What I learned from my first metaverse keynote in the metaverse

Daniel Langer, CEO of Équité, and the executive professor of luxury strategy and pricing at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California

By Daniel Langer

I was recently asked to do a keynote about the metaverse for luxury brands inside the metaverse. We organized the metaverse event in a collaboration between Équité x Innocos. The setting could not have been more surreal for a keynote presentation. We invited all participants to join the keynote in the Walkabout Minigolf game and the location we chose was a space station circling around Saturn. A first learning was that it was not yet that intuitive for participants to join. Some had initial difficulties entering the virtual space, so the event had to be delayed by about 15mins until everyone was in.

This is a complaint that I hear often that joining virtual reality hangouts is not always easy and poses a barrier for VR users. However, I am convinced that this will be solved with the next iterations of VR headsets, operation systems, and app designs. Once everyone joined and the presentation started, the experience was noting less than mind-blowing.

I was joining from my conference room in Malibu, the other participants connected from all over the world, some from Paris, others from Amsterdam and London, and others from New York. While we were all in different “real world” locations, it felt like everyone was in the same room, aka the space station. While I was presenting and elaborating about the opportunities and principles of brand experience creation in the metaverse, we started playing mini golf. The setting created a human connection and intensity that I never expected and that even exceeds to some extent a “real world” presentation. It was a combination of a disruptive visual and spatial experience walking though the space station, getting completely new impressions, hearing everyone from their relative positions within the virtual space through spatial audio as if they were in the same space, and being for one hour fully immersed in the moment without phones or any other distractions.

In fact, a week later I was in Paris to lead a future of luxury masterclass with about 40 participants in a meeting room. Having the virtual keynote still fresh in my memory, the real world experience could hardly rival with the metaverse one. This, to me, was one of the most fascinating findings. I often hear that the virtual reality is a simulation of the real world, however I would argue that it is in fact an augmentation of experiences. And having a headset on forces people to be focused in the now.

In my projects with clients I am encouraging everyone to buy a VR headset and to start using it in as many situations as possible. Try to conduct meetings, for example in Horizon Workrooms where you can mix VR with some participants who join via traditional video calls if they don’t have a headset yet. Use VR in an airplane to have a virtual large screen in front of you when you work on your laptop. Try to use VR for meditation, sports, movie experiences, and other activities.

The metaverse is more than a hype. It is dramatically more immersive than today’s 2-dimensional digital experiences where we simply watch at a screen. It provides different and highly engaging experiences, and therefore it will become part of our lives as soon as the technology gets more easy to use, with smaller, faster, and better headsets, and with more variety and more intuitive apps. Today’s state-of-the art is already impressive and given that we are at the very beginning of Web3, it is a sneak preview of what is to come.

However, for managers of brands, whether luxury or not, it is of utmost importance to get as familiar as possible with the new reality, so that strategic mistakes can be avoided. And when we audit many of today’s metaverse projects, we find that most either lack intent or a clear end-game. Many projects are also not backed by real-world assets and the value proposition is not sharp enough. Lastly, many projects are not creating desire, are not inspiring, or don’t attract audiences. Given the digitally native Gen Zers, not playing to win in the metaverse is playing to lose.

While many brands may think they have time, the adaptation will be rapid and the consequences dramatic. The Web3 is a closed internet where it’s pay to play for both sides, clients and brands. The need for radically more immersive content will skyrocket and it requires full clarity and executional precision on brand positioning and messaging, something that many brands already struggle with today. In my observation, too many of today’s digital projects are “test and learn,” or simply done to not miss out. It’s not surprising that probably about 80-90% of today’s projects are failures, if companies would be brutally honest. And the amount of pricing mistakes in the metaverse is mind-blowing.

It’s a fascinating new reality that requires a combination of strategic and disruptive thinking and a much more holistic view on the customer experience. My recommendation: do the right things, don’t go for unstrategic experiments. Too much is on stake: it’s your brand equity and your client experience.

Named one of the “Global Top Five Luxury Key Opinion Leaders to Watch,” Daniel Langer is the CEO of the luxury, lifestyle and consumer brand strategy firm Équité, and the executive professor of luxury strategy and pricing at Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. He consults many of the leading luxury brands in the world, is the author of several best-selling luxury management books, a global keynote speaker, and holds luxury masterclasses on the future of luxury, disruption, and the luxury metaverse in Europe, the USA, and Asia. Follow @drlanger