Benchmark Search & Digital Marketing Magazine - Issue 11 for Autumn 2022

A WORD FROM THE DIRECTOR

Hello, and welcome to the eleventh issue of our Benchmark Search & Digital Marketing Magazine. It’s been a while in the making, but we believe it’s worth the wait.

There have been a lot of changes since the last edition, but rather than dwell on the past, we’ve decided to focus on the future - extrapolating from current trends to help you see what the next few years may have in store for search.

We hope you’ll find something inside that will help you take your next steps in digital, challenge and inspire you.

Until next time....

CONTRIBUTORS

CONTENT

Immy Williamson John Warner Jorden Williams Karen Campbell Karen Ngai Lara Harding Lisa Anne Mittal Mark McGonigle Nicola Glancey Sophie Deakin Tom Reynolds

DESIGN Lisa Anne Mittal Chloe Ridgeway

PUBLISHED BY Click Consult Ltd

ADDRESS Willow House Oaklands Office Park Hooton Cheshire CH66 7NZ PHONE 0333 009 8299

WEBSITE www.click.co.uk

Julie Sowa, Managing Director

CONTENTS

INDUSTRY NEWS

The latest from the world of search and digital marketing, and interesting tech developments.

THIS QUARTER IN SOCIAL

All the most important news from the world of social media marketing from the last quarter.

SEARCH MARKETING AND THE METAVERSE

Search will thrive in the metaverse - but not the metaverse we’re being sold.

WHO STOLE THE 3RD PARTY COOKIES FROM THE COOKIE JAR

What the end of third party cookies means for brands online.

THE FUTURE OF PRIVACY

Discussion of how online privacy is changing and what that means for users.

WHAT DOES THE METAVERSE MEAN FOR THE FUTURE OF ADVERTISEMENT, CONTENT MARKETING AND DIGITAL PR

Competition will be fierce and creativity will be key to brands finding success in the metaverse.

CASE STUDIES

Check out the results we’ve been achieving since the last issue.

DESIGNING THE FUTURE

From AI to AR, VR to 3D, find out how to thrive in the next age of tech driven design.

THE POWER OF HYPER PERSONALISATION

In this time of rapid evolution, the players that adapt will be the ones that thrive.

ADVERTISING IN THE METAVERSE

Advertisers potentially have a huge opportunity if the metaverse becomes reality.

THE RESURRECTION OF PIXEL ART VS THE DAWN OF 3D NFTS

The future of NFTs requires them to adapt to the ever changing marketing landscape.

THE FUTURE OF DIGITAL CONTENT MARKETING

From digital avatars to AI influencers - what is the future of content marketing?

UFOS AND UFC - THE FUTURE IS OPTIMISED

Will all future content be produced by little green men from Mars?

INDUSTRY NEWS

The topic on everyone’s lips (still) is Google Analytics 4, with the deadline for migration from Universal Analytics set for 1st July 2023, it’s no wonder that GA4 is the talk of the town. Why not take the time to read our roundup from the last quarter?

SIGNALS INDICATE ANOTHER GOOGLE SEARCH RANKING ALGORITHM UPDATE

A potential indicator for another algorithm update could have been something to do with the finished Google Products Review update, or it was totally unrelated.

People had been reporting low traffic to sites, with search traffic apparently dropping as low as 30%. There is usually a lull in search traffic during the summer months, but it seems that these drops are more closely linked to a potential update as opposed to people spending less time on devices to actually enjoy the sun (we don’t get it often, afterall).

GOOGLE ADS EDITOR AND API NOW SUPPORT DISCOVERY ADS

Google made an announcement that Google Ads Editor and Google Ads API are now supporting Discovery Ads, Google wrote:

“[If] you’re looking for more tools to help you save time with your Discovery ads, Google Ads Editor and API are now available to help you manage your campaigns at scale.”

Google included that there are new audience insights at the Discovery campaign level, and new support for images with text overlays. The update means that you can use the Insights page to see which audience segments deliver the biggest impact on your business, allowing you to drive deeper engagement and optimise targeting to scale your reach to consumers who are likely to convert.

The addition of new support for images with text overlays is a welcome one. Google wrote:

“To make the lift and shift of your assets and audiences more seamless and help you craft more successful ads, we’ve rebuilt our onboarding flow from the ground up. During ad creation you’ll see more detailed asset guidance like prompts to add more aspect ratios or unique headlines, and you can now add image assets with text overlays to help you deliver even clearer calls-toaction.”

Jorden Williams Marketing Executive

SORRY,

SORRY, CAN YOU REPEAT THE QUESTION?

Put your hand up if you have ever asked Google a question, and gotten lost in the “People also ask” sea. Well, it now looks like that sea has become an endless abyss of Q&A’s vying for people’s attention.

Google has dynamically added an additional “People also ask” block at the bottom of the page which appears if you have interacted with one of the questions on the first PAA block; so if you don’t get your answer on the first 4 attempts, you’ll have more luck with the 5th and 6th right?

Historically, PAA boxes

SERP

While 43% of

interact

have

PAA

only 3%*

Google’s

OUTCOMES TOOL

Audience insights platform DISQO has unveiled a tool called Outcomes Lift. This tool is being formally unveiled as a companion piece to DISQO’s Brand Lift tool, which gauges the effectiveness of an ad based on consumer attention.

Through consented customer feedback, the Outcomes Lift tool reports on actions taken by a consumer after exposure to the ad within the Brand Lift tool. Stephen Jepson, Executive Vice President of ad effectiveness stated that:

In layman’s terms, DISQO’s Outcomes Lift gives a clearer picture on what consumers are doing after ad interaction.

AN APPLE A DAY, KEEPS THIRD PARTY COOKIES AWAY

Job listings from Apple are keeping marketers on their toes, making us infer that there is a demand-side platform on the way.

The job (requiring 8+ years of experience fyi) is a senior manager for a DSP in its ads platforms business. With part of the job description stating…

It is unclear whether the DSP will only operate on Apple’s owned and operated properties (App Store, Safari etc), but they will have full control of how and where the data is used, preventing leakage of very valuable data outside of their walled garden.

“Brand and upper funnel activity is important, but if you’re not combining that with lower funnel activities, like search activity, like site visitation, and most importantly, sometimes e-commerce activity … you’re kind of missing how effective your media might be — or not —and many different KPIs that you can optimize on”

“[the successful candidate will] drive the design of the most privacyforward, sophisticated demand side platform possible”

TAG, YOU’RE IT!

Google announced the Google tag. “What is it?”, we hear you cry! It is a single, reusable tag built on top of your existing gtag. js implementations. The rollout of the tag spanned a couple of weeks, with Google advising that it should be placed on all pages of your website. They also claim that the tag will:

GOOGLE’S SWITCH (NOT AFFILIATED WITH NINTENDO)

Google Ads managers received an email from Google, informing them that Google will automatically move some advertisers conversion actions to data-driven attribution, on an opt-out basis.

If you have administrative access to your Google Ads account, you’ll receive an email 30 days before any changes will take place. You can do nothing if you want to let the scheduled switch happen, or you can go to the “Switch to DDA” page to opt out or switch earlier.

Regardless, it’s important to keep an eye on your emails for updates about which accounts could be affected, and analyse the impact that switching to data-driven attribution would have on reporting and conversions. If it’s not for you, make sure to turn it off. We would also strongly recommend doing this for your light switches, gas and taps, too.

GOOGLE ROLLS OUT THE SPAM ALGORITHM UPDATE

Surprisingly, in the span of about 2 days, Google had announced and rolled out the latest of the Spam Algorithm updates. Historically, their spam updates usually take between 1-2 weeks so the turnaround on this update has been pretty tremendous, and it seems like it’s already starting to get some traction with searchers.

The update targets websites that are basically spamming the search engine with information to try and appear in top results, and penalises them. You can view the full policy list, as well as a more in-depth table of definitions here

MORE FEATURES ADDED FOR BUSINESSES

Are you a business on Google? Are you a business on Google that sells tickets? Well the latest Google feature will probably peak your interest. Attractions and tour operators (or any place that sells tickets, really) will be able to take advantage of the ability to edit your ticket prices directly through Google Business Profile. All you need to do is search your business name in Google Search, click ‘edit profile’, and you’ll see the admission tickets option for you to edit ticket prices. Voila.

“help you confidently measure impact and preserve user trust.”

TAG

AND FINALLY, AN UPDATE FROM BING!

It’s not often (not as often as Google anyway) that we see updates from Bing, but Microsoft have made their knowledge panel live, described as

“[a] fun interactive feature introduced, including polls for you to vote on.”

(FIRST-PARTY) COOKIES, ANYONE?

We’re back with another Google update (I know, I’m losing track at this point too) and this time, Google AdSense has announced support for personalisation with first-party cookies. Google wrote:

“First-party cookies for personalisation help to show personalised ads to your users when third-party cookies aren’t available, which may increase your revenue.”

To get this option, ensure that you’ve turned on “allow firstparty cookies’’ in your AdSense settings. This comes into effect from 10th November 2022 – so you won’t notice any changes until then!

MORE POLICY UPDATES…

To add on to the previous update on policies, Google is also updating their UK Financial Services policy to knuckle down on financial fraud in the UK – and will go into effect in December. This measure is to protect both consumers and legitimate advertisers in the UK.

Here’s a summary of the proposed policy update:

“The Google Ads Financial Products and Services policy will be updated to require that all advertisers be FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) authorized for debt adjusting and debt counseling in order to show debt services advertisements starting from 6 December 2022. Insolvency practitioners, including those licensed by a recognized professional body, will no longer be allowed to advertise for these services. Advertisers must successfully complete the updated verification process by the time enforcement begins on 16 January 2023. The policy update also allows advertisers that are included on the FCA Financial Services Register as ‘exempt professional firms’ or recognized investment exchanges to be verified as UK FCA-authorised advertisers.”

GOOGLE MAPS CRACKING DOWN ON DECEPTIVE REVIEWS

Google has updated contributor guidelines for Google Maps to prohibit “discouraging or prohibiting negative reviews, or selectively soliciting positive reviews from customers.” The guidelines align with Google’s remit of putting the users first, and ensuring they’re providing helpful content (shout out to HCU) and genuine reviews. This is a new addition to their ‘Fake engagement’ policy.

MICROSOFT BING LABEL TESTING

An update from Microsoft Bing (for the first time in a while!) sees them placing labels in the search results snippets that tell the user if the snippet has been pulled from a web page or something else. We assume that “something else” could mean pdfs, videos, or some other file types.

PRODUCT REVIEW UPDATES

The PRU has been rolling out but, as confirmed on Twitter, we may not be notified of when this happens. What we do know is that, unlike the core updates, there’s a periodic refresh given the “more limited nature of the content involved.”

So if you’re waiting for Google to confirm updates of the PRU, it’s best to be proactive and keep working on your site.

SO LONG, FAREWELL TO INTERNATIONAL TARGETING TOOL

It’s been reported for a while, but it has now been confirmed that Google has officially deprecated the International Targeting report tool from Google Search Console. If you try to access the report, you’ll see a “This report is no longer available here.” message. Google has confirmed that they will continue to support hreflang and their recommendations for managing multilingual and multiregional sites still stand.

POLICY UPDATES

TESTING, 1, 2 ,3….

We have seen reports of Google going through more rounds of testing (it’s a never ending saga at this point) including tests of placing the thumbnail image on the top stories carousel in Google Search at the top and also at the bottom – which is certainly new as we’re used to seeing it on the top.

