Objectives

The metaverse has been a trending topic for some time, but despite all the talk, many brands and businesses are still assessing how to take advantage of the huge opportunities presented by Web3. This is where dentsu NXT Space comes into the picture. A first-of-its-kind collaboration with dentsu, Microsoft, LinkedIn and Headoffice.Space, we combined our expertise to showcase a range of real-world use-cases that have been re-imagined in a virtual setting to drive greater engagement, productivity, and accessibility for businesses. Our goal with dentsu NXT Space is to make a more thoughtful, purposeful, and tangible metaverse with everyday tools and technologies that people know and love, accessible by more people and through any web-enabled device, as well as VR and mobile.

Developing a space in the metaverse required the application of some unique technologies, from co-creation in the metaverse to amplified assistance with AI-powered virtual humans, the full suite of Microsoft 365 products, Microsoft AI-powered Text to speech and forthcoming Microsoft Designer capabilities alongside our proprietary ShopNXT™ technologies, NXT Intelligence™ innovation platform and more.

• Dentsu Metaversity for Microsoft Power Skills – a space for new starter inductions, and employee training, on the full suite of Microsoft 365 products, Text to speech and forthcoming Microsoft Designer capabilities.
• Microsoft Retail Education – a space brands to learn more about Microsoft Dynamics 365 and dentsu’s ShopNXT™ retail innovations. 
• Ecosia Forest - Provides overall education on Ecosia - the search engine that plants trees where they are needed most.
• LinkedIn Lounge - A space where brands can connect through their professional LinkedIn identities to recruit, network, and engage with prospective buyers and customers.

Our campaign goals were two-fold, to raise awareness of dentsu NXT Space and to generate a healthy pipeline of global opportunities for our latest offering.

Strategy and Execution

We took a two-staged approach to launch dentsu NXT Space. The campaign officially commenced in November 2022 to raise awareness of our latest offering and collaboration with Microsoft, giving our target market a sneak peek of what's to come. Followed by an official debut live from the global stage of innovation at CES 2023 Las Vegas in early January this year. 

Our campaign plan utilized an integrated approach, generating awareness and leads through paid, owned, earned, and shared media channels.

We researched the biggest questions and trending topics in Web3 and the metaverse and kickstarted the campaign via a LinkedIn Live Event 'The Future for Brands in the Metaverse' - a panel discussion with trailblazing speakers from dentsu, Microsoft and Headoffice.Space. We promoted this event via organic and paid ads on LinkedIn, email marketing and further amplified with PR coverage in key publications, designed to drive traffic to our landing page and compelled by our Hype Reel. In addition, we launched a video clip that showcased the dentsu and Microsoft Journey, as well a short sneak peek clip to give our target market a taste of the experiences we were building. To maintain momentum after the event, we continued with our paid LinkedIn ads and to build our pipeline.

The second stage of our campaign was organized to coincide with the biggest tech event in the industry, CES 2023, and showcase the latest experiences we've built with Microsoft, LinkedIn and Headoffice.Space. The start of stage two was marked with the promotion of our LinkedIn Live Event 'Designing the Future Today' , week commencing 19th of December. Despite promoting this event during what would traditionally be a "slow" period, we generated an attendance rate that was well above-industry-standard. To amplify the debut, we organized presence at CES Unveiled, VIP networking events, and a series of organic posts highlighting the week at CES (examples of the organic posts: Post 1, Post 2, Post 3, Post 4).

Post-campaign, we have a series of activities and current paid ads running to maintain momentum in the global market leading up to Cannes in June 2023.

Results

With limited time, the campaign launched in a matter of weeks and received global coverage and buzz on an internal and external scale.

Earned performance

• 131+ press mentions in publications. Off the back of CES, the team received global recognition and was featured in PSFK’s, “Best of CES,” and The Most Techworthy Innovations and Highlights From CES alongside coverage in Forbes, Fast Company, Digiday, LLB,  Coindesk, Yahoo Finance! Tomorrow’s World Today, Metaverse Post and more.
• Over 105M impressions*
• +95.8 million readership

Virtual events performance

• Up to 60% attendance rate. 25% higher than industry benchmarks
• Up to 28% engagement rate. 19% higher than industry benchmarks. 

Organic Social Media performance

• Total of over 300,000+ impressions. 12x industry benchmarks  
• Up to 4% engagement rate. Double the industry benchmark. 

Email marketing

• Average open rate of 47.26%. 25.93% higher than industry benchmarks.

Pipeline metrics

• Doubled our enquiry to meeting conversion ratio. 12% higher than industry benchmarks.
• Multi-million-dollar pipeline with the biggest brands around the world.

*As of January 2023

Media