Virtual showrooms, 3D products, and interactive customer advice: The Metaversum opens up completely new potential – not only for dealers but also for the marketing industry. In its latest study, the Universität der Bundeswehr München has now analyzed the status of the German Metaverse market. And found out why marketers should invest in the digital parallel world as a marketing channel.
According to the study, only three percent of those surveyed own a virtual reality headset. This means that VR is still a clear niche product. It looks similarly sobering with the spread of the term metaverse in the German population: around a third of the study participants ( 31 percent) stated that they had a rough idea of what it means. This contrasts with 34 percent who have never heard of the term metaverse. After all, 28 percent of those surveyed have already heard something about the virtual parallel world but cannot do anything with it. Just 7 percent came out as knowledgeable about the Metaverse.
Sounds like the Metaverse isn’t playing all that big a role in the population right now. However, this could change quickly, as Philipp Rauschnabel, Professor of Digital Marketing and Media Innovation at the University of the Federal Armed Forces in Munich, predicts. “The values can change very quickly as soon as there is a killer app,” explains Rauschnabel. This is concrete application software that helps an existing technology to break through that has previously met with little interest.
Largely because no concrete use has been seen for them.
According to Rauschnabel, VR technology and metaverse experiences are particularly useful at the POS or at trade fairs. “The advantage of this is that there are fewer interaction errors with single-purpose devices,” he says. In addition, VR can be used very well in B2B communication for visualizations, onboarding processes, or meetings.
The study also shows that acceptance and curiosity about the metaverse are surprisingly high. Of those respondents who are familiar with the term, 22 percent can imagine attending virtual Christmas concerts. At least 15 percent want to look at a crib story in the digital parallel world and just as many (15 percent) are planning professional Christmas parties on the Web3. ” In view of the still low diffusion rates of the hardware and the traditional ‘analogue character’ of Christmas, these numbers are anything but low,” summarizes Rauschnabel. A total of 1,213 people from Germany, representatively quoted according to age, gender, and region, were interviewed for the annual study on the application potential of augmented reality, virtual reality, and the metaverse. The surveys took place from December 1st to December 4th, 2022 via an online access panel.
