Graduation Year
2023
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree
D.B.A.
Degree Granting Department
Business Administration
Major Professor
Grandon Gill, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Dirk Libaers, Ph.D.
Keywords
Marketing, Metaverse, NFT, Non-fungible Token, Taxonomy, Virtual World
Abstract
There are many definitions of the Metaverse depending on the context. The Oxford English Dictionary defines the Metaverse as a (hypothetical) virtual reality environment in which users interact with one another's avatars and their surroundings in an immersive way, sometimes posited as a potential extension of or replacement for the Internet, World Wide Web, and social media (Lea & Bradbery, 2020). Corporations have increasingly started to launch brand marketing in the Metaverse to capitalize on its 400 million monthly active users and estimated value of approximately $5 trillion by 2030 (McKinsey, 2022). As an emerging area, research on the Metaverse is limited, especially from a marketing perspective.
This dissertation addresses this research gap by examining the strategies used by brands marketing in the Metaverse. As a first step, a taxonomy of Metaverse marketing strategy was developed based on the 7P marketing mix (Booms & Bittnar, 1980), which was developed from McCarthy's 1964 foundational 4P product marketing model (i.e., product, price, place, and promotion). The taxonomy uses a data set of 100 Metaverse marketing campaigns launched by major consumer brands between 2021 and 2022. Next, findings from the taxonomy were used in a quantitative cluster analysis to identify potential archetypes of Metaverse marketing strategies. The cluster analysis results revealed four archetypes, each interpreted with names and supported by campaign case studies as examples.
This work has the potential to contribute to the academic and practitioner literature significantly. From an academic perspective, this research provides one of the first empirical studies in this emerging area. In addition, this study suggests future research areas to build upon the Metaverse's potential in marketing. For practitioners, this research may provide a strategic roadmap of how to create value for brands using Metaverse marketing strategically. This study concludes with a proposed Metaverse marketing funnel that provides a model of how the four archetypes can be applied to strategic marketing initiatives to meet marketing objectives.
Scholar Commons Citation
Bridges, Paige L., "Brands in the Metaverse: An Examination & Taxonomy of Marketing Strategy" (2023). USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/etd/10709