They have also been testing highlighting text in the featured snippets, along with some people on the Twitter-sphere reporting to have seen Google testing highlighting text in the “people also ask” section.

Google periodically goes through different testing periods of its core features to help improve user experience, but so far there’s not word on how this could affect SEO.

GOOGLE RANKING AND SITES THAT LOOK THE SAME: EXPLAINED

Google’s John Mueller answered a question re: does Google penalise sites that are identical? He said,

“First off, there’s no penalty or web spam manual action for having two almost identical websites.”

That said, if the URLs and the page content is the same across these two websites, then what can happen for identical pages is that our systems may pick one of the pages as a canonical page. This means we would focus our crawling, indexing and ranking on that canonical page. For pages that aren’t identical, we generally index both of them.

For example, if you have the same document on both websites, we’d pick one and only show that one in search. In practice, that’s often fine. If you need both pages to be shown in search, just make sure they’re significantly different, not just with a modified logo or color scheme.”

Certainly something to keep in mind if you have 1+ brands using the same HTML structure and components.

NEW HTTPS REPORT IN SEARCH CONSOLE

Google is gradually rolling the new HTTPS report in Search Console over the next few months. This comes after feedback from the release of the Page Experience Report last year in Search Console included frequent requests of users wanting Google to provide more information regarding HTTPS status of the site.

The report will get you insights about your HTTPS pages served on Search and will list issues that prevent pages from being served as HTTPS.

REVIEW BRIBERY, A THING OF THE PAST?

Google has updated its Google Maps reviews guidelines, “deceptive and fake engagement guidelines”, to now disallow making requests for revisions or removals of a negative review through offered discounts, free goods or services, or other incentives.

BROAD CORE UPDATE ROLLOUT

Google Search has started to roll out the second broad core update of the year following its last update four months prior in May ’22, here’s what we know so far:

TESTING, TESTING

Name: Google September 2022 Broad Core Update

Targets: It looks at all types of content

Penalty: It is not a penalty, it promotes or rewards great web pages

Global: This is a global update impacting all regions, in all languages

Discover: Core updates impact Google Discover and other features, also feature snippets and more

Google will do periodic refreshes to this algorithm but may not communicate those updates in the future.

GOOGLE TESTING UX AROUND E-COMMERCE SEARCH

Google has been testing more e-commerce features, the “explore products” feature comes with product images and also without product images. You might be used to seeing the usual “Shopping” tab which gives you reams of images of products you search for linked back to their websites. The Explore products feature will show you popular brands from the web that fit your search criteria, and it doesn’t require a product photo to be provided. What you’ll see instead is a brand strapline, their logo, web page link, and a rating system from Google reviewers. The future of UX for e-commerce on search is bright, we think.

MICROSOFT EXTENDED RSA DEADLINE

Microsoft Advertising have extended the deadline to move from Expanded Text Ads to Responsive Search Ads, which wouldn’t be the first time they’ve extended the deadline.

They have now pushed the deadline to February 1st 2023, so you have some more time to work on your Expanded Text Ad to RSA migration – hooray! Microsoft said:

HELPFUL CONTENT UPDATE IS….. SLOW?

Since the announcement of the Helpful Content update, the internet (all marketing departments and content creators) have been in a bit of a tizzy wondering what this is going to mean for their visibility-driven content.

Since the rollout, there’s been reports that the update has been kind of slow and weak. Not something we would normally expect from Google, but with how quick they’ve been pushing out updates - we can give them the benefit of the doubt.

“Starting on February 1st 2023, RSAs will be the only search ad type that can be created or edited in standard search campaigns. With the focus of this migration being to help you efficiently drive a stronger ROI, Expanded Text Ads will continue serving along with RSAs, but we’ll no longer support the ability to create new, or edit existing, Expanded Text Ads moving forward.”

BING NEW “PEOPLE ALSO ASK” CAROUSEL

Much like Google’s own feature, Microsoft Bing is testing a “people also ask” carousel UX. This will replace the list view format to essentially give you the question/answer immediately. This removes the need to endlessly click through lists and lists of questions and answers, so it will be interesting to see if this is going to be a permanent feature.

POPULAR ON TWITTER? YOU MIGHT BE ON GOOGLE NOW TOO!

If you have ever tried to avoid Twitter for fear of things like spoilers for your favourite tv show, match day results, and even just general things that like to trend on Twitter. Well you’re in luck, because now you’ll probably find the spoilers on Google instead!

Google is testing a new title for some Twitter carousel results in Search, it’ll most likely be labelled as “Popular on Twitter”. So if you’re hoping to avoid those spoilers on Google, probably best to analyse what keywords you’re typing!

GOOGLE DEPRECATES INTERNATIONAL TARGETING REPORT IN SEARCH CONSOLE

Yet again, Google took to Twitter to announce that it has deprecated the International Targeting report in the Search Console. Their international SEO advice has not changed, but as of 22nd September 2022, it will no longer work. Google wrote:

“The International Targeting report has been deprecated, and will be removed from Search Console soon. We continue to support hreflang and our recommendations for managing multilingual and multiregional sites still stand.”

GOOGLE IMPROVES CORE WEB VITALS

Google announced on Twitter that it has added URL-level data in the example URLs in the Google Core Web Vitals report. Google wrote:

“We’re improving the Core Web Vitals report. We’ll start surfacing URLlevel data in the example, and we’ve made some textual changes to the report to make it clearer.”

THE NEW GOOGLE SEARCH UPDATE THAT’S GOING TO HELP YOU FIND USEFUL CONTENT (NO REALLY!)

The new Helpful Content update from Google will affect how content creators will curate content, and how users will be able to find it through Search.

Over the years people have become disillusioned with search engines prioritising web pages that just don’t fit what users were asking for. Think about the days you would perform a search on Google, and the first page would have the content you were looking for that was crafted specifically for the topic. Nowadays it feels like you need to scroll through to page 3 before you hit the helpful content you’re looking for.

Google has been furiously updating Search over the last year to ensure ranking content is of good and useful quality, and using actual humans to inform their evaluations.

Google is launching their ‘helpful content update’ that will be cracking down on content that seems like it’s been primarily created for ranking well in search engines and not to help/ inform users. This also means that if you’ve previously read articles about a topic, and you’re expecting to see fresh content, Search will now prioritise results with more; “[u]nique, authentic information, so you’re more likely to read something you haven’t seen before.” So it’s a win for Google Search users.

GOOGLE ADS API VERSION 11.1 NOW AVAILABLE

Google has now released a minor update to version 11 of Google Ads API. To use some of the features, you will need to upgrade your client libraries and client code.

GOOGLE GUARANTEED LOCAL ADS ARE NOT ACTUALLY GUARANTEED?

I don’t know about you, but it’s pretty weird to use words like “guaranteed” in your metrics, when there’s nothing guaranteed about it. Google has added a label on the Google Guaranteed Local Service Ads that says the reviews are not guaranteed – yeah I’m wondering about it too. Some disclaimers state,

“Reviews do not constitute a guarantee, warranty, or prediction on the outcome of your legal matter.”

This could just be Google trying to cover themselves because of the recent influx of junk/spam LSA reviews have been fake – expect to see lots of “not verified” over reviews.

IMPROVEMENTS TO FEATURED SNIPPETS POWERED BY MUM (MULTITASK UNIFIED MODEL, NOT YOUR MUM)

Google launched improvements to featured snippets, content advisories and “about this result”. The words called out above the featured snippet in a larger font are now powered by MUM – which is deemed a rare use of MUM in search.

Google said, “[o]ur systems can check snippet callouts against other high-quality sources on the web, to see if there’s a general consensus for that callout, even if sources use different words or concepts to describe the same thing. We’ve found that this consensusbased technique has meaningfully improved the quality and helpfulness of featured snippet callouts.”

THIS QUARTER IN SOCIAL

Lara Harding

Senior Content Marketing and Social Executive

Social has been a whirlwind of updates this quarter (as per usual), the Head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, said the app is going to continue to support photos, but he believes it will become more video-focused over time. This makes us infer that content creators need to ramp up video to be able to keep up with industry demand before it’s too late!

Meta THE NAME GAME

The Facebook Marketing Experts program designed to offer high-quality support to businesses using the platform has been around for a while. Facebook is expanding the program and rebranding it as the Meta Pro Team.

GROUPS THE PLACE TO BE?

On its sixth annual Communities Summit event, Facebook announced a range of new groups features as part of the event, including new Stories sharing tools, view-only chats, custom member profile displays, and more.

Group members will eventually be able to share a public event for their community to their Instagram Story, which will enable them to attract more members to their group.

COLLABORATION FOR THE NATION

While Facebook continues to improve and build on the functionality of Facebook Reels, this update sees Facebook adding an option for users to invite another user to co-author a Reels clip.

With more updates than you can shake a selfie-stick at, Instagram’s constant changes make it hard to keep up with this particular platform.

“ADD YOURS” STICKER ON REELS

The ‘add yours’ sticker isn’t a new feature, in fact the original feature was introduced in November 2021, but now you can add the topic prompting sticker to Instagram Reels, allowing respondents to reply in video.

NFT ROLLOUT

Instagram is expanding this feature to more and more users across 100 countries in Africa, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, and the Americas. To post a digital “Collectibles”, users can now connect a digital wallet to Instagram. Instagram also states that NFTs are free to share on its platform.

GOOGLE MAPS? IS THAT YOU?

Instagram is making improvements to the Map functionality. The new update includes an option to search for local businesses by category, you can also find businesses near you and get more information about them… like Google Maps.

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING… MAYBE…

This update means that there are new ways for people to confirm their age on the social app. The three ways include:

1. You can upload your ID

2. Social vouching – Instagram will suggest you 6 people that are mutual followers, that are 18 or over themselves, and who are meeting a series of other criteria, and you can pick 3 people. Then, Instagram is going to ask them to verify your age on your behalf.

3. Face-based age prediction, for which Instagram is partnering with Yoti – You will be asked to send a short video selfie, and then Instagram will send that image over to their partner Yoti. They will use that selfie to predict your age. There is no facial recognition, so there is no way to tell what your identity is. This photo will be used just to predict your age. Yoti will send this photo back to Instagram and then delete it. That way, Instagram is protecting people’s privacy.

The minimum age for Instagram is 13, and we hope that this feature will be used as Instagram says it intends. It’s ok to be a bit suspicious though, right?

PORTFOLIO OPTIONS FOR PROFESSIONAL DASHBOARDS

Creators are going to be able to build a portfolio from the Professional Dashboard within the app - it’s designed to guide creators in building their pitches to various brands with the hopes to secure more influencer marketing opportunities and deals.

We imagine this update is Instagram’s way to encourage artistic creators to stay, by attempting to keep up with competitors, and stop influencers migrating use the likes of TikTok and/ or YouTube.

THIS ISN’T MYSPACE… IS IT?

With a new feature being spotted on Instagram profiles, who knows if this will be a good thing or not. The feature you ask? A song of your choice, displayed proudly in your profile bio.

It is not yet known if the song will play automatically on arrival to your profile, but it does make us reminisce about a simpler time in social media, a time of MySpace or (dare we say it?) Jim Conning’s, Piczo… and maybe Bebo too…

TESTING 1, 2, 3

Live testing of native scheduling in the app is currently being rolled out to a limited select few, the new feature will certainly be a welcome addition to Instagram’s roster of updates. It will be available to the advanced options in the post-composer flow, although there is no information yet whether it’ll be included in Stories, it will enable users to schedule both regular posts and Reels.

