In this episode, we are discussing how Avatars have already have and continue to be used to increase brand awareness.  We are discussing how you can utilise the tools yourself to create your own brand avatars.

MENTIONED IN THIS WEBSITE
Ralph and Russo – [https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/fashion/fashion-news/a33065557/ralph-russo-couture-aw20/
H&M and Maisie Willimas partnership – https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/h-m-launches-clothes-recycling-island-animal-crossing-featuring-digital-maisie-williams/1712543
Quatar Airways – QVerse – https://www.qatarairways.com/html/redirect/QR/qverse/check-in
Gucci – Zepeto partnership – https://www.gucci.com/uk/en_gb/st/stories/inspirations-and-codes/article/zepeto-x-gucci
Photogenics – https://photogenicsmedia.com/metaverse-division/avatar-new2/
Redy Player Me – https://readyplayer.me/
Cartoonizer – https://www.cartoonize.net/onlinecartoonizer/
Synthesia – https://www.synthesia.io/

PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
Eva Herzigová – https://www.instagram.com/evaherzigova/

We hope you enjoyed the show and that it inspired some ideas. Join us next week to delve further into the Metaverse

If you have any questions, comments and/or want to become part of our community join us on our Facebook group and/or on Discord.

Or visit us here:
Website: www.womenofthemetaverse.co.uk
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wotmworld
Twitter: https://twitter.com/WOTMWorld
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@wotmworld

IMPORTANT NOTICE
This podcast is for entertainment and education purposes only. We do not give any investment or financial advice and we strongly recommend you always DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH.

Enjoy!

Show Transcript

[00:00:00] Cheryl: Welcome to Women of the Metaverse. I am Cheryl Laidlaw. 

[00:00:08] Angela: I am Angela Harkness. We have been and are still on a journey to discover the Metaverse with 3.0 NFTs and anything that we are required to know to join this world. 

[00:00:21] Cheryl: From this podcast, we will help you to unlock how the metaverse is going to impact your brand.

[00:00:27] Cheryl: Your business and even your personal life. Join us as we take the mystery out of this new digital universe. 

[00:00:31] Angela: Welcome to Women of the Metaverse. In this episode, we are talking about avatars and how brands are using them to create a more engaging and personal experience and great customer service. But first of all, Cheryl, explain to our listeners what is an avatar.

[00:00:57] Cheryl: Well, if you don’t know already, an avatar is a [00:01:00] digital representation of an individual in the digital world. It can be a simple icon or a highly customized and realistic figure that interacts with its environment in unique ways. Avatars can come in all shapes and sizes, and you probably already have one in 2d.

[00:01:22] Cheryl: If you have Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat. Or WhatsApp, but with the development of Web three, 3D avatars are fast becoming the new trend In the advertising world, avatars are being used so that they can embody your brand personality, values, and tone, and they can even be customized to align with your brand’s visual identity.

[00:01:50] Cheryl: But why are they using avatars? Who better to tell your business story than a brand avatar? They can [00:02:00] deliver a narrative in an emotional and interesting way and become the face and voice of your business. So if these avatars are so popular, which brands are starting to use them in their marketing?

[00:02:15] Cheryl: Angela. 

[00:02:16] Angela: Okay. Ralph and Russo. I think, I don’t dunno, is a 3D brand avatar who wears Ralph and Russo’s latest creations. Ralph said she is a beautiful black woman whose name in traditional Swahili is synonymous with strength and power. The ultimate modern woman using both old and new elegance and strength and she is stunning.

[00:02:43] Angela: The she is beautiful. Yeah. Beautiful. So, 

[00:02:49] Cheryl: yeah, in fact, she put her in the show note. She’s that 

[00:02:51] Angela: stunning. Yes. Like she looks gorgeous. So they’ve really kind of, I don’t know, just really managed to characterize [00:03:00] it in their design. She, yeah, she’s very, very beautiful. Geez. And then you’ve got h and m. So Maisie Williams, so if you know her from Games of Thrones, turned into a digital avatar for a new sustainability role at h and m.

