Inside ITV’s Metaverse Strategy
Amid all the hype around AI, one could be forgiven for thinking certain other emerging technologies have fallen by the wayside. Specifically the metaverse appears to have been lost in the shuffle, not helped by its association with Facebook owner Meta. But reports of the metaverse’s death are arguably overstated. The immersive virtual spaces have 600 million monthly active users, according to consultancy firm Metaversed, largely concentrated in “Web2” virtual worlds such as Roblox and Minecraft.
And with uptake set to accelerate to 1.4 billion users by 2030, per Statista’s estimates, broadcasters have been looking for ways to participate. NBCUniversal is planning to bring The Office to Meta’s virtual reality games; Italian telco TIM has broadcast a Serie A match on the VR platform Nemesis; and ITV recently launched a Come Dine With Me experience on Minecraft (naturally titled Come Mine With Me).
In 2019, ITV Studios built Metavision, a creative agency designing brand experiences for metaverse environments. Since then the studio has brought a range of its IP, from Hell’s Kitchen to Thunderbirds, to The Sandbox platform, where players and brands can build their own 3D games and digital assets. And most recently, the UK broadcaster introduced a version of The Voice on Decentraland, a browser-based 3D virtual world.
But the metaverse is still in its infancy, and for ITV these projects are mainly about experimentation. “Our primary goal is to swiftly acquire valuable insights into this emerging landscape,” says Lucie Stoffers, Head of Brand Licensing, Global Partnerships at ITV Studios. These early stages involve collecting data, gauging the way users interact with metaverse content, and understanding the challenges that arise in these virtual worlds. “This approach enables us to prepare ourselves and gain an advantage as the metaverse evolves and attains mainstream recognition,” explains Stoffers.
VideoWeek
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