INSTAGRAM, YOU REELY NEED TO STOP!

Millennials get a lot of stick for pining after awards of participation, but now it just seems like Instagram is parodying this stereotype to the max!

Maybe I’m reading a bit too much into this, but it certainly looks like an engagement baiting feature.

The almost cringeworthy update will show an ‘Achievements’ element in your Reels options, which would display certain badges based on your Reel’s performance. Like ‘Trendsetter’ (cool) and ‘Creative Streak’ (rock on). Is it time to give up, Instagram?

DON’T @ ME

The latest audience control option that Twitter is developing, is a toggle that will enable users to either stop mentioning your handle completely, or limit mentions to only those who you follow in the app.

This gives the user more control over how people can interact with their tweets.

It seems that Twitter is moving away from its “global town square” approach, where anyone has a voice on any discussion to a more private and walled-off Twitter… whether this is a good thing or not is definitely up for discussion.

TOO MANY COOKS?

The feature, officially called “CoTweet,” lets users invite any public account that follows them to co-author a tweet together. The invitee can decline the request, however. If they do so, the CoTweet draft will be deleted.

LinkedIn

LINKEDIN APP UPDATES FOLLOWING AUGUST SUCCESS

In a bid to provide more ways to drive traffic with user’s LinkedIn posts, the professional social platform has added ‘Person’ and ‘Page’ variations of the popular ‘Link Sticker’. While LinkedIn is the place to be for B2B marketing, it has been reporting different types of engagement on various types of posts. To facilitate what they’ve seen, LinkedIn have added post reactions (2020), and have since added to the emoji lineup (2022).

In addition to the original link sticker, which lets you paste a URL of your choosing on top of the frame, you can now also link to internal profiles, which could help to generate more in-app engagement.

SEARCH MARKETING

THE METAVERSE

While Facebook parent company, Meta, focuses on reinventing Second Life, and its competition work on their own walled gardens, it’s worth noting that a true metaverse is a form of what has been referred to as ‘ambient intelligence’ or, by Sundar Pichai of Google as ‘ambient computing’. It is the pinnacle of integration and almost directly antithetical to the Facebook Meta model.

To understand how search and digital marketing (the skills we currently understand as aiming to improve the visibility of a brand on one or more of the top search engines whether through paid or organic promotion) will adapt to the future of the web, it’s important to establish what that future will look like.

What is a metaverse?

Leaving aside the question of whether the metaverse was initially a cautionary tale, the concept we would now recognise as a metaverse comes from the literary genre ‘cyberpunk’ (itself built on the work of earlier authors such as Philip K. Dick) and specifically from two of its early practitioners, Neal Stephenson and William Gibson – the former giving the world the term ‘metaverse’, the latter coining ‘cyberspace’.

Over the course of the 80s and 90s, these two authors were among the minds that shaped what would become a nearly universal view of the future, inspiring huge chunks of popular culture from Robocop to The Matrix and providing the aesthetic for adaptations of some of Philip K. Dick’s works (Blade Runner, Minority Report, Total Recall). In fact, if you’ve seen any reporting on the metaverse, the following (from 1992s Snowcrash) will likely seem very familiar:

“Like any place in Reality, the Street is subject to development. Developers can build their own small streets feeding off of the main one. They can build buildings, parks, signs, as well as things that

do not exist in Reality, such as vast hovering overhead light shows, special neighborhoods where the rules of three-dimensional spacetime are ignored, and free-combat zones where people can go to hunt and kill each other.”

“The only difference is that since the Street does not really exist -- it’s just a computer-graphics protocol written down on a piece of paper somewhere – none of these things is being physically built. They are, rather, pieces of software, made available to the public over the worldwide fiber-optics network.”

- Neal Stephenson, Snowcrash

Combine this with Gibson’s description of ‘cyberspace’, in 1989s Neuromancer, as a ‘consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators,’ and you begin to develop a picture of the immersive, pervasive technological transformation that a true metaverse represents.

It is not a digital conference room filled with the legless avatars of your cartoon co-workers (with whom you’ll join to collectively develop eyestrain watching a presentation that could have been a video call). The metaverse is an additional layer of reality that exists in addition to, on top of and in parallel with the real world.

While Meta may have been earning the headlines (for better or worse) around the metaverse, the real foundations of what may eventually grow into the metaverse have been laid elsewhere – specifically in online gaming.

ROBLOX

Probably the closest currently existing example of a metaverse is Roblox – a gaming and game creation platform which allows users to both play games created by other members of the community, but also to create their own online landscapes and games.

With active monthly user numbers estimated to be approaching 250 Mn, more than half of which are children under 16, Roblox has a thriving community, an active economy and in-game currency (Robux) and – importantly – operates as an environment in which users can set their own agenda, build their own environments, design their own games and more.

FORTNITE (EPIC GAMES)

Active users for Fortnite currently hover around the 250 Mn mark with 390 Mn registered users and around 30 Mn active daily users. With Ariana Grande and Travis Scott ingame concerts having drawn 12 Mn live viewers each (and apparently netting the artists around $20 Mn), and tie-ins with Marvel, Star Wars, Dragon Ball-Z and more, it’s easy to see why Fortnite has been recognised in many places as a social platform as much as a game.

In addition, the game already has a successful digital currency, and a CEO that has made no secret that it intends to become a metaverse company.

MINECRAFT LIVE (MICROSOFT)

Giving Microsoft an advantage (along with its purchase of Activision), one of the other leaders is Minecraft Live. Like Roblox, the Minecraft audience is young (though not as young as that of Roblox), like Roblox the game allows users to determine how they interact with it. Minecraft provides an outlet for creativity, socialising and more.

Though active monthly user numbers are lower than Roblox, at around 200Mn active monthly users, Minecraft has been a cultural phenomenon, spawning books, interactive Netflix shows, toys, Lego sets and more – all of which is in addition to the work of YouTube creators like DanTDM (of Diamond Minecart fame and one of my son’s early favourites) and one whose name I can’t remember, but who seems to scream a lot, and Twitch streamers who I don’t know because I’m old.

has also, tellingly, made the step to VR, with a version now playable using multiple brands of hardware.

foundations of a metaverse have been laid – but not by Meta

WHY THESE AND NOT META?

Put simply, Meta is not and has never been a metaverse company – even the cringeworthy metaverse video released at the time of the announcement (and featuring, unbelievably, a less convincingly human version of Zuckerberg than the man himself) looked more like a Ready Player One fan film than an actual company vision statement.

Instead, Meta wants to be the internet – as it is in some areas of the Asian subcontinent and Africa – it doesn’t want a metaverse, it wants a Meta-verse, a wholly owned property that provides the organisation with complete control (it has been widely commented on that Zuckerberg’s company is run ‘like a dictatorship’. This leaves it with a major obstacle –users don’t care about Meta, or about Facebook, Instagram or any of the Meta platforms and will happily jump ship once a better product comes to market.

With Facebook facing antitrust lawsuits in the US due to its practice of ‘buy-or-bury’, it’s unlikely that they’ll be able to purchase their way out of future shifts as they have in the past (although you can expect Amazon to take over that particular mantle – even as their robot vacuum cleaners map your home).

Meta’s task is to take non-metaverse products which are losing relevance with younger generations and, through sheer financial power, seek to build a metaverse around these products. On the other hand – platforms like Roblox and, to a lesser extent, Decentraland, and games like Minecraft and Fortnite are immersive, user centred products that are, if not directly transferrable then more transferrable to a true metaverse in which they would remain destinations or subuniverses rather than a metaverse as a whole.

Some

Why search marketing will survive and thrive during the move to the metaverse

Search is fundamentally about facilitating data retrieval. It’s about helping people find the right information at the right time (okay, and selling them stuff during the process). That existed before the internet, and it will continue to exist as the internet evolves. While many of the headlines have been captured by immersive gaming and digital worlds, the big money is currently being ploughed into a transitionary phase – what Google has referred to as ambient computing.

Ambient computing is mixed reality – it is subsumed technology, ever present but not intrusive; or the virtual (no pun intended) opposite of the Meta vision as stated. While, as ever, Philip K. Dick set out the many issues with such a world in many of his novels (though an argument with a door in Ubik may be the pinnacle), the utopian vision of this is an everpresent computational presence that allows for additional information overlays that, in-turn, facilitate education, communication and understanding.

Whether the outcome is utopian or dystopian, however, one constant in both is information retrieval – this can take the form of AR overlays for training exercises, or voice activated searches for plant species (‘what is that?’), or simply a lingering gaze at a menu revealing calorie counts and the potential bill’s impact on your monthly finances. Whatever the technology (and, needless to say, much of the technology needed to successfully complete the transition, even to this transitionary phase, is still in-development) there will need to be the facility to look for, and find, information, products and services (preferably the best information, products and services).

The information that users find on or in the metaverse, however they search, will still need to come from somewhere – and that somewhere will, most likely, continue to be an iteration of the text-based web. This means that there will continue to be methods of searching for information, objects, images, music and video, and that there will be best-practices where optimising is necessary for such searches – meaning that the future existence of search engine optimisation is almost guaranteed.

In addition to information demands, however, search marketing will thrive in the metaverse (provided it is not a wholly owned subsidiary of the Meta-International-GlobalGovernment-Corporation) for a number of other reasons, some of the most important of which are the social ambitions internet users have for the metaverse.

Due to the huge number of potential inputs and outputs that will be possible with the more advanced wearable market needed to make a success of the metaverse, it should be a far more accessible place than Web 2.0. With this comes a host of new, better accommodated users and, as a result, far more optimisations required to reach them. Advertising, too, will be presented with a new universe of ad options – not just a replication of those available IRL – we can expect to see the programmatic sale of the face of the moon and a CPM model for branded constellations.

People who see the end of search in the metaverse are the same as those that saw digital marketing as a replacement of traditional marketing. Search will survive and thrive in the metaverse precisely because it’s an extension of marketing and, as long as there are products – real or digital fungible or otherwise – there will be marketing.

There is a reason that Google and Microsoft are investing heavily in mixed reality, AR and VR and it’s not for the good of society. Rather than a huge and showy PR display designed to distract from ongoing corporate scandals, investments by Google and Microsoft are positioning efforts to ready themselves for a coming technological shift. Instead of trying to own the metaverse, they’re seeking to ensure continued relevance. Regardless of my scepticism about certain aspects of Web3 and the metaverse, they are coming, so it is in the interests of tech giants to make sure they’re there and waiting.

Facebook Chabot Blender bot 2.0, which utilize memorization and internet, search results

Who Stole The

Mark McGonigle Search Strategy Director

Well, nobody actually stole them, but the reliance on these types of cookies by marketers will need to reduce before Google stops supporting them within their Chrome browser by the end of 2024.

This is following in the steps of Apple’s Safari browser whose update back in March 2020 blocked these types of cookies but why does Google’s announcement mean the death of third party cookies as we know it.

Well, as at from the end of March 2021 Chrome had 56.79% of the browser market sharemarketshare (Safari has 16.63%), and with over 90% of Google’s revenue coming from advertising through the use of these third party cookies.

This clearly means that there will be a significant shift in the way Google will be generating their revenue moving forward.

But why would Google make this change? This is purely down to the new online privacy changes and regulations that will be coming into force that will look to limit individual tracking on websites, and as such Google have had to change their overall strategy around data – this includes the introduction of their new data collection system, GA4.

As one of the biggest companies in the world is moving away, marketers should now look to prepare for the new way in which data is gathered and attributed.