[00:03:16] Angela: So this, the clothing brand will work with Maisie and her avatar on several projects throughout the year to drive change in fashion in the virtual world and real life. That’s slightly different, isn’t it? Yeah. Where they’ve taken somebody and digitized the image to use in the metaverse, which is 

[00:03:35] Cheryl: really cool.

[00:03:35] Cheryl: Yeah, and I’m sure she’s getting paid a fortune for that, whereas, um, I’m not sure, you know, I’m not sure what the um, Hawaii. Yeah, well if she’s her, 

[00:03:48] Angela: you know, she then anything she’s, she’s very cheap. She’s very stunning, but she amazing. Kinda wants some money. 

[00:03:59] Cheryl: We also have Qatar [00:04:00] Airways. They were one of the first to hop on to the Metaverse bandwagon with its very own virtual reality experience called Q.

[00:04:10] Cheryl: The airline claims to be the world’s. First airline to introduce a metahuman capping crew. Hmm. Well we, we, I’m sure that we did mention, I’m 

[00:04:25] Angela: sure we’ve talked about that before. Yeah, I’m sure we have. We’ll see how 

[00:04:28] Cheryl: that, how that un Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:04:31] Angela: Unravel Sandy. 

[00:04:32] Cheryl: That’s interesting. And then we’ve got Gucci.

[00:04:35] Cheryl: They’ve just announced a partnership with Zeto, the app and social media platform to personalize avatars and create virtual worlds. 

[00:04:46] Angela: And we talked constantly about Gucci. Gucci have just absolutely jumped on this anyway, so they are doing all sorts of creative things. So this is another interesting thing where they’ve partnered with somebody so [00:05:00] interesting to see what they come up with.

[00:05:01] Angela: Yeah, we’ve got, 

[00:05:03] Cheryl: uh, I like this one, the modeling agency. Uh, photogenics announced their launch with an avatar division last year. They are taking the modeling industry to a whole new level, as it is the first brand to come up with this idea. So this concept will help models monetize their careers beyond the physical world.

[00:05:27] Cheryl: So they’re basically turning their models into avatars and then hiring and, and genius. They can charge them out. So when they’re 60 years old, they’ve still got the 35 year old or the 25 year old model that they can therefore use in their digital world. 

[00:05:44] Angela: We talked about this in our episode about influencers moving into the Metaverse web three, and we were talking about Ava Hertza Gover, who has just done this and digitized her image so that it can be used across multiple platforms.

[00:05:59] Angela: I [00:06:00] just think it’s, I mean, it’s just an obvious step, isn’t it? And I think if you’re an influencer or a model, then it’s something you should be looking to do so that you can, you can, I can’t. 

[00:06:11] Cheryl: I can’t wait to claim myself. She can do all the online advertising. She can do all the story. Yeah. You know, crack on love.

[00:06:19] Cheryl: It would be under 

[00:06:20] Angela: going just Sarah, her go. You can have a cup of tea in the garden. She can the work. 

[00:06:27] Cheryl: I’m like, quit your moaning. Quit your moaning. Get out there, advertise. Right. 

[00:06:34] Angela: Earn me some money. 

[00:06:36] Cheryl: Yeah. You know, you can’t just look like me, do nothing about it. Come on, crack on. Anyway. So Angela, where can we get our own avatars from?

[00:06:47] Angela: There are a few online spaces that offer the opportunity to create one for yourself. The one that keeps coming up is called Ready Player Me, and this gives you the ability to travel around several metaverses, [00:07:00] including VR Chat and Selenium Space, and use the same avatar. You can upload a photo of yourself and then dress your avatar as you see fit.

[00:07:11] Angela: I’ve linked this in the show notes so you can go and have a look at it. Yeah, 

[00:07:17] Cheryl: I, I, um, when I did a little research on Ready Player Me, I was wondering where I can use it. What there, there are a few different Metaverses that you can use. Ready Player, me, um, the avatar, and of course you can, um, build just for fun to sort of see basically, Where this is going and how you can 

[00:07:42] Angela: analyze it.

