Clinique had a problem. The brand wanted to “enter the metaverse,” but it didn’t want to do it in a way that was cringey. So, they called a woman n
Clinique had a problem. The brand wanted to “enter the metaverse,” but it didn’t want to do it in a way that was cringey. So, they called a woman named Cathy Hackl: The “Godmother of the Metaverse.”
Her credentials? Hackl, the “Chief Metaverse Officer” of Futures Intelligence Group, has worked in metaverse-related fields for nearly a decade – or basically since the dawn of meta-time.
This post is part of Crypto 2022: Culture Week.
Just ask Steven Spielberg. When filming “Ready Player One,” Spielberg partnered with the virtual reality headset company HTC Vive, where Hackl served as “VR Evangelist.” At Magic Leap, an augmented reality company, she worked with the man who coined the term metaverse, Neal Stephenson. And over a year before the current craze, she wrote articles for Forbes like “The Metaverse Is Coming And It’s A Very Big Deal.”
It was such a big deal that Hackl left a cushy job at Amazon Web Services to “take a big bet on the metaverse.” Now she advises brands – like Clinique – on how to position themselves in this strange new space. (Her work with Clinique fetched a glowing write-up from Vogue business.)
The Godmother shares why the metaverse is larger than perhaps the crypto crowd realizes, why avatars are fast becoming “emotional surrogates of ourselves,” and how in the future, “every company is going to need a metaverse strategy.”
The term “metaverse” can mean 10 different things to 10 different people – even inside the crypto space. When you start working with clients, how do you explain it to them?
Cathy Hackl: I usually start from the past. Web 1 connected information, so you got the internet. And did that change anything for your brand? It probably did. Web 2 connected people and you got social media, the sharing economy. Did that change anything for your brand? Of course it did, right?
Right.
And now we’re in the evolution of Web 2 going into Web 3. And Web 3, it connects people, places, and things – or people, spaces and assets. And those people, spaces and assets can sometimes be in a fully virtual environment, like most people tend to think.
Read more: Play-to-Earn Is Already the Biggest Star in the Metaverse – Jeff Wilser
But it’s also going to be in our real world with some level of augmentation, probably through a wearable. So, Web 3 is kind of enabling the creation of the metaverse, and the metaverse is a convergence of physical and digital. Think of it as the successor of what comes next on the internet. It’s like your digital lifestyle catching up to your physical life.
That’s a pretty expansive view. So, it includes not just blockchain projects, like Decentraland, but also augmented reality from traditional platforms?
Yeah. Even Snapchat, the things that they can do with the camera for augmented reality – that’s a metaverse play. That’s all part of the metaverse. I have a pretty expansive view, and part of that comes from working in VR [virtual reality] hardware, spatial computing and augmented reality hardware. And when people think the metaverse is only virtual reality, or only fully immersive, I think that’s a pretty narrow view. And a pretty dystopic one.
With that wide of a definition, I’m guessing the blockchain metaverse projects are only a small slice of the overall “metaverse pie”?
It is small, but it’s ever increasing. You’ve got SoftBank leading the investment for $93 million in a Series B [for The Sandbox]. Upland just raised $18 million, I believe, with a $300 million valuation. You’ve got a lot of these blockchain projects – like NFT [non-fungible token] gaming metaverses – growing really fast.
How does blockchain fit into your vision for the metaverse?
You cannot enable the open decentralized metaverse that many of us dream of without blockchain, right? Blockchain is the underlying component. NFTs are a bit of a stepping-stone into the metaverse when it comes to ownership of digital assets and digital identity. How do you actually enable that? NFTs are a big part of that equation.
What’s the biggest potential for brands?
One of the big things that I try to explore is, “Is direct-to-avatar the next direct-to-consumer?” Again, it’s stepping-stones. When we text people we use emojis; we don’t even write anymore. We use an emoji to represent a message. Our emojis – and by extension our avatars – are becoming emotional surrogates of ourselves.
In order to represent yourself as an avatar, that’s a big thing. Because it’s a moment of self-expression, it’s a moment of self-exploration. And how do brands play into that? Well, I’m going to have to outfit my avatar. Maybe I want to make a statement and wear Supreme. Fashion and culture go together. How does your avatar show up, right? What does it look like, what does it wear? There are going to be a lot of opportunities for brands. And there will be opportunities for them to engage with the younger generation.
I can see how…
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