JUST TO REMIND YOU THAT A COOKIE...

“Is a text file created and stored within your web browser when you visit a new site and helps the browser track, personalise, and save information about each user, allowing the website to personalize your experience and any related advertising based on your previous sessions on that website or others.”

Source

The Power Shift For Precious Data Is On

FROM THE COOKIE JAR?

SO WHAT?

The removal of third-party cookies is effectively taking away the trail of data that relays information about your web history across multiple sites and more so takes away information about users that has been previously used to personalise web site experiences.

Obviously taking away third-party cookies, this type of activity will be gradually faded out and the use of remarketing lists will become less reliant, certainly less useful.

But first-party cookies will still be available and unaffected by this change!

First-party cookies are created and stored under the same domain of the website that you are visiting, and do not follow you around the web. They will only collect data on behalf of the site that you are on and will not share that information with search engines such as Google or any other third parties.

As marketers, business and web owners the shift in reliance on third-party to first party cookies should now start to take place and a greater emphasis on leveraging first-party cookies should now be a primary focus.

This can include reviewing the various user journeys as well as considering using events, newsletters, and valuable downloads such as guides in order to obtain more information about your site’s users/customers.

The creation of great user focused content, that will look to answer users queries, or help them to make a purchase will form a key part in driving your digital marketing strategy forward.

This can then help build up a greater picture of who your audience is and as such can help guide your marketing approach.

But how are you going to break down this first-party cookie data? Well this is where GA4 comes into play!!

GA4

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) officially launched in October 2020 and the introduction of this tool has left marketers and business owners scrambling to figure out how GA4 will affect their current (and future) marketing and what data they will actually have access to.

There are many different changes to GA4, including the look and feel (trust me when you are in the views for long enough they will become second nature as UA), but the tool has been updated to focus more on first-party cookies.

Google are promoting GA4 as a privacy-centric tool and has been designed to work with or without cookies, by using machine learning and statistical modelling, GA4 will look to fill in data gaps.

GA4 introduces an event-driven data model, which will allow you to monitor different interactions across your sites, this can include scroll’s, downloads, clicks on particular buttons. You are now building up a greater picture of user experience on your site due to this data.

Google has informed everyone that GA4 will be the default Google Analytics platform from June/July 2023, so now is the time to begin learning more about GA4, how it collects data and how it compares with UA.

Third-party, first-party or no cookies at all, there will still be tools available to help build up a greater picture of your customers behaviour on your site but now is the time to start planning to live life without third-party cookies.

The Future of Privacy

Immy Williamson Marketing Executive

The internet originated as ARPANET in September 1969, but it certainly did not look how it does today. What started as a way for scientists in different locations to share information and work together, is now generally known as the World Wide Web (although there is a difference between the internet and WWW) and is the largest information media in the world.

While we have Tim Berners-Lee to thank for the World Wide Web, on 30 April 1993, CERN made the source code of WorldWideWeb available on a royalty-free basis, making it free software.

While people across the globe can enjoy free access to information, there is also access to misinformation. Having always had the privilege of having access to the web, I have grown up seeing the impact that misinformation can have; like Facebook memes powerfully misquoting an influential individual. For example, when the death of Osama Bin Laden was publicised, a quote was attributed to Martin Luther King, Jr.:

“I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy.”

It was soon questioned by the press and it came out that it actually was a direct quote by a young English teacher (who posted on Facebook), who was leading up to a quote found in one of King’s sermons.

While this is not the worst case of this happening, it is a good example of how misinformation can spread like wildfire.

It is my personal belief that everyone should have access to quality and honest information, but also think it should be a person’s right to access inaccurate information and use their prerogative to come to their own conclusions.

THE WEB CAN BE WEAPONISED

Inequality is rife in the world, and the advent of digital technology has perhaps furthered the divide. Those who cannot access the web, cannot access a lot of vital information. In 2016, the UN declared internet access a human right, yet without investment, it is believed that it won’t be until 2042 that everyone is connected, and that’s not good enough.

Possibly the most discomforting consideration is that the web we know now is under the powerful weight of a few dominant platforms. Platforms that can control what users see by manipulating which ideas and opinions are shared.

On the 28th October 2021 Facebook owner, Mark Zuckerberg, revealed a new company name: Meta

The 3rd of February of this year saw shares of Facebook parent “Meta” fall by over 25%, erasing around $230 billion in market value - making it their worst trading session in history (the worst day’s trading of any company ever, if memory serves). Perhaps not what Zuckerberg envisioned when introducing the parent company to Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus VR, among others.

We are possibly tired of hearing about Meta, which was shouted about from the media (and Zuckerberg) but hasn’t had much clout. What could be perceived as a distraction technique, turning focus away from whistleblowing scandals; perhaps the new name and identity symbolised a fresh start for Meta.

However, the intentions of Meta are (at least on the surface) not honest, as it still has a vested interest in keeping its users sharing as much data as possible. This is evident in 2021’s objections towards Apple’s iOS and tracking updates - what was seen (by Zuckerberg) as a decision to affect Apple’s profit. He believed that apps and websites would have no choice but to charge subscription fees and add in-app purchases leading to increased App Store revenue.

The almost blatant glazing over (from Zuckerberg) about the potential for users to choose the ability of which apps follow what behaviour is a serious red flag to me. Which brings my attention to the elephant in the virtual room; the metaverse.

Freedom of thought implies a human right to be wrong - and I support this implication, however I am aware that there will be many who do not.

Voltaire famously stated: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death for your right to say it”.

DAWN OF THE WORLD WIDE WEB

The rise of surveillance capitalism has potentially made privacy a farce, and in a world where our lives and behaviours have turned into profit for the big tech giants; I am almost inclined to believe that yes, we are.

The metaverse is widely believed to be the next frontier of tech, and I couldn’t be more worried about the future of the web if it’ll be in Meta’s hands. Although Zuckerberg has said:

“And with all the novel technologies that are being developed, everyone who’s building for the metaverse should be focused on building responsibly from the beginning.”

And I fully agree with Zuckerberg, I just don’t think his company should be the one to do it. Dr Marcus Carter, an expert in Digital Cultures at the University of Sydney stated:

“Facebook’s VR push is about data, not gaming. metaverse technologies like VR and AR are perhaps the most data-extractive digital sensors we’re likely to invite into our homes in the next decade.”

THERE IS HOPE

While industry giants (Amazon, Microsoft etc) compete to create ostensibly open privacy standards, they will not want to relinquish their sense of proprietary ownership.

The future of privacy on the Web looks bleak, however there is hope.

Tim Berners-Lee has stated that he wants to re-make cyberspace once again with a new startup called Inrupt. Recognising that users are fed up with the lack of control when it comes to their privacy.

“Inrupt promises a web where people can use a single signon for any service and personal data is stored in “pods,” or personal online data stores, controlled by the user.”

Cryptocurrency company, Gemini has raised $400 million dollars to challenge the very idea of so-called Walled Gardens, where companies like Facebook own and profit from user data.

Standing up to Meta in the centralised metaverse seems almost impossible, but this is exactly what Gemini are doing. They are focusing on the decentralised metaverse, where it is believed that users will have greater choice, independence and opportunity. These users will have access to technology that protects the rights and dignity of individuals.

CONCLUSION

Data is a valuable asset to have, throughout history authority figures have wanted to know more about their ‘subjects’. The earliest example that comes to mind is the Domesday Book, the record of a survey (‘Inquest’) of England in 1066 and 1086, carried out at the orders of William the Conqueror. The data gathered from this allowed the Normandy King to assess the wealth and assets of his subjects

In Meditationes Sacrae (1597), Sir Francis Bacon stated that “knowledge itself is power”, and I can’t disagree. Technologies facilitate the tracking and aggregation of ever more information about us, but what purpose does it serve?

A recent trend on social media is an app called ‘New Profile Pic’, where users of the app upload a picture of themselves and they are then turned into a painting.

The Daily Mail soon reported that “experts warn internet users not to download latest online craze New Profile Pic that hoovers up your details”, the ‘expert(s)’ they mention is Jake Moore, Global Cybersecurity Advisor, ESET Internet Security. Who questioned the intentions of the app, which is believed to have originated (or, at least have connections to) in Russia.

The argument I have is that the users of the app are uploading to their social media accounts, which hold a lot of information and data about them anyway. Dan Evon from snopes.com has since said that “There’s little evidence to suggest that this app is any more invasive in its collection of user data than other apps”.

I am no clairvoyant, but the future of privacy is potentially something to be concerned about. Collecting data was “intended” to be a different way for corporations to provide value for their visitors, however at some point down the line the intention was lost and data has been used in a way that users may have not agreed to.

WHAT DOES THE

MEAN FOR THE FUTURE

Karen Nagi Head of Content Marketing

With the pandemic coming to an end, we have now adapted to this new way of living, playing, and working, where virtual interaction has become more intertwined with our everyday life than ever before. The rapid expansion of the metaverse and interest in cryptocurrency and NFTs are astounding examples of how consumers are willing to see value in conceptual things, as opposed to materialistic items. These attitudes have been the foundation of content marketing and digital PR, and it only highlights the importance of brands and agencies to continue to explore creative avenues to keep up with the ever-changing desires of people today.

BRANDS AND CONSUMERS EMBRACING CREATIVITY

Below are a handful of examples of how brands of different industries have leapt into The metaverse by creating a unique digital presence and attracting digital users to engage with them in a new way:

Coca-Cola - Food and Drink

In the past two years, Coca-Cola has leveraged its longstanding connection to gaming and debuted its brand within the metaverse. Coca-Cola launched their Non-Fungible Token (NFT) collectables which consist of a Friendship Box, Coca-Cola Bubble Jacket, Sound Visualiser and Friendship Card sealed in ‘loot boxes’ in line with International Friendship Day. The brand says it ‘is the perfect occasion to bring people together virtually in a uniquely Coca-Cola way while raising funds for our close friends of 53 years at Special Olympics’.

More recently, the brand launched its Coca-Cola Zero Sugar Byte. In their own words, they want to help ‘bring the flavour of pixels to life in a limited-edition beverage that transcends the digital and physical worlds’. This would be achieved by making the drink available in the physical world for their customers to try, and gamers to experience and interact with each other through a series of 4 sensory-inspired, multiplayer mini-games via Pixel Point, an Island Coca-Cola has created in Fortnite Creative.

Gucci - Luxury fashion

The luxury fashion brand Gucci collaborated with SUPERPLASTIC to launch SUPERGUCCI, blending digital and physical with a collection of 500 NFTs accompanied by ceramic sculptures. This somewhat unexpected collaboration saw the blend of the aesthetic codes of Alessandro Michele’s Gucci Aria collection with the style of synthetic artists Janky and Guggimon.

Gucci’s involvement in the metaverse doesn’t end there. Gucci’s Vault and Gucci Town see them take their brand to identify and purchase products in the virtual world. The Vault, an online concept store, houses some of the most treasured archival designs Gucci has to offer, but also features pieces designed by young, emerging artists. This virtual destination allows customers to feel the full extent of its rich history and its potential in the future; As for Gucci Town, a more interactive space hosted on Roblox, is a place that allows like-minded

individuals to interact and express their individuality through the experience of mini-games, exhibitions and shopping for digital Gucci items to dress their own Roblox avatars.

