploration.”
IMVU describes itself as a next generation social
network. It aims to facilitate emotional connections by providing shared
experiences based on 3D avatars “that go beyond the traditional social media
loop of posting a picture, liking, commenting, and sharing.”
The company’s CEO, Daren Tsui, tells WTI that “creativity is
the new status symbol” — dethroning influence and income. When users come to
its platform, “making money is not the most important thing for them. It’s
about being recognized for their creations,” Tsui explains.
Chiu extrapolates this to mean that in the digital world of
the near future “people are not passive consumers, but creative agents crafting
their self-expression and curating their virtual identity.”
Branded Virtual Worlds
Last September on Roblox, Hyundai launched its Hyundai
Mobility Adventure. The space contains five “parks” where users can race, play
games, learn about Hyundai’s technologies, and take part in festivals. Other
brands are creating branded virtual worlds on their own platforms.
Procter & Gamble, for example, invited visitors into a
virtual world where they could learn about the company’s full portfolio of
products and play games; BMW launched its virtual world Joytopia to
present its vision for the future of mobility alongside “festivalesque”
elements including an exclusive Coldplay concert. Japanese beauty brand SK-II launched
a virtual city where visitors can navigate a virtual rendering of SK-II City to
shop, learn about products, and even catch a movie in the SK-II cinema.
“There’s something unique about the growth of gaming as a
marketing platform,” said Grant Paterson, head of gaming and esports at
Wunderman Thompson. “We talk about gaming as being the nexus of a new consumer
paradigm.”
For younger generations especially, gaming is replacing
advertising channels such as print and television. “A lot of the traditional
ways of marketing to young people are gone forever,” says Stuart. “Gaming is
where they are.”
With the in-game advertising market set to grow by $3.54
billion between 2021 and 2025, per Technavio, brands are diving headfirst
into gaming with branded virtual worlds. Expect to see more branded virtual
worlds as companies and marketers tap into this growing space.
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