Why the Future of Advertising Is in Three Dimensions

Marketers will increasingly need to expand their understanding of the platforms in which their brands live

Inspiration meets innovation at Brandweek, the ultimate marketing experience. Join industry luminaries, rising talent and strategic experts in Phoenix, Arizona this September 23–26 to assess challenges, develop solutions and create new pathways for growth. Register early to save.

This idea that our media is about to become “dimensionalized” is fascinating.

For many years our ads and their touchpoints have been delivered on a flat plane. Whether outdoor, TV or even digital banners, creators only really needed to worry about one “side” of the placement—the side facing the consumer.

But that could be about to change.

If the 2000s were about the digitization of existing traditional media—with images, videos and music uploaded onto the nascent internet for the first time—the 2020s will be about “virtualization,” with objects, people, places and structures volumetrically scanned and uploaded into a dimensionalized internet.

What the 3D Open Web could become

At this point, it seems almost obligatory to drop in the “M” word. Yes, that one. The one on everyone’s lips now. But I am ambivalent about the term “Metaverse” because to me it can sound sci-fi and far-fetched and can intimidate clients by sounding complex and expensive.

Instead, the alternative term “3D Open Web” might work better because it clues us into the future direction of our media interactions. In its simplest form, brands will soon have to think about their assets in “z-space,” a third dimension, with their products and services viewed from all angles, and able to be picked up and played with.

The dimensionalization of media will also afford new creative opportunities by ignoring the real-world rules.

Phil Rowley, head of futures, Omnicom Media Group

Already we are seeing some online retailers like Ford and Tesco incorporating “digital twins” into their e-commerce platforms to provide rotatable views of products from above and below. But these remain on the flat plane of a website. As we progress, they may soon need to be integrated into interactive three-dimensional worlds like Roblox and Fortnite, birthing a whole new set of best practices for products in this space, and indeed the media used to promote them.

This will be a watershed moment indeed, but even though we have witnessed the mind-blowing acceleration of technology in the last few decades, we are still fond of “Skeuomorphism,” the act of using the functionalities of real-world objects as our templates for our digital experiences. For instance, the web still has “pages,” the “save” symbol is still a floppy disk and we still fill our ecommerce “basket.”

Crucially, we may still want to retain the vestiges of our understanding of the real world as a basis for interaction and this gives brands an opportunity to recreate realistic versions of their product’s functional benefits within a 3D Open Web. In short, cars should accelerate with visceral excitement and drinks should pour enticingly, even in digitized environments.“

However, conversely, the dimensionalization of media will also afford new creative opportunities by ignoring the real-world rules. In selective circumstances, a product may benefit from bending physical laws, for instance, an airline flying its aircraft down the streets of a virtual London. Or maybe an entirely new advertising canvas upon structures previously unimagined, for instance, products advertised on the clothing of loitering avatars.

New brand practices will be necessary

It will be important, then, to codify a new set of best practices for dimensionalized brand assets, and I can foresee three types of consideration:

  1. First, there will need to be laws for how and where dimensionalized messages are seen. Even in a world where rules can be bent, adverts must still be both natively in context and as targeted as necessary. Sure, you may be able to get your message on the side of a whale floating across Times Square, but is the whale reaching the right audience at the right time? In new worlds, old media principles will still apply.
  2. Second, there will be new prescriptions for creative teams to render their assets in a dimensionalized world. Here’s an example from personal experience: a short while ago I was working with a major auto manufacturer on an interactive 3D model of its product for inclusion in an ad unit. One of the key challenges with certain volumized objects such as cars is that one “side” of the product looks much the same as the opposing side. Plain doors and handles are not any more exciting from the reverse angle, and thus interaction and engagement is not particularly rewarding. The solution was to consider introducing virtual asymmetry into the experience, using the car’s offside to show a cut-out of its interior, almost as if it had been sliced in two to expose the cabin. It’s tricks and tips like this that will become updated versions of lighting and angle practices we see on product shoots.
  3. Third, there will need to be new metrics. If the straight “click” was on its notice period before now, the dimensionalizing of media may see it forcibly removed from the premises. On this point, not only are agencies working on developing new “attention metrics,” but I am already talking to a few progressive companies in this space—for instance the Deep Display units delivered by AdVRtas—who are offering some really interesting ways to measure attention and interaction, given the plethora of metrics that inevitably fall from “spinning” and “touching” and certain assets.

If you’re a brand, what do you do about all of this?

The answer: experiment. Learn by doing. Find your entry point into media that require 3D assets—whether ecomm digital twins, Augmented Reality models, or virtual product integration into gaming environments. Set aside resources. See what works. Refine. Improve.

The Metaverse may be overstated but reframe it as the 3D Open Web and the direction for your brand communication reveals itself. Start thinking about your advertising in three dimensions.