J.P.Morgan Chase - Financial Services

Even banks, a conventionally more conservative and formal sector, have made their way into the metaverse. J.P. Morgan has been exploring the cryptocurrency space for some time, in 2019 it launched a blockchain-powered digital currency called JPM coin; in 2020 it started the blockchain unit within its corporation; and in the summer of 2021, it became the first major US bank to offer cryptocurrency wealth management and allowing these clients the access to a Bitcoin Fund.

In the latest bid to modernise its brand, the seventh-largest bank in the world launched The Onyx, a lounge that exists within the blockchain-based virtual world Decentraland. Their strategic approach stems from seeing the market opportunity reach over $1 trillion USD in annual revenues. The Onyx will allow it to run similar banking services, like that of their real-world brand, in the metaverse. Imagine being able to open an account, deposit cheques, or even start a mortgage application on this virtual space. The brand’s early involvement in the metaverse means that they are capturing early adopters, potentially building lifetime customers in the virtual space before any of the other big banks in a rapidly growing space.

Manchester City - Sports

Another disruptor to the world as we know it is the football club, Manchester City. The club imagines bringing a virtual stadium to its fans all over the world. Nuria Tarre, their chief marketing and fan engagement officer, points out that currently, ‘at best one per cent of [their] fans will ever travel to Manchester to experience a game’. As such, the possibility of a virtual space means that more fans can move past geographical boundaries and watch these games from anywhere in the world.

Manchester City is in the process of building this stadium, however, if football becomes popular in the metaverse, this could very well mean that it could transform broadcasting rights as well as the way audiences can view live matches. Football clubs may be able to sell the broadcasting rights directly to their viewers through their own metaverse location rather than through broadcasters and the possibility of virtual replays may mean that viewers can watch the game from angles they have never been able to before.

These examples are only a select few that showcase what brands from various industries have done or will be doing to create a brand presence in the metaverse, showing that there isn’t a limit on what can be done. Some brands have taken their products and services and reinvented them in the virtual world, while others have created virtual spaces to build communities where like-minded people can interact with each other and therefore, the brand.

THE EVOLUTION OF CREATIVE MARKETING

With the examples shown above, it feels as though the advertisement and marketing industry has arrived in yet another era.

Advertisement is and was an incredibly impactful tool used to attract the interest of consumers to purchase their products or take part in their services, with evidence of the first newspaper ad dating back to 1704. Once consumers became more accustomed to advertisements, businesses utilised content marketing to attract like-minded people to their brand, an example of one of the earlier adopters of this technique was when an agricultural brand, John Deere, released its first customer magazine in 1895. In the past decade or so, we have seen the rise of digital PR, where brands find and communicate with established audiences of publications by creating deliberate content based on their niche and interests.

In recent years, our over-dependence on our devices has left many feeling disconnected, on top of that we added the sudden isolation brought on by the pandemic. The metaverse and the brands that existed on it offered a solution to the problem by addressing the collective craving to feel connected. And so this new era sees brands help develop communities where individuals can interact and engage other like-minded individuals anytime and anywhere.

TARGETING VIRTUAL PERSONALITIES

In the metaverse, it seems these niche, virtual personalities are what brings these like minded people together. For example, people who thrive on adventures arrived at CocaCola’s Pixel Point; fashion fanatics found a sense of belonging at Gucci’s Vault and GUCCITOWN; those who had interests in developing their wealth interacted in J.P. Morgan Chase’s The Onyx; and, eventually, fans will be exploring all things football in Manchester City’s virtual stadium. These virtual elements allow people to explore specific personalities and interests in a much more exaggerated and detailed way.

This makes one consider the possibility that perhaps a brand’s success in the metaverse requires a different way of interpreting and targeting their audience. Instead of the conventional demographic segmentation, it may well be about building the space where a community is formed based on a hyper-focused interest. Brands should use this opportunity to think of unique yet out-of-the-box experiences for their users to explore the full depths of their niche in an interactive and engaging format.

The world of advertising and marketing is forever evolving, and with the new arrival of metaverse is simply a new space for brands to reconsider how they can market their product or service to prospective and existing customers. In a world where competition is fierce, and customers willing to believe the value of conceptual things, creativity will be key in a brand’s finding success in this new world we live in.

DESIGNING THE FUTURE

Lisa Anne Mittal Senior Digital Design Executive

Graphic design is on the cusp of another era. With technology rapidly advancing, and the metaverse coming into the spotlight, there is no doubt that, within the next decade, graphic design will be very different to what it is today.

In the past, we have seen major shifts in design coming from technological developments. From the invention of the printing press in the 1440s to the industrial revolution in the 1760s and more recently, the digital revolution in the 1990s, technology has played a major part in how and what we design.

Even in the last ten years, design has drastically changed with the growth of social media and mobile technology. But what will the future of design look like? What actions will brands need to take so they don’t get left behind? Graphic design started as a simple way to communicate visually, but in the future, it will be the medium we use to create whole new worlds…

THE WEB

When the internet became accessible to the public in the 1990s, users experienced a limited number of basic textbased websites with few pages and little content, accessed on a bulky desktop computer. Fast forward to 2022, and there are nearly 2 billion websites online, some of which contain thousands of pages each, pages that can each contain videos, images, vector illustrations and complex animations. Let’s take a look at some areas that have shaped how we design websites and what will influence the way we design them in the future.

Coding Languages

When websites were first introduced, HTML was the go-to language. HTML gave you a basic layout, then CSS added more flexibility and styling to the text, images and layout of websites. Since then many different languages have been invented and fine-tuned to let us design and develop the complex websites and features that we are used to seeing today. Javascript and PHP were most popular in 2010, but today Python seems to be the most in-demand language. Not only is it the first choice for beginners as it is clear, easier to learn the syntax and faster to test, but it offers various possibilities such as creating applications, AI software and games. With technology advancing quickly, it is important to use a language that can adapt to the future. What will coding look like ten years from now, what language will be used and what will its capabilities be?

Devices

One of the biggest changes we have seen in website design is the shift to responsive design. This was the result of mobile technology, and smartphones becoming widely available. 92.1% of internet users now access the internet on their palm-sized mobile phones, so it is important to optimise websites for these users, but it is not just mobile phones that are changing the way we design and use the internet. Desktop computers, laptops, mobile phones, tablets, kindles, wearables, smart metres, TVs, game consoles, VR headsets and even smart home devices like speakers and doorbells can now all access the internet.

How will these devices continue to shape the web and how it is designed? What other devices will be invented that we will have to consider in the future? One thing is certain - one of the most important factors for the future of web design is the invention and the development of the devices we will use to access it. Will there be a new technology that causes a major shift in web design like mobile devices have?

UX

Although it might be seen as a relatively new practice for some, UX (user experience) has been used for centuries but was only officially given its name by Donald Norman, a scientist who worked at Apple, in 1995.

Using psychology and user behaviour in website design is crucial to bringing great results from websites. It has many benefits including increased revenue, improved customer loyalty, increased conversion rates and faster time to market.

UX has drastically shaped the way we design websites today and it will continue to be very important in the future.

With constant testing and research taking place, UX best practice changes rapidly and, to stay ahead of the competition, you will need to make sure that you are up to date with the latest techniques and concepts. New technology such as virtual whiteboarding (which saw an increase due to remote working) also increases the capability of user testing and research, giving designers more food for thought when designing or updating websites.

Consideration of upcoming technology to enhance research and testing is also essential. In 2022 we saw inclusive design become a huge part of UX, making websites accessible for all abilities, genders and devices. This will continue to develop and play a huge role in the future of UX; but what will the next focus of UX be? How will human behaviour change, and what other considerations will be needed when designing websites in the future?

HOW TO THRIVE

• Keep up to date with the latest coding languages and all the features they can offer.

• Design mobile-first and make sure all website designs are responsive to all devices, existing and new.

• Read the latest tech news and pay attention to devices that can access the internet or display web pages.

• Implement UX in your design, test websites and keep an eye out for new technologies and techniques.

AI

AI is getting more advanced every year, and is on track to take over millions of jobs in the future. While AI can currently design some basic logos, order layouts, and make some simple designs, fortunately for designers, good creativity and design require a human touch that is not yet able to be replicated by AI. Designers can, however, work with AI to help with tedious tasks, increase productivity and increase the quality of their outputs, along with integrating AI into their designs for great UX.

Design Software

AI is being integrated into common software that designers use, such as Adobe Creative Cloud. Photoshop has released features over the last few years which allow designers to complete previously tedious tasks with the touch of a button, such as their new neural filters and content-aware fills. Without even stepping outside of their usual working method, designers are already using AI, albeit unconsciously. While existing AI technology is far from perfect, it is exciting to see how AI is being and will be integrated into other design software in the future, and how this will change the workflows of designers and the designs they produce.

A helping hand

As previously mentioned, AI can currently help designers with tedious tasks, and translating designs into multiple languages is one of those tasks. Some companies such as Netflix already use AI to translate titles on banners or in artwork into multiple languages. At the moment, designers still need to assist and check the outcome of the AI designs, but hopefully, in the future AI will advance enough for it to be able to take over these types of tasks, leaving designers more time to focus on more complex designs.

UX AI has already been introduced into the UX design world by testers using AI to track, calculate and predict users’ behaviour so they can refine their designs. Companies such as Uizard, have successfully developed software which increases the speed of UX design by converting simple wireframe sketches into digital designs.

But what about integrating AI into UX itself? Chatbots, often overlooked as being AI, have become more popular and regularly help users navigate through websites, provide a personal touch, answer FAQ’s and even generate leads for businesses.

How will chatbots develop to help users in the future? What other AI technology will we see UX designers introduce? AI in the future could identify users’ age, ethnicity, gender, location and mood and, through facial recognition, tailor websites and experiences to them.

HOW TO THRIVE

• Keep design software updated and learn how to use all the latest features.

• Look for and use new technology that can help automate some basic design tasks.

• Consider AI when designing and testing UX and integrate it when advantageous.

3D

3D software was originally invented, back in the 60s, by Ivan Sutherland, but has become more affordable and accessible since then (especially over the last 5 years), and has, as such, started to slowly infiltrate every part of graphic design. 3D is effective when used in design, as it offers a similar experience to that in real life and can represent complex visualisations easily and create realistic artwork. Whether it is a 3D style font or full 3D animations, it is a skill that every designer should learn to be successful in the future.

Design Software

It is hard to mention 3D without mentioning Blender. Blender is a free 3D software that can be accessed by everyone with a computer. It has been available since 1998 but, with computer technology and the programme itself developing a lot since then, it is now a lot easier and more efficient to use.

It is free, advanced technology like this that makes 3D more accessible to designers, making 3D assets a popular choice when it comes to designing. The way such free software develops will shape the world of design, it will be great to see it being used in interesting and unique ways.

Adobe has also added 3D features into their existing software, such as 3D transform in XD and 3D type in Illustrator, so similar to AI, users can now use 3D technology without leaving programs they were already using. Talking about AI, it is a good job that it should be able to help designers with more time-consuming and tedious tasks in the future, as most 3D design is very time-consuming so designers will need all the extra time they can get.

Products

Adobe also has a selection of 3D programmes, such as stager and substance, that can help with mock-ups of reallife products and backdrops for these products to sit on. 3D versions of real-life products are slowly becoming more popular, for use in advertising and marketing, than photos of the actual product.

As 3D software has become more advanced and realistic, companies have decided that using designers to create 3D versions of their products is not only cheaper but produces better results than doing a full photoshoot as they have more control over how the object, lighting and backdrop look.

