By Ranjit Raina
Getting Real about Virtual Experiences
As 2020 comes to an end, we have gained some distance from the initial shock of the pandemic. We are no longer getting battered by a tsunami of disruption, alternatively, we are ultimately starting to see and have an understanding of the second-order effects of Covid-19. It’s not just the economy, healthcare, government, education or industries that are altering, humanity is getting transformed. The pandemic is a lot far more than the portent for a digitally transformed planet, it is the starting of a new age.
Virtual events are just one particular portion of a second-order adjust that is impacting human behaviour and consumption. In a time of forced isolation and social distancing, the virtual planet became the logical and in several situations the only space to safely engage and interact. What began as a reaction to the limitations imposed by the pandemic has quickly evolved into a practice that is continually maintaining pace with quickly altering human behaviour.
The continued relevance of virtual experiences and their evolution will be significantly influenced by this altering customer behaviour. How we select to engage and the nature of experiences has currently noticed a dramatic transformation this previous year. Many of these alterations are transitionary, but several are right here to keep.
Jagdish N. Sheth, professor of Business at the Goizueta Business School at Emory University tends to make some wonderful observations in his paper on Covid-19 and customer behaviour. In his paper, Sheth discusses the impacts of modified habits and new habits in relation to the pandemic.
According to Sheth modified habits are far more most likely to be noticed in the solutions industries in particular in individual solutions such as beauty parlours, physical therapies, and fitness. Live experiences like going to museums, parks, recreation centres, concerts and social events will also see the emergence of modified habits simply because of overall health and security issues.
On the other hand, new habits will be formed in places exactly where there is a distinct adjust in public policy. Air travel for instance has noticed new overall health and security protocols getting enforced, these substantially alter the expertise as we have identified it. Technology is also a key driver of new habits. The pandemic has noticed the mass adoption of technologies across geographies and sectors resulting in new habits. Consumer behaviour in places as diverse as education, entertainment, communication and finance have noticed seismic shifts in the previous nine months.
As customer behaviour and habits adjust, so will the way we engage with them. The virtual expertise finds itself at the crossroads of modified habits and new habits. In the months to come, as normalcy gradually returns we will see a revival of reside experiences, having said that, these will be tempered with caution and will have to be mindful of the modified customer behaviour. This will generate the evolved expertise which will be hybrid, phygital or omnichannel in nature. Experiences will leverage the energy of technologies to be accessible across touchpoints. These hybrid events will let brands and experiential marketers to generate secure reside engagements that comply with overall health and security protocols and at the identical time also have the scale to attain a bigger quantity of individuals. More importantly, hybrid events will also give the customer the option to engage in the genuine planet or the virtual planet. In undertaking so these experiences will generate a far more engaged partnership among brands and buyers.
The pure play virtual expertise will continue to develop in 2021 and beyond. They will no longer be a substitute for reside experiences, alternatively, they will generate incremental possibilities in experiential advertising and marketing. The digital transformation of brands and buyers has opened the floodgates of possibility and we will see virtual experiences unite omnichannel commerce. With 5G just about the corners the digital transformation is far from more than. We will ultimately start to see the adoption of AR, VR and MR at scale and this will have a profound effect on virtual experiences and their potential to influence conversion and drive commerce.
Virtual experiences as we know them are just getting real.