What e-commerce could look like in the metaverse

At the Adobe Summit 2022, Adobe launched a series of innovations, integrations and investments designed to position brands to succeed in the metaverse.

Building upon the capabilities Adobe currently offers for creating immersive 3D experiences, e-commerce platforms and digital experiences, Adobe announced new innovations for designing, creating and delivering engaging and realistic virtual experiences to millions of users. New integrations across Adobe Creative Cloud and Adobe Experience Cloud will bring Adobe’s 3D content creation and personalisation solutions to businesses across a wide spectrum of industries.

Adobe head of marketing, Jeremy Wood, told Mumbrella: “What we envision for the metaverse is this fully-immersive layer that could include things like e-commerce, so someone could go into a shop virtually, go and select items, try them on virtually, and then purchase the items. You can make your avatar, your shape and size to exactly your dimensions.

“You could walk into a store virtually, try something on, it could be projected back to you to see what that item looks like on you in that environment and then purchase it. If you think about the advertising side of the Metaverse, it’s not dissimilar in a sense of what you’d get in a shopping centre, or what you’d get in a poster at a bus stop, but you’d have it in a virtual way. I’m excited because it lends itself to hyper-personalisation, in the way of using the data and how some of these stores will be surfacing with your data. This is just tip of the iceberg stuff right now. The gaming world as I said has been cutting edge. The gaming industry is leading the charge on that right now.”

As for how brands and advertisers can measure success in the metaverse, Wood explained: “A lot of the time businesses are asked to look at their business objectives irrespectively, but you’re respecting those channels being different, from social media and cycles, and management etcetera, versus above-the-line. But, I would argue that if I was a retail business and I was measuring a transaction by way of in-store online, or potentially in the metaverse environment, I would be looking at that bottom line, that would be the starting point for me.”

Meanwhile, during the Summit, Adobe also released a playbook for brands and previewed its upcoming Substance 3D Modeler as well as augmented reality (AR) shopping tools.

In addition, Adobe unveiled collaborations with leading brands – including The Coca-Cola Company, Epic Games, NASCAR, and NVIDIA– on an array of technology advances and experiences that include the key ingredients of metaverse readiness.

These include, Th3D and other immersive content creation. Adobe explained that today’s immersive experiences, including games and interactive commerce and educational experiences, are largely built using Adobe’s industry-leading 3D and immersive content creation tools, Substance 3D and Aero. Smart brands are using 3D design workflows, such as virtual photography with tools like Substance Stager, to make their product design and marketing content production better, faster and more efficient.

This also includes virtual commerce experiences. Adobe said it works with thousands of businesses to power digital storefronts and other e-commerce experiences. This expertise, as well as cross-cloud integrations will empower businesses to create immersive experiences where users shop for both virtual and physical products in the virtual world.

Lastly, this will also include portability of virtual identities and possessions. Adobe said it empowers brands to deliver unified, personalised digital experiences to their customers, no matter where they are or what channel they’re engaging. Adobe is building on its expertise to enable users in the metaverse and other immersive experiences to design their unique online personas and possessions and use these customised assets inside of virtual worlds.

“The metaverse and other immersive experiences will only succeed if they are feature-rich, personalised, engaging and have interactive content,” said Adobe Creative Cloud chief product officer and executive vice president, Scott Belsky. “To lead in the metaverse, brands should start creating 3D and immersive content now – it will not only prepare them for the future, but make their product design and creation of marketing and e-commerce assets better, faster and cheaper.”

The metaverse consists of immersive experiences that enable people to interact in virtual worlds. It will power the next wave of innovation, including a broad range of shared experiences addressing work, gaming, e-commerce, robotics, trainings for autonomous vehicles and climate change research.

As Adobe moves to integrate its creative 3D and immersive tools with Adobe Experience Cloud, its first integrations planned are Adobe Commerce, Adobe Experience Manager, Adobe Analytics and Adobe Target. Previously, Adobe announced tighter integration of 3D content, effects and capabilities across its portfolio of Creative Cloud applications.

“As the web evolves, there will be greater demand than ever for data-driven, immersive experiences that include e-commerce, multi-user functionality and the ability to own and export customised versions of your identity and possessions across virtual worlds,” said Adobe president, Digital Experience Business, Anil Chakravarthy. “Adobe Experience Cloud will be integral to brands’ efforts to build personalised, immersive experiences such as these.”

Customer Momentum

“At Coca-Cola, we’re committed to preserving the craft of creativity and design – in the real world and the digital world too,” said The Coca-Cola Company global vice president of design, Rapha Abreu. “Adobe helps bring digital innovation to our physical products, and we look forward to working together to extend the magic of Coca-Cola to the rapidly expanding virtual world with immersive design experiences.”

“Whether you’re a game developer, architect or automotive designer, today’s consumers expect truly immersive interactive experiences,” said Marc Petit, vice president, Unreal Engine Ecosystem at Epic Games. “Together with Adobe, we’re developing new tools that empower creators to build real-time 3D experiences that push the boundaries of photorealistic immersion.”

“At NASCAR, we’re committed to giving our fans the ultimate experience, whether they’re at the track, watching from home or engaging with us in the virtual world,” said NASCAR Digital Media, managing director, Wyatt Hicks. “We’re enthusiastic about partnering with Adobe to continue delivering immersive fan experiences across all platforms.”

“NVIDIA is working at the cutting-edge to build foundational technologies that allow enterprises, developers and artists to create and connect within virtual worlds. Working with Adobe to evangelise open, common 3D standards like Universal Scene Description will empower our design and engineering teams to bring 3D assets across virtual worlds,” said Richard Kerris, vice president of the Omniverse development platform at NVIDIA.