You can also make changes to 3D images a lot more easily, and play around with the colour, lighting and various other settings while removing the need for physical objects and locations. It can also be made from anywhere, which is beneficial in the age of remote working. We can expect 3D to take over a lot more photoshoots in the future.

3D Printing

3D printing has been an interesting addition to the design world, as it gives the potential for digital designers to easily manufacture physical objects. Hopefully, in the future, 3D printers will become more advanced and cheaper for companies to purchase, making them more accessible and allowing designers to improve the design and useability of marketing materials (and make them a lot more interesting).

3D printers could also enable animators, artists and designers to be able to print a whole range of scenes and objects, ready to be animated or photographed to capture styles not able to be created by digital software, or for products and packaging.

3D printers have also proven to be a great potential medium for data visualisation. How accessible the printers will become, and the technological advancements made on them, will shape how we translate digital design to the physical world.

HOW TO THRIVE

• Learn/keep up to date with the latest 3D design software.

• Explore creating 3D versions of products instead of doing photoshoots.

• Include 3D assets in your work where appropriate

• Experiment with making 3D animations.

• Consider how you could use 3D printing in your marketing or design workflow.

Gravity Sketch, Google Tilt Brush, and Adobe’s Medium, can all be downloaded as apps on Oculus quest where designers can create characters, artwork or 3D objects, with the option to send it to their desktops to work on it further, making the design process a lot more efficient, immersive, creative and fun.

Usage

Although AR and VR may seem like things of the future, many brands are already integrating this technology into their marketing. From creating VR experiences of unbuilt property developments as sales collateral, to retailers using VR to allow users to try on clothes, see how items from their store look in their homes, or give them a branded experience in store. For some, the future is already here.

Brands must prepare themselves and, where appropriate, use this emerging technology to avoid being left behind in certain niches. As this technology advances even further, it will be interesting to see how designers and brands work together to develop experiences to not only wow consumers, but to boost sales, increase revenue and grow.

The metaverse Graphic design is communication design, and since the metaverse will be a brand new way to communicate, designers need to play a key part in creating these experiences.

AR and VR are essential components in designing the metaverse so, for designers to thrive in a metaverse future, they need to develop these skills. From UI, to displaying content and advertising, designing for the metaverse will change how designers work, both in and out of the metaverse.

It will be exciting to see how the metaverse will grow, what new features designers will need to create, and how it will integrate into our everyday life.

HOW TO THRIVEAR & VR

Getting to grips with 3D in the ways mentioned above is essential for designers wanting to step into AR and VR, as they use mostly 3D assets. AR became popular when Pokemon Go was released back in 2016 and in Christmas 2021, Metas Oculus Quest 2 seemed to be the No1 item on people’s Christmas lists.

With Meta making the devices so accessible and affordable (although still new and improving), AR and VR have begun to sink their roots into our lives, and this technology may play a major part in our future and the future of design.

Software

Thanks to the progression of software, AR is now able to be made by a single person instead of a large team. Mobile phones are now powerful enough to be able to collaborate with this software, and AI technology has been invented which is even able to scan surroundings and people in order to convert them into 3D assets for use in AR.

Adobe released Aero, which is an AR-focused software that enables artists and designers to create augmented reality experiences using mobile devices. Convenient software like this is making AR more accessible, and shaping the way designers work. For those designers with access to VR headsets like Oculus Quest, 3D assets can now be created within the headsets themselves.

• Get to grips with the likes of Adobe Aero and keep an eye out for any upcoming AR/VR design software.

• Learn about and experiment with creative apps within VR headsets.

• Explore designing experiences and how AR and VR can be integrated into marketing and campaigns.

• Stay up to date with advances in the metaverse and any essential graphics or advertising used.

With new technological advancements and easy access to advanced software, graphic design is changing rapidly, leading to a new advanced digital era. The progression of the web, AI, 3D, AR and VR will be key areas which will shape the way designers build the future.

Brands need to immerse themselves in this technology. One thing is for sure, the future of design lies in the hands of the software developed for designers to create, and the technology that powers it.

THE POWER OF HYPER PERSONALISATION

Karen Campbell Head of Copy

We are entering the third age of the internet, and the rules of the game are changing. Whether you’re ready or not, Web 3.0 is upon us. As we take our first steps into this arena, it’s worth heeding author John C. Maxwell’s warning: ‘Change is inevitable. Growth is optional.’

In this time of rapid evolution, one thing is for certain - the players that get to grips with this much-hyped vision of the future will be the ones that thrive. So if you want to grow your brand as we transition into this brave new web, now is the time to do your homework. Lesson one? The power of hyper personalisation.

But before we get into that, let’s recap the story so far.

THE ROAD TO WEB 3.0

Once upon a time - long before NFTs, Tiktok dances and comments sections - users were faceless consumers of what Tim Berners-Lee called a ‘read-only internet’. They retrieved information from the virtual library that was the World Wide Web, but their reactions, opinions and ideas didn’t exist yet. Not online, anyway. When they finished reading, they placed their book back on the virtual shelf and took another one out in silence. That was Web 1.0. To put it plainly, very few users published all the content and there was little to no user feedback or interaction.

Then came Web 2.0 and the user was put in the frame. Their once-shadowy outline was brought to light with every click, comment and post. Their face emerged like an artist’s sketch. We could finally see their profile. Likes murder documentaries, uses an Apple iPhone, avid runner, feels strongly about climate change. But for all the user-generated content, data collection, user personas and targeted marketing campaigns, it still felt like brands didn’t always quite know what the user wanted, who they were or how to talk to them.

Until now, that is.

THE NEXT GENERATION Web 3.0 sees the dawn of a decentralised iteration of the internet where peer-to-peer systems and blockchain technology will reign supreme and control will be placed in the hands of the user. Thanks to technological advances like artificial intelligence, machine learning and augmented and virtual reality, user experience will be hyper personalised to the point that each individual will need their very own user persona.

This new phase of the internet recognises that the individual is far more than the sum of their swipes, likes, clicks and searches and that they deserve information that is 100% relevant to them. And lots of it.

So what does this mean for marketers?

THE CASE FOR HYPER PERSONALISED CONTENT

In Web 3.0, it’s thought that virtual wallets will store far more than crypto. Instead, they could contain a treasure trove of personal data. Individuals could grant any brand they like access to this information without actually giving up their data. This means that marketers would have digital keys to up-to-the-minute consumer information and would no longer have to rely on CRM tools full of potentially old or inaccurate details. They’d have the digital keys to the kingdom, so to speak.

Crucially, individuals could take away access any time they wanted too. This next-level consumer power will make the need for a highly personalised content marketing strategy even more pressing. If you’re not nurturing relationships with user-focused content right now, you’re missing out. But if you’re still not doing it when Web 3.0 rolls out, you’ll be history.

If you play your cards right though, there’s so much to gain. According to a study by Deloitte, a hyper personalised marketing campaign can deliver an ROI of up to 800% on marketing spend. And it’s no surprise really. Access to a constant stream of current personal information could give you the power to connect with consumers like never before. Whether you’re selling ethical coffee, electric cars or double glazing, you’ll have the insights you need to give your target audience exactly what they’re looking for. No more guesswork and one-size-fits-all content marketing. Instead, you’ll be able to provide each individual consumer with the digital assets they need exactly when they need them. This could mean that you not only survive the earth-shattering inception of Web 3.0 but that you actually put down roots and thrive in this altered landscape.

But exactly how do you prepare for the seismic shift to Web 3.0?

IMPROVE DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS

According to a recent report by McKinsey and Company, 71% of consumers expect companies to deliver personalised interactions and 76% are frustrated by a lack of personalisation. As we move into Web 3.0, this aversion to generic marketing is only set to get stronger. Consumers of the future won’t want to read a ‘10 best places to eat in London’ blog post when they can be given personalised recommendations based on their historical restaurant visits, dietary preferences and health goals.

But in the next chapter of the internet, greater user privacy and control could mean you’re left in the dark when it comes to your audience’s needs, challenges and interests. You can’t afford to wait for them to grant you access to their digital wallets to get this information. Instead, you need to get to know them now by improving your approach to data collection and analysis. Take advantage of augmented reality and Internet of Things data collection tools to obtain better insights so that you can deliver content that is tailored to individuals both now and in the future.

OPTIMISE FOR VOICE

It’s thought that voice recognition software will play a key role in Web 3.0. As users move away from screen-based interfaces that provide a whole menu of choices and towards a more immersive internet experience, the need to optimise for more specific, long-tail queries will be greater than ever. This means that your content hub should serve up conclusive answers to niche questions with little search volume, as well as answers to broader queries that have higher search volume. This gives you the best chance of catering to each member of your target audience.

EXPERIMENT WITH TRANSMEDIA STORYTELLING

Internet users of tomorrow will experience Web 3.0 via the metaverse. This network of virtual worlds will create unlimited storytelling potential. And mere text on the page simply won’t cut it. While copy will still have a crucial place, you should aim to tell a cohesive story across multiple formats and platforms if you want to accommodate individual consumer preferences and achieve the greatest impact. Think videos, podcasts, apps, animations, video games, infographics, ebooks, comic books, virtual reality experiences, multimedia presentations and more. Whether you’re launching a new product or communicating your values, you should aim to permeate the lives of your audience with engaging, valuable content delivered in a way that suits the individual.

GET TO GRIPS WITH NFTS

NFTs, which stands for non-fungible tokens, are unique digital assets that are stored in blockchains and bought and sold using cryptocurrency. Having an NFT proves you own an original digital file but it doesn’t mean you own the copyright. More and more brands are dipping their toes in the Web 3.0 waters by leveraging these assets to create highly customised campaigns for their target audiences. Adidas, for example, launched a line of NFTs in December of last year. Buyers were granted access to digital and physical products and experiences and became the first members of an exclusive community that Adidas hopes will shape future products and experiences.

GO HYPERLOCAL

The ‘shop local’ movement has gained momentum in recent times, spurred on by the fact that we have spent much of the past couple of years restricted to our local communities due to COVID-19. In fact, 59% of consumers in the UK have purchased from local stores and services more frequently during lockdowns, according to Deloitte. And increasingly, consumers seem to be seeking out smaller brands in their immediate communities that can offer hyper personalised experiences.

What’s more, a significant 46% of all Google searches are focused on finding local information. And as we move towards Web 3.0, more and more users will demand that results are relevant to their location. So if you want to stay competitive, talking to the whole country at once won’t work. Instead, you need to create geo-targeted content marketing campaigns that place your brand at the heart of your prospective customers’ local communities.

While we’ve yet to experience the full spectrum of what Web 3.0 can offer, there’s no doubt that its arrival offers brands the perfect opportunity to hone their content marketing strategies. If you’ve been putting your audience at the centre of your game plan, the leap to Web3.0 won’t seem quite so daunting. If you haven’t, it’s not too late to change.

Advertising in the metaverse

Tom Reynolds Senior Paid Media Executive

Within the next four years, it is estimated that at least 25% of people will spend at least one hour a day in the metaverse for work, shopping, education, or entertainment. Even as recently as two or three years ago, the metaverse was widely viewed as either an unrealistic concept that was sure to fail… (think smart glasses, 3D TVs, curved-screen TVs, etc) or an idea that was so unimaginable and futuristic that it wouldn’t be around in our lifetimes.

However, in the last two years, isolation and lockdown have forced everyone to spend more of their lives online. People are chatting, learning, gaming, shopping, and dating online more than ever before, and the levels of online activity haven’t returned to pre-pandemic levels in 2022.

On 28th October 2021, Mark Zuckerberg introduced ‘Meta’ at the Connect 2021 Conference. This gave the concept of a metaverse a further publicity boost and added credibility - spiking the public and the business world’s interest. At the time, there was a huge uplift in online searches, and this level of interest hasn’t completely subsided, even eight months later.

THE OPPORTUNITY FOR ADVERTISING IN THE METAVERSE Brands and advertisers will be presented with a huge opportunity when the metaverse becomes a reality. The closest comparison to the metaverse that we are familiar with now would be social media; a platform where many aspects of modern life occur. We log in and engage with friends, family, colleagues, and strangers; as well as brands and organisations. A huge part of these platforms, and what allows them to monetise their business models, is advertising. As we navigate our online personal lives, we are hit with ads, sponsored content, and endorsed posts.

It is easy to envision how today’s digital advertising practices will be adapted for a virtual world. ‘Real estate’ in the metaverse could be used as locations for digital ads, and machine learning algorithms built for user-level targeting will be transferable from the current digital world.

HOW WILL ADVERTISING IN THE METAVERSE WORK?

There are different ways to view the advertising opportunity that the metaverse presents. Firstly, seeing it as a supplementary channel to the current marketing mix. It would sit alongside a website, mobile app, and paid and organic social media and search engine advertising. In this case, it is likely that ads will mainly take the form of virtual reality billboards. They will be relatively simple to design, as they’re not a new concept, and will be able to be inserted into a range of locations - whether it’s a coffee brand near virtual meeting rooms or a merchandise store at virtual music concerts.

There are already examples of ‘in-game advertising’ taking place and it seems an obvious step to move from advertising in current games to VR games in the metaverse. For example, advertising billboards are commonplace around sports pitches and in stadiums, so seeing real brands advertising in games, such as FIFA 22, Madden NFL 22, and F1 2022, replicates real-life. Studies show that seeing in-game ads situated in places where we would expect to see them in reallife actually makes the overall experience more immersive, and the ads less interruptive. Specifically, 95% of ‘Football Manager’ gamers felt ads enhanced gameplay realism.

Secondly, there will be new and unique ad formats, specific to the metaverse. These will range from in-game product placement to live in-world events. In-game product placement has already been successfully launched, specifically in the AR mobile game ‘Pokémon Go’, where the AR creatures would be placed at certain locations to increase footfall to that area. The idea of ‘in-world advertising’ is not new. As far back as 2008, ad spaces in online video games were purchased as part of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. Geo-targeting allowed these ads to show to gamers located in ten identified swing states. These ads were seen across games with millions of players at the time, such as Need for Speed, Madden 09, and NBA Live 08.

Finally, native virtual reality marketing has the most potential for advertisers in the metaverse. Brands can create full-scale experiences that allow users to interact with each other and the brand itself, before going on to buy the product, all without leaving the VR world.

Perhaps the closest concept to live events in the metaverse around today has existed for a few years. Fortnite, the online multiplayer video game, has now hosted three live music concert events. The idea is simple: an avatar of the celebrity performs a live concert at a set time and specific location in the game’s map, or world. Players log in and take their avatar to this point to watch the live event. This started in 2019 with DJ, Marshmello, followed by rapper, Travis Scott, in 2020, and most recently, Ariana Grade in 2021. These events brought in 10.7 million, 12.3 million, and 27.7 million players respectively. The advertising potential with viewer numbers on that scale is huge. Brands looking to buy ad space at these concerts would also benefit from the higher tolerance levels users have for in-world or in-game ads over ‘real-life advertising’ as discussed previously.

CHALLENGES TO ADVERTISING IN THE METAVERSE

While VR and AR advertising is a concept that marketers and advertisers have experimented with in the past, there hasn’t been the opportunity to test these methods on the scale that the metaverse will present.

Firstly, real-world products won’t be able to match the level of hyper-customisation that VR allows. Brands won’t be able to offer the level of personalisation in the real world that is available in the digital world. For example, a user designing their perfect item of clothing in exactly the size, fit, and colour that they want for their avatar, won’t be able to replicate this for themselves in the real-world as easily, and so product engagement could actually fall.

Secondly, there is the possibility of users being overwhelmed with ad content. In-video ads, video pop-ups, repetitive ads, and the feeling that advertisers ‘know too much’ are all common in the current digital landscape. In the metaverse, there is the potential for these problems to escalate. The more of our lives that move online, the more opportunities there are to be targeted by ads. Add into that the fact that VR headsets are seen as the tool that will be at the centre of accessing the metaverse. This means everything we see will be through a screen capable of showing ads, and so the idea of content overload could be very real. In the 2018 film, ‘Ready Player One’ (set in 2045 where the world’s population has moved to a virtual reality called ‘The Oasis’) a character boasts that they “can sell up to 80% of an individual’s ‘visual field’ before inducing seizures(!)”. Presumably used as a satirical take on the direction of the current digital world, the idea of seeing everything as ad space does seems like it could become more real in the metaverse.

There are then questions around the issues that are currently being discussed across the digital world today, concerning privacy, online consent, and ethics. The feeling that advertisers ‘know too much’ is common, but in a virtual world, there is even more visibility of a user’s identity (in the form of a 3D avatar). This raises questions around consent; could an advertiser target users with an ad for an offline product, based solely on their avatar’s appearance, choices, or behaviours in VR?

Despite the challenges, the metaverse seems to be a concept here to stay, with Google, Microsoft, Apple, Nike, and many other brands investing huge amounts into research and development around the metaverse. It seems as though developments in the next five years will have a huge impact on the digital marketing landscape, perhaps causing a shift, unlike one that’s been seen before.

Resurrection Art Resurrection Art Resurrection Art s s

Immy Williamson Marketing Executive

s

When you hear the word “pixel”, what comes to your mind?

Perhaps you think of classical arcade games such as Space Invaders (1978) and Pac-Man (1980), and 8-bit consoles such as the Nintendo Entertainment System (1983) and Sega Master System (1985). Computer games were totally different from the likes of what we see today, and those who developed the games were mainly programmers, not graphic designers.

Each bit of code was edited pixel by pixel which took up time, and an already small budget. The games a lot of people grew up with were about substance over style, and many of the gaming community look fondly back on them.

Fast forward to today and there has been a shift in the popularity of gaming sub-genres. For example, ‘roguelikes’: “[Roguelikes] are role-playing video games characterised by a dungeon crawl through procedurally generated levels, turn-based gameplay, grid-based movement, and permanent death of the player character.”

Although this subgenre’s origins start in the early 1980s, they have been increasing in popularity over the last decade. With this style of gaming, came a new opportunity for pixelated gameplay seen in the likes of ‘Dead Cells’ and ‘Enter the Gungeon’. Without distracting graphics a gamer can get to the heart of what the game is trying to express.

The gaming community created a resurgence of the love of pixels, but with this came the predicted capitalist response, “there is money here”.

A Pixelated Art Movement?

An art movement (according to Eden Gallery) is a style of art with a particularly specified objective and philosophy that is adopted and followed by a group of artists during a specific period. My educational background in art and curation means that I will have to reign myself in at this part of the article… don’t worry, I’m not going to go through the whole history of western art; there is a point. Trust me.

What I want to talk about (at this point) is Cubism, stay with me now…

Attributes of Cubism include:

A FLATTENED PERSPECTIVE PLANE EMPHASIS ON FORM/ EXPERIENCE GEOMETRIC SIMPLICITY INTENSE, CONTRASTING COLOURS

DO THESE ATTRIBUTES REMIND YOU OF ANYTHING?

While ‘pixel art’ may not be the next big thing in the art movement sphere, you can’t really deny that the possibilities of the pixel form could influence artists across the world. It is a form of digital art, created using software, where images are edited at pixel level.

April saw a community-driven viral phenomenon on “front page of the internet”, Reddit - a popular site which is (at a very basic level) a collection of forums.

The feed used was ‘r/Place’, which functioned as an open canvas, where each user could post a single, tiny, colored pixel every five minutes. Although 2022 wasn’t the first instance of this unique collective, it certainly was the most popular, with nearly 72 million tiles being placed by over 6 million users.

Because each user could only place a single, tiny tile every five minutes, it was evident that it would be impossible to build alone. Users were instead forced to work together and build coordinated communities to produce collective works of pixel art.

While I hate to bring up COVID-19 and the lockdowns created through the pandemic, r/Place says a lot about the psyche of users who may not have felt a sense of community for a long time. Finally, in March/ April 2022, these users have been a part of the rising power of communities online.

Eugene Wei, a tech entrepreneur in San Francisco, saw Place as the perfect metaphor for the modern Internet, where individuals’ power to shape discourse or exert influence online is only as strong as the collective they’re part of.

Non-FUNgible TOKENS

Unsurprisingly, a few greedy internet users soon saw that there was [crypto] money to be made. Soon, reports were made online about people taking advantage of r/Place and stealing artworks on the virtual canvas to sell as NFTs.

Each NFT is “tokenized” which means it has a digital certificate of ownership that makes it unique. That ownership token is stored in a digital ledger, called the blockchain.

It is debatable whether NFTs have really taken the world by storm, or are just a new, unpredictable trend - maybe both are true. However, their future seems murky as the fraudulent activities within this confusing realm are seen to be increasing with questions being raised around authenticity and ownership, as well as the true value of the NFT.

According to a couple of sources, medium.com being one of them, the three-dimensional NFT category is included in the list of the most popular types of NFTs available today. This is possibly due to the effort to keep up with demand with games in the metaverse.

You’ll have read about the metaverse previously in this edition of our magazine, it’s impossible to avoid, no matter how hard one may try.

The use of 3D NFTs within the metaverse will help create a space in a decentralised economy, where users can connect, interact and participate (this list is not exhaustive).

WHAT WIDER SOCIETAL IMPLICATIONS ARE THERE?

The elephant in the room is the climate change controversy surrounding NFTs. There have been some initial estimates of how much power an NFT uses up and, consequently, how much pollution that generates.

NFTs are largely bought (and sold) in marketplaces that use cryptocurrency ‘Ethereum’, which is (like other major cryptocurrencies) built on a system called ‘proof of work’ which is energy hungry. Making a transaction on Ethereum comes at a price - a fee that is ironically called “gas”.

WHERE DOES MARKETING COME INTO PLAY?

Similarly to any marketing practice, your message is the foundation of a great strategy. If your message isn’t right, people won’t be interested in buying.

“A marketer’s job is to tell people what a business does, who they do it for, and the benefit those people get.” (source; digitalmarketer.com)

The only limit is your imagination and this may seem like something that could work really well. However if you don’t pride yourself on having a unique thought process to come up with imaginative ideas the level of quality within your NFTs will be low.

In December 2021, popular fashion retailer BoohooMAN launched their own NFT collection. It consisted of 8 threedimensional clothing NFTs which were part of a competition to give the pieces away to 8 randomly selected customers.

BoohooMAN quotes on their website: “We’re used to starting trends, and this is no different. For the first time, an affordable fashion brand is launching an unforgettable line of NFTs”

We’re still at the beginning of finding out the potential of these NFTs within marketing practices. Start by researching in order to understand how NFTs work so you can be on the lookout for opportunities.

The future of NFTs is adapting to the ever changing marketing landscape.

THE FUTURE OF DIGITAL CONTENT MARKETING

Nicola Glancey Content Marketing Executive

As a Content Marketing Executive, the industry’s future is constantly on my mind. Technology is continuously changing the way we do things, and with that knowledge the future of content marketing is something that I know will have some exciting changes in the not so distant future.

