Avatars: from niche market to global phenomena
By Chyung Eun-ju and Joel Cho
Chyung Eun-ju
Joel Cho
If you are someone with some sort of digital social presence, you have probably noticed the continuous rise of avatars. Companies such as Snapchat and Apple have been integrating user avatars as tools, mostly for casual entertainment purposes. Lately, however, it seems that virtual avatars are taking on more commercial purposes.
Virtual avatars are not something new. Most of us have, at some point, knowingly or not, created digital avatars of ourselves to a certain extent. We might recall spending hours deciding features for our avatars, choosing their wardrobe, even personality at times, on platforms such as Cyworld, Second Life, Sims, Animal Crossing and even on the social media app Snapchat.
Digital avatars have evolved tremendously since their inception and it seems that they have managed to seep into digital culture. All of this to say that the mutability of our self-representations in the virtual environment is fundamental in creating a digital identity.
Research on avatars has illustrated that an avatar's appearance acts as an extension of its user, and once immersed in the virtual world, users incorporate their digital identity to their realistic notion of self. In other words, this implies that people adjust their behavior in the metaverse (a shared virtual reality space) according to what others would associate their particular avatar with. This phenomenon has been termed the Proteus effect.
Theorists (Sara Kiesler, a Hillman Professor Emerita of computer science at Carnegie Mellon, Katelyn Y.A. McKenna, one of the founders in the field of Internet Psychology, and John A. Bargh, a social psychologist working at Yale University) have suggested that de-individuation occurs in online communities due to anonymity, and de-individuation leads to more reliance on identity cues. In this sense, our avatars have a significant impact on how we act online.
De-individuated users in the virtual world may create a new identity inferred from the expectations and stereotypes of the identity of their avatars. And in turn, our avatars influence our behavior and social interactions in the physical world as well. Recent studies have shown how entangled the virtual and physical world can be. Our identity is shared by the bodies we inhabit, physical or digital.
With the advancement in technology, especially in regards to graphic design and quality, digital representations are now something that have become common and naturally present in most of our lives. Nowadays, a user can immerse themselves into their conceived avatar and interact in hyper-social, multi-entertainment platforms such as Roblox or Zepeto, or just imagine a “Ready Player One” world.
These platforms that explore and dive into the metaverse have been continuously growing in popularity. Roblox, a very expansive metaverse platform, has more than 43.3 million users that log in each day, according to a company report, and spend real currency in-game.
Zepeto, lightly identified as a “Korean equivalent of Roblox,” is operated by South Korea's largest internet company, Naver, with over 200 million users. The avatars resemble their users as they are created by artificial intelligence-based on facial recognition technology from photos.
With the world having suddenly shifted people's behavior with the COVID-19 outbreak, everyone found themselves more digitally present, and the music industry, significantly reliant on physical events, was quick to make use of the metaverse to communicate with their fans. The metaverse was the perfect solution as it broke physical boundaries by enabling users to interact with their favorite artists within the digital world and through fans and artist avatars.
Lil Nas X performed in the first-ever live concert on Roblox to an audience of 36 million users in November 2020. The experience was extremely interactive with an interview session with the singer, merchandise sales, mini-games, and a scavenger hunt. And in September 2020, Blackpink, a popular South Korean girl group held an avatar fan signing event, where around 46 million fans participated.
The world's deeper immersion into the metaverse is blurring the lines between virtual reality and the physical world. This phenomenon alongside the tendency we have to change our behavior based on the conceptions we project onto our avatars has created an interesting environment for marketing strategies.
Virtual characters are more and more being used as a marketing tool by big companies, and an exciting new market is taking form, which has so far demonstrated success, especially among younger consumers who have grown up with this digital reality.
We have already seen virtual avatars being used in the market, like Lil Miquela, a digital character “influencer,” having collaborated with brands such as Samsung, Prada and Calvin Klein. Most recently, SM Entertainment Co.'s K-pop group aespa has been making headlines for diving into the metaverse by creating virtual avatars for each member of the girl group.
Entertainment companies such as Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Bro, JYP Entertainment, SM Entertainment have all invested in the metaverse market.
So far, it seems that avatars have mostly piqued the interest of prominent companies in the music industry and understandably so. Virtual characters of artists allow them greater control, with minimized spatial and time restrictions. Moreover, the public exposure of artists means that people generally associate certain characteristics with them, so generating a virtual character of an artist allows companies to manage their identity according to the public's expectations in a more consistent manner.
With the behavioral changes humanity has experienced in the last year, it seems only logical and natural that the metaverse industry will experience further growth, with companies from various markets considering its potential as a marketing asset.
Chyung Eun-ju (ejchyung@snu.ac.kr) is studying for a master's degree in marketing at Seoul National University. Her research focuses on digital assets and the metaverse. Joel Cho (joelywcho@gmail.com) is a practicing lawyer specializing in IP and digital law.