Metaverse Grows: Firms Fight for Advertising

MetaversePlanet March 14, 2022

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Neal Stephenson’s “Snow Crash,” a techno-dystopian science fiction novel, achieved legendary status among Silicon Valley tech companies.

Published in 1992, the novel foresaw the eventual rise of the metaverse in the future.

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Future Insight

Metaverse Grows: Firms Fight for Advertising

Despite Stephenson dismissing it as “just bullshit,” the eerily accurate predictions and imaginative world-building of Snow Crash have earned respect from tech entrepreneurs and futurists, including figures like Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg.

As Web3 designers and marketers gear up for advertising in today’s metaverses, Stephenson’s novel seems more realistic than ever.

For example, on February 23, mixed reality NFT platform Realm announced a partnership with decentralized advertising company Alkimi. Realm plans to leverage Alkimi’s platform to incentivize players to earn from ads by transparently sharing revenue from existing ad formats.

Discussing how to leverage a techno-marketing dystopia like Snow Crash, Realm co-founder Matthew Larby emphasized transparency as a top priority:

“Advertising is a core part of most current social apps, but existing deals have proved pretty bad for both the data creator and the advertiser struggling to justify their spending.”

While Alkimi and Realm focus on providing a transparent and sustainable advertising environment, other major players are also honing in on the metaverse.

Metaverse Moves

JPMorgan recently identified the metaverse as a “$1 trillion opportunity” and released a report stating that “marketing is potentially one of the largest segments of the meta-economy.”

In alignment with this, UK-based in-game advertising firm Bidstack has announced a partnership with multinational media platform Azerion. Bidstack specializes in creating “in-game” ads, where companies pay to display their products on billboards within games like Call of Duty.

It’s important to note that the metaverse is not designed as a game but rather as an alternate world where people will increasingly spend their time. Consequently, advertising is poised to be the next significant step for many brands.