[00:07:42] Angela: You one, one that crosses over, don’t you? Because I think that’s the problem. The problem with the metaverse is there’s, the interoperability is not there yet, so it’s difficult to go from one to like Roblox to the sandbox. Therefore, in all of them you have different [00:08:00] avatars. Mm-hmm. And it would be nice just to have a, you know, like you have with your biopic, just one common avatar.

[00:08:06] Angela: Across the board. So ready player me off, I mean, has started to offer that, but it’s gonna be, it’s gonna be a little bit of time before you can leap across, you know, instead of logging out and then coming in as a new avatar. Yeah. And we all know how I feel about the meta avatars and the lack of nice clothing.

[00:08:29] Angela: It’s not just, that’s Angela’s uh, now, don’t they? Can we ai what AI now can generate? And when you look at the meta meta ones, it just looks like an old cartoon. So we also have cartoon, which turns your photo into a cartoon. Do that meta. I went down a rabbit hole with this one too, as you can test it out for free with no signup, which is such a bonus these days.

[00:08:55] Angela: Mm. Another one that seems to be very popular amongst business owners is [00:09:00] synesthesia. It’s an AI avatar generator and it uses AI algorithms to create digital avatars that can be used in videos, games, on websites, and other applications. See this one a lot now, cynic. Really? I 

[00:09:15] Cheryl: really, I really, um, I really enjoy getting the adverts.

[00:09:18] Cheryl: I said, you may not know this, but I’m not a real person. And that more, you know, it looks so real. Yes. And I, I think at the moment, they’ve only got a few looks. Um, but again, it’s only a matter of time before they’re gonna duplicate 

[00:09:35] Angela: me. Yeah. And also you have to remember when we record this, probably by the time it comes out, there’ll be about another 50 that does the same thing the.

[00:09:45] Angela: The speed at which these are now being generated is incredible. Yeah. So it’s who, which one of these are gonna stand out from the crowd? Because a lot of them you have to pay for, like synesthesia you’ve gotta pay for. So [00:10:00] it’ll be interesting to see who kind of leads in all of these things, won’t it? Yeah.

[00:10:04] Angela: Because we 

[00:10:04] Cheryl: do record these a month ahead 

[00:10:06] Angela: of schedule. Yeah. But you may listen to this in two years time and. That’s very true. What’s that? It doesn’t exist anymore. Or there’s 3000 I can use now. So avatars have 

[00:10:18] Cheryl: become a powerful tool for boosting brand presence and engagement in the digital landscape.

[00:10:23] Cheryl: They offer a unique opportunity to embody a brand’s personality, values, and tone, allowing businesses to create a more compelling narratives and connect with their audience on a deeper level. The rise of Web three and. 3D avatars have revolutionized the advertising world, providing a visual, captivating, and immersive experience for users.

[00:10:47] Cheryl: Creating your own avatar has become more accessible with platforms like Ready Player, me, allowing users to customize their digital representation across various metaverses tools [00:11:00] like Blender and Car. Provide options for 3D animation and cartoon avatars. Why? While Syn Csia offers AI generated avatars for use in video games, uh, videos, websites, and more.

[00:11:17] Cheryl: As we navigate the evolving landscape of the Metaverse avatars will continue to play a vital role in shaping brands’ experiences and connecting with their audiences. Join us next week as we delve deeper into the fascinating world of the Metaverse. See you then. 

[00:11:38] Angela: Bye for now.

[00:11:42] Angela: Thank you for listening to this episode of Women of the Metaverse. 

[00:11:46] Cheryl: You can find all information, links, and people we talked about in the show notes on our website. If 

[00:11:53] Angela: you have enjoyed this podcast, please comment and 

[00:11:56] Cheryl: subscribe. Join us again in the next episode as we [00:12:00] continue this exciting metaverse journey.