Content marketing evolved from general marketing during the initial boom of the internet, and the unlimited free access users had to materials prompted a boom in businesses creating free materials both as a method of boosting their businesses recognisability as well as to get their messages across to customers and interested parties. This consequential boost in visibility can allow a brand or business to achieve more leads and sales.

New technologies such as Meta (formerly known as Facebook)’s new metaverse is not an entirely new concept, but with it new ideas and concepts will develop. The intention or metaverse is a “hypothetical iteration of the Internet as a single, universal and immersive virtual world” whereby you can interact with other immersed users using ‘avatars’. However with this development in addition to the development of other artificial intelligent sciences, you may find that content marketing will be an entirely digital turn, when it comes to their influencers.

VIRTUAL AVATARS AND INFLUENCERS

Looking at a recent trend in gaming streamers and influencers, there is an increasing trend of using virtual characters as their gaming personas, known as avatars. Using face tracker technology such as Facerig, they can create avatars that can move in sync with their own movements. Using these characters, they are able to remain anonymous, as well as experiment with their stream persona’s appearance. This technology is likely to be adapted into the creation of metaverse avatars and will allow the digital universe to feel more real and engaging.

Focusing on the digital element alone, there has also been another recent change in how new technology is used, which has seen entirely computer-generated influencers come about! This may sound like future technology but it is in fact being used more often than you might think. While perhaps not capable of the independent actions such as the AI robots currently being developed like Hong Kong’s “Sophia”, or Britain’s “Ameca”; the use of digital influencers has proven to be increasingly more popular than you might expect!

Currently Instagram is the current hub for Virtual influencer platforms with its highest-paid robot influencer being “Lil Miquela”. In addition to Lil Miquela the Japanese virtual influencer, “Imma” and the Korean virtual influencer “Reah Keem”.

Even the less human-like virtual influencer is “Noonoouri”, reminiscent of the popular 90s Bratz Dollz, in 2018 she had 70,000 followers on Instagram and in 2022 she has a shocking 401,000 followers!

Another Korean originating virtual influencer by the name of “Rozy” became the world’s second virtual artist having debuted in February, closely following that of Reah Keem LGs virtual assistant who signed with MYSTIC STORY label in January.

AI AVATAR INFLUENCERS- THE FUTURE?

Looking at the success of both virtual avatars and virtual influencers, it might not be a big assumption that in the next ten years or so, the future of content marketing may be an artificially intelligent Avatar! Rather than using human influencers who target their specific audience, an AI avatar may be able to target a larger audience base, adapting the brand or product advertisement to suit each individual it interacts with. Assuming that platforms like metaverse will continue to use data and cookies to track users’ interactions, it is not a far stretch to believe that an AI influencer may be able to do the same. For example a woman who runs a small bakery may interact with an AI influencer and be recommended a business website platform that suits her needs. Similarly a young man who is looking for a lads weekend trip may be recommended to a specific holiday agency with a personally tailored trip.

In the future AI influencers may be able to reintroduce that “human” touch which is hard to bring when advertising through simple blog posts and websites. An AI can learn what users are looking for and need, and be able to adapt that into its advertisement pitches, enabling a more user-specific interaction, and would increase likelihood of sales and brand recognition.

With the reintroduction of META, the digital world of avatars seems closer than ever and as a consequence the introduction of AI avatars may also become possible, with the technology’s possibility of creating 3D digital images, such as that used at Montreal where a Holographic 3D image of Japanese animated pop-star Hatsune Miku performed on stage. With this technology already possible we may fast be approaching a world where Disney Channel’s movie; Pixel Perfect, may indeed be a reality.

Holograms are already in use in Japan where the Henn-na Hotel is using them as a virtual staff alongside robotic staff and even the odd human server! While this technology is in use, it has a little while to go before it is fully self-functional. However, with this in mind the idea of using holograms of AI influencers may be the bridge between the virtual metaverse and that of reality is no longer entirely science fiction, but rather the next step in technology development.

Once the metaverse is fully up and running, the next big technology leap is looking like it will be a combination of both the metaverse and reality through a world of interactive holographic AI avatars, and we may be living in a world where Halo’s Cortana is a real thing!

“The future of content marketing may be an artificially intelligent Avatar”

UFOs and UFC

Deakin

Focused Content

Okay, so perhaps it’s a little bit farfetched to imagine Martians handling marketing strategy, but you get the point. User focused content is one of the most future-proofed forms of content around for one simple reason: it’s directly linked to user intent.

All user focused content relies on is users searching for answers online, and there’s no sign of that slowing down. So long as you can answer the questions users are asking, your user focused content will always be relevant - and therefore it’ll always be a great way to increase traffic to your site.

Let’s take a more in depth look at how user focused content works - and why it’s so unlikely to go out of style.

HOW DOES USER FOCUSED CONTENT WORK?

For the uninitiated, user focused content aims to take advantage of the vast number of search queries made every month that have an informational intent. These queries could include:

• How to mow a lawn

• What is a lifetime ISA?

• When should I hire a project manager?

These queries involve long-tail keywords - that means they’re longer and more specific than simple phrases like ‘lawn’, ‘lifetime ISA’ and ‘project manager’. Long-tail keywords usually have a much lower search volume than broader umbrella terms, but don’t let that put you off.

Niche keywords are typically easier to rank for, because there’s less competition for them. They’re also more suited to user intent. Someone who searches for ‘lifetime ISA’ could want to find out what one is, but they could also be looking for a bank with which to set one up, or advice on what type of ISA to choose.

Now, you may be thinking that you want your company to show up for all searches related to your umbrella keyword of choice - and that’s understandable. But the chances are, there are hundreds if not thousands of sites competing to be displayed on the first page of search results, and yet there are only ten organic spots to go around.

Producing user focused content will help you to rank higher for these short term keywords, which is good news for the amount of potential traffic your site could receive. More importantly, though, you’ll be engaging with more users by directly fulfilling their intent.

Not only is this important for reaching more customers, but it could help with conversions, too. A user who has been helped by a how to guide or an informational article you’ve produced may be more likely to buy your product or engage your services - because they already know you’re knowledgeable in your field.

How do you know what content to produce? So, you’ve decided to write user focused content for your website. Great! Now it’s time to figure out the how. Let’s use our earlier example and say your company is in the financial sector. Do you just keep knocking out random content about your products or services and just hope you’ll get results?

Well, you could, but it’s not the best way of doing things. What if there was a way to know exactly what questions users actually want answered? What if you could find out how many users are asking those questions? What if you could plan and write content based on that information?

(You can see where I’m going with this, right? Drumroll, please…) There is! Welcome to the wonderful world of keyword research.

Keyword research, as you might have guessed, is research about your keywords. It involves taking your umbrella keywords or broad topics and looking at which long-tail keywords are relevant to your company. For example, keyword research around ‘lifetime ISA’ will probably bring up the question ‘What is a lifetime ISA?’.

This should give you a wealth of topics to start planning your content strategy around. The key thing is, the results of your keyword research will change over time. For example, people are likely to search more tax queries in the run up to submitting their tax returns than at other times of the year. You can take advantage of seasonal peaks to boost organic site traffic.

HOW TO MAKE SURE YOU NEVER RUN OUT OF CONTENT

Now that you’ve got a plan in place, you might be wondering how sustainable it really is. You’ve only got so many products or services, so how can you continue to create content once you’ve exhausted the keywords related to those topics?

Target low search volumes

You may think you’ve written everything you possible could about a subject, but queries that aren’t searched often can slip through the net. This doesn’t mean they’re not worth answering, though - in fact, the opposite may be true!

Here are some of the reasons a query might have a low search volume:

• You’re looking at the wrong time of year - seasonal topics such as summer holidays or snow-related issues often show low search volumes at the wrong time of year.

• It’s a really specific query - not many people are likely to search for ‘how to turn a walk-in wardrobe into a pantry’ on a monthly basis.

• It might be a new issue - questions about new products or services might not have a high search volume if they haven’t entered the public consciousness yet.

Do any of these look like convincing reasons to abandon queries? No!

• Seasonal queries could inform a wealth of content for the right time of year

• Specific queries target the kind of users who want to know about the topics you’re writing about. ‘How to turn a walk-in wardrobe into a pantry’ could be a great blog post for companies who offer tool hire or home renovation services.

• New issues are content goldmines - if you can be one of the first to produce content about an issue, you’ll stand a better chance of generating traffic from queries about it.

Keep a running ideas list

If you come across out-of-season queries, a great way to make sure you don’t forget them when the time is right is to add them to a running ideas list. You can then consult this when you’re looking for article ideas and see what you’ve already come up with.

This is also useful for those times when you find an idea is much bigger than you realised. Let’s say you intended to write ‘The Ultimate Guide to Lifetime ISAs’ as a 1000 word blog post. Chances are you won’t be able to go into full detail, so you won’t be serving your users as best you can.

A better way to cover that topic is to split it into subtopicssuch as ‘What is a lifetime ISA?’, ‘How to get a lifetime ISA’, ‘What’s the difference between a lifetime ISA and a cash ISA?’ and more. Already, that’s at least three posts instead of just one. You’ll be able to cover the topic more thoroughly and users will consider you more authoritative.

How to repurpose content

The good news is, you can still create your ultimate guide on top of those additional content ideas. You shouldn’t just package up the exact same content and call it new, but you can gather older posts together, add a little more value and make a guide out of it.

This is a great way to cover topics you’ve already covered, but it’s key to make sure you aren’t duplicating content, as Google doesn’t like this. To combat this, try putting your content into new formats, such as videos or infographics. You should also try to extend the content by going into more depth, or expanding on points you only briefly made before.

Why can’t I just repost old content?

If you’ve got old content that doesn’t get traffic anymore, it can be tempting to repost it to try and give it a new life, but Google won’t be pleased with you. At best, the content won’t rank highly, and at worst, you could be penalised.

However, there is one type of content that lends itself to being redone over and over again, and that’s the kind of content

that has a timestamp. Blog posts like ‘Top ten fashion trends of 2022’, ‘how to use Google Chrome’s tab groups in 2022’ and ‘how to lower your utility bills in 2022’ are all examples of user focused content that might need updating for 2023.

Although this kind of content isn’t evergreen, it does still drive organic traffic to your site and fulfils informational search intent. Users are asking these questions and they want the most up to date information available, so producing new content on the subject on a regular basis could help you rank.

If your company’s niche changes quickly, this is a great type of content to use in your strategy. Remember, your content still has to be different - it’s just the content idea that stays the same. Writing a post called ‘what is a lifetime ISA?’ year in and year out isn’t helpful as you probably won’t be able to add any meaningful content to the subject.

As with any content strategy, you’ve got to be smart about how you plan out your user focused content in order to be successful. But the good news is that content that relies on users will be around just as long as users are - so it’s a safe bet for the future of your marketing strategy.

THE FUTURE OF USER FOCUSED CONTENT

If copywriting aliens aren’t likely to be on the cards, then what does the future of user focused content look like?

Well, the encouraging, if slightly boring, answer is that it looks pretty much the same as it is now. The versatility of user focused content relies on the fact that it provides continuous value - answering the questions of the people. The future isn’t likely to change that.

We may end up answering questions like ‘how to make a lunar garden’ and ‘how to use a cement mixer in zero gravity’, but rest assured, UFOs and UFC can coexist. And if you’re worried about adapting your marketing strategy for the future, remember this:

The sun isn’t going down on UFC any time soon.