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By Jaie Genadt, co-founder at Flox
With combined sustainability and budgetary pressures facing retail leaders in 2023, in-person events, conferences and exhibitions are making less and less sense for retail brands. As are tried and tested 2D webinars and conferences, with the challenges they pose for real diversity and inclusion and effective communication at scale.
Yes, there may be a time and a place for in-person events and networking. But for truly collaborative working in the fast-moving global retail industry and to engage customers, employees, partner and supplier ecosystems, digital leaders are desperate for more immersive and collaborative experiences.
Finally, a superior approach has emerged for brands to meaningfully congregate hundreds or thousands of globally dispersed participants for online supplier forums, product launches, sustainability summits and much more. Retail leaders can deliver their B2B or B2C objectives through connecting and increasing productivity within their global teams, and engaging customers through building brand hubs that exist in the metaverse.
The metaverse trend sweeping the retail industry
Significant advances in tech have enabled the creation of a more sophisticated virtual alternative – ‘metaverse virtual events’ – that can allow between several hundred and 100,000 participants to wander the 3D space simultaneously. A dedicated app allows users to create their own avatars to navigate a bespoke digital event space as intelligently and flexibly as they would in person.
These large-scale virtual events are trending rapidly across the globe – According to GVR, the global virtual events market size was valued at USD 114.12 billion in 2021 and is predicted to reach USD 618 billion by 2030. In fact, leading provider, Flox, is seeing customers in FMCG and retail as some of the fastest growing adopters.
There’s no better time to evolve business and industry events to the next level – a metaverse virtual events platform can save approximately 85% of the budget of an in-person event and hundreds if not thousands of metric tonnes of carbon. With leading brands already exploring the metaverse, it’s time for retailers to consider the viable alternative of real, live and immersive experiences.
What are metaverse virtual events?
The most advanced metaverse virtual events platforms offer events managers, organisations and brands a three-dimensional web – or ‘metaverse’- experience to help create the most human virtual and hybrid live events. Flox’ powerful, easy-to-use and immersive platform allows participants to set up their own avatar and access a virtual 3-D event experience. Information can be easily experienced, captured, and shared for boundless collaboration, in limitless languages. Through a personalised avatar, incognito or personal view, which can be 2-D or 3-D, the event is easily accessed at home or work through a mobile device or computer screen.
A retail launch and events gamechanger, the world of metaverse virtual events is a step change away from the basic in-person events and the two-dimensional collaborative tech tools of today. It’s an intelligent, integrated, and intuitive 3-D space for social experiences that create connections in virtual and hybrid events and experiences.
Retailers can utilise a virtual events platform in various ways, including conferences, summits, exhibitions, trade shows, product launches, networking events, training, internal communications and concerts and performances.
Hybrid events are also popular, where a digital twin is built of a corporate HQ, with the content delivered through the Flox platform to a real screen at the retailer’s event. Alternatively, a live feed from an in-person audience can connect remotely to relay content to a real-time or catch-up audience.
Collaboration, cost and CO2 – the benefits for retailers
There are clear advantages for those retailers ready to put metaverse virtual events at the heart of their growth strategies. Being around 15% of the cost of in-person events, this smarter tech is well within easy reach of forward-thinking retailers and the powerful platform can enable brands to advance their events strategies and realise the power of digital communication – all while meeting their growing ESG objectives.
The multinational Molson Coors Beverage Company used Flox to host the first virtual event for its global marketing team. The 300-strong team were unified to share their roadmap, and to showcase innovative ideas, brand values and great work. Breakout sessions and instant messaging allowed the teams to interact with internationally-based colleagues, to collaborate and to capture and share content in real time. Matt Marlow, Digital Operations Manager EMEA & APAC at Molson Coors said: “Flox is a great platform and great team, it’s made our annual marketing event even more engaging.”
With easy customisation such as unique embedded branding, each retailer’s virtual space is bespoke, and they can implement functions that best serve their audiences. For a fully international audience, events can be delivered in multiple languages using integrated translation software, with an almost instantaneous dubbed commentary and subtitled translation.
The AI-driven intuitive platform helps event participants find the right people, create spontaneous break-outs, schedule one-on-ones, and message others instantly. Meanwhile, their safety and privacy is maximised, with security embedded in the application.
In addition to being able to tailor their virtual or hybrid world to suit any event – no matter the size or requirements – there’s vast scope for its use in a retail context. In general, since offering a highly interactive way to engage with internal teams across EMEA and globally, benefits include internal alignment across the business functions on products, services and policies. This can help to galvanise stakeholders around key moments – for instance, the start or end of the year, or launch of a product line or campaign. A two-day sustainability summit for partners, suppliers and customers can educate a global audience on the retailers’ sustainability policies and initiatives – from transport to packaging.
Metaverse virtual events can offer a deep dive on products for internal stakeholders or act as a launchpad for engaging customers. Alternatively, they can be a hub for store associate training, elearning or employee engagement within specific business functions of a retail business. By participating in their avatar form, individuals can build strong connections, which makes for more effective teamwork. And hosting the event virtually means brands can maximise participation, diversity and inclusion.
In addition to making effective use of teams’ time and saving millions on an in-person event, a single event will save hundreds, if not thousands, of tons of carbon. To prove this benefit, Flox has a built-in carbon footprint tracker which allows organisations to understand the impact saving by virtual attendance.
Getting fast ROI from the metaverse
With c-suite, digital, marketing and events leaders’ in retail needing to deliver more from their budgets, this means proving rapid ROI on any new investments. As the Flox platform works with the major CRM platforms, it integrates engagement and behavioural data straight into the CRM system providing measurable ROI for customer experience, sales and HR teams.
In moving to digital experiential events, retailers can take the opportunity to harness disparate teams across online and in-store, effectively build brand culture and empower all stakeholders in the retail ecosystem with the right knowledge for real business success – all while meeting some of their biggest ESG goals.
For further information on Flox contact:
Alistair Bryan – alistair@